[Leica] Born At Risk...

[daniel.ridings at muspro.uio.no (Daniel Ridings)]

BD wrote:

> ---) I looked at them and thought, 'I'm NOT Gene Richards; I don't want
> to spend a year living with crack addicts; THIS is what I do - and it
> has real value.

I had a similar experience in the mid seventies. I was a struggling
journalist, left the states to go to some of the hot-spots ... Israel,
Africa.

In London I landed a contract to go to what was then Rhodesia. It was a
little hot there at the time.

I thought: "Hey, my pictures are ok, but what's the catch? I go into a
(South African) news service, show my stuff and get signed up to go to
Rhodesia for them. They don't know me!"

As it turned out, I decided that I didn't want to go under the auspices of
the losing side (they were getting shot too much) and realized that I
wasn't going to be the next XXX war correspondent. That realization was an
eye-opener.

So I chickened out for classical languages, moved on to computational
linguistics and have been working in today's Zimbabwe since 1992
(peacefully).

So I just point my Leicas around me and I have a boring life. Boring
pictures might be interesting some day, who knows.

Daniel