[Leica] Time to delurk…

[josmeds at gmail.com (Jørn Smedsgaard)]

Hello Luggers,

After years of lurking around LUG, the very persistent appeals to  
participate in the LUG yearbook have given me the last push to submit  
two pictures to the LUG yearbook, but also show a few more in the LUG  
gallery (including alternatives for the ones in the yearbook): 
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/josmeds/ 
  (don?t be to hard on me).

I have always felt that showing pictures was one of the most important  
parts of LUG. I have never managed to get scans from my tri-x or  
slides in a quality that I wanted to show the world (LUG that is) and  
nor felt that I had the knowledge to share therefore I haven?t felt  
that I could contribute to LUG thus I have just lurked around. As of  
mid-2007 I have been shooting digital with a M8 and am slowly learning  
the art of color management (and gray-scale) and printing mostly using  
Lightroom.  And digital pictures are just so obvious to show and share  
on the net, e.g. in the brilliant LUG gallery (thank you Brian!)  
therefore I feel it is time for me to delurk and participate.

Anyway, I have been hanging around LUG more or less since the  
mid-90ties after I got an M6 in 1993 (which I still have). I have  
always been impressed by the collective knowledge and wisdom on LUG  
and have over the years I learned a lot about things I never knew that  
I needed to know e.g.: tilly hat, cars, vintage watches, stereos,  
which scotch to drink with Leicas, world economy, soaking camera in  
mud and rivers, using underwear to clean lenses, filters but also more  
directly useful stuff about photography, Leicas and darkroom  
techniques. And I have followed the heated debates, the humorous  
discussions, and watched people come and go giving the LUG crowd the  
sense of good close friends.

And about me ? first of all I don?t do photography for a living (I do  
mass spectrometry and is head of Food Chemistry at the National Food  
Institute, which is a part of the Technical University of Denmark).  
For me photography is a hobby, a joy and good fun but also a way to  
stop time and to reflect a bit over a world that is moving at an ever- 
increasing speed. I am about halfway through life (49) and two-third  
through my working life - probably at the peak of my career. Work is  
consuming a significant part of my time leaving far too little time  
for photography and time is often more a limitation than money. But  
2008 gave time for two trips: one to Cambodia and Vietnam and one to  
southern Ethiopia, places that are very photogenic although  
photography in Ethiopia is a bit difficult. I have included a few  
images from these trips in the LUG gallery. My two Leica M8s are  
really good fun to use and they have performed flawlessly so far both  
in the heath and humidity of the tropics, in the dust and bumps on the  
extremely bad roads in Ethiopia to the cold wet winters in Denmark. I  
have to admit that most problems encountered can be assigned to a  
?fault 40? ? user error.

I live in Denmark, about 20 km north of Copenhagen, in a country where  
sunrise currently is at around 8:40 and sunset around 15:40 with a  
very low sun (not today as it is foggy) leaving about 7 hours of dusk  
for photography.

Finally, I only read the LUG-digest mails as time don't allow to read  
LUG more 2-3 times a week and I just find it easier to scan the digest.

Seasons Greetings and Happy New Year to everyone

Cheers J?rn

J?rn Smedsgaard, Birker?d, Denmark