Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/10/26

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Developer for Neopan 1600/TMax 3200
From: 54moggie at embarqmail.com (Robert Lilley)
Date: Fri Oct 26 07:51:55 2007
References: <5A2FDA19-A911-4125-951F-7279DB23176E@charter.net> <C346FECE.71E02%mark@rabinergroup.com> <200710260713.l9Q7DORq064447@server1.waverley.reid.org>

Here Here!!

For MY purposes, the Leica Users Group is not a gallery but rather a  
group of somewhat like minded photographers (at least in choice of  
camera) who share their problems, solutions, struggles and successes  
in obtaining their own specific goals.   I feel Marc is right - the  
ultimate audience in the end is yourself.   I am not driven to make  
pictures to please a group of people.  I take photographs to explore  
what it is that I am.  Creativity is the totem of the soul.

Rob

On Oct 26, 2007, at 3:09 AM, Marc James Small wrote:

> At 02:17 AM 10/26/2007, Mark Rabiner wrote:
>
>
> >I agree where Slobodan is coming from  I think but to avoid  
> ongoing purely
> >philosophical pointless verbal points when talking about a visual  
> art form
> >why not have a URL at the end of your emails, Marty like most of  
> us do now
> >in this day and age (of walk the walk as well as talk the talk),  
> pointing to
> >website gallery stuff. Uploads. Texas Tea. Swimming pools, movie  
> stars.
> >  Stuff we can look at other than Times new roman to see if the  
> writer knows
> >what a properly balanced image looks like? I'm sure Marty does but  
> I'd just
> >like to see so I have a ground of reference while reading emails.  
> Something
> >to click on when the words get thick.
>
> Dear heavens, Mark!  How deeply I disagree.  Allow me to point out  
> some things.
>
> First, I haven't the foggiest idea of how to set up a website and I  
> really doubt that I'd be interested in doing so if I knew.  I  
> might, but, then, I probably would not.  I spent a half hour n the  
> telephone this evening with my son trying to convince me to use  
> Craig's List to sell a sofa, as he had done.  He probably could  
> tell me how to set up a website but to what end?  That would just  
> cut into the time I am now going to have to spend on Craig's List,  
> and this after I have finally managed to quit paying attention to  
> eBay.  Gimme a break:  I may be retired but I am trying to apply  
> some more "Times New Roman" script to a few books I am back at  
> writing.
>
> Second, I just do not see photography as some sort of gushing  
> display of perfection intended for public consumption.  I take  
> pictures for my own pleasure not for the delectation of complete  
> strangers.  This is my work.  It is not a public art form.  My wife  
> paints but she does not put on shows and she does not do murals on  
> large public buildings.  She paints and she shows her paintings to  
> a select group of friends and family.  And that is it.  She is  
> happy.  I take pictures.  Over the past twenty years, I have taken  
> a lot of pictures.  This is my work, and I really do not care if  
> anyone else feels that I have achieved some sort of mystical  
> "properly balanced image".  My only critics on this work are a very  
> select number and that number is often just me:  some of the shots  
> I have made which my wife or my son dislike are ones I like, and so  
> be it.  I am a majority of one.  I shall never win the Pulitzer  
> Prize but that is my choice.
>
> Third, I have taken very few pictures over the past six or seven  
> years and almost all of those shot within that time are documentary  
> shots of camera details for researchers or of items for sale or the  
> like.  For that matter, I have about ten or fifteen rolls of film  
> stacked up to get processed someday, and I've just not had the urge  
> to take care of this.  At the same time, I have a huge archive of  
> shots taken before this, most during the 1990's.  Many are on  
> slides, and more are in black and white or C-41 prints.  Going  
> through these is an unholy bitch:  it took me until five in the AM  
> the other night to go through the first box I opened, one of twenty  
> boxes or so of chromes.  (Almost all are happy snaps of family  
> affairs -- my son must have grown up thinking that I had a camera  
> lens instead of eyes.)  It took me a LONG time and I didn't find a  
> shot there that I see as having anything save transient value to  
> those involved -- I have a shot of Ron Salmons working a Roanoke  
> camera show, and a picture of Pati Timmermann swimming at Cave  
> Mountain Lake and the like, but why would you folks give a hoot?  I  
> have box after box beyond this to investigate but almost all will  
> be the same.  How many of you really want to see my son bobbing  
> about with his mask and fins on at age 12?  He is 25 now possibly  
> would want the shot destroyed.  It has no artistic value.
>
> I do a very small number of shots beyond this but almost all are of  
> camera gear for researchers -- as I have suggested before, those  
> who are REALLY interested in reviewing those parts of my  
> photographic work which I find most satisfactory should buy my  
> books, as I took most of the pictures in THE ZEISS COMPENDIUM and  
> all but a very few in A 39mm DIVERSITY.  Or come and visit me:  if  
> I like you, I may dig out some framed shots of which I am  
> especially happy.  Mark, I know you and like you, and so, when you  
> come, I certainly will share a few shots with you.  Hell, you can  
> see them all, if you want to spend five or six days prowling  
> through boxes of slides or unprinted negatives.  Just do not expect  
> me to go to the effort of scanning this archive of shots  
> meaningless to those outside my circle and then sharing them with  
> those to whom they must just be so much boring tripe..
>
> Fourth, it has been said that only close friends really know how to  
> eat their own dead.  A lot of you do this and in spades.  Someone  
> posts a shot to some site.  One of two things happens.  Either we  
> get 49 gushy, "great shot, George" responses or we get 174 messages  
> tearing the picture down without providing a lot of helpful  
> commentary.  The helpful level of either set of responses is  
> generally pretty low.
>
> Fifth, I am one of those you deride for talking through "Times New  
> Roman" instead of by showing you my pictures.  Shucks, would you be  
> happier if I used some other font?  I have hundreds from which to  
> choose, but I just happen to like Times New Roman.  In the end, I  
> am a word person interested in photography and its processes and  
> history and quirks.  That fits me and those like me into this List,  
> whether or not we choose to share our pictures to the rest of the  
> world.  And, yes, Times New Roman is the font with which I am  
> writing my future books ... and, if I get around to finishing my  
> book on the history of the Leica M, I will probably take a lot of  
> the pictures myself and will thus share this small part of my photo  
> heritage with a broader world, those few who would buy the book.
>
> Marc
>
>
> msmall@aya.yale.edu
> Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information



In reply to: Message from s.dimitrov at charter.net (slobodan dimitrov) ([Leica] Developer for Neopan 1600/TMax 3200)
Message from mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner) ([Leica] Developer for Neopan 1600/TMax 3200)
Message from marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small) ([Leica] Developer for Neopan 1600/TMax 3200)