[Leica] eighteen years a Leica person

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

Eighteen years ago today a long time dream came true for me and I became a
Leica shooter as I swung my first M6 though some financial accident that I
forgot about.  I was temporary financially unembarrassed. I'd gotten a new
50mm Summicron with it and still have both.
I used to swim laps every morning and with every stroke on the upswing when
my face came out of the water I  pre visualized a Leica M6.  Every morning
for months I'm sure. I was obsessed. Me shooting with one.  It sitting in my
camera bag. It seemed like an impossible dream. That was 1993.
It was not until 1998 when I joined the LHSA Leica Historical Society of
America with the simple act of sending in the subscription stub to the
Viewfinder Magazine. At my first meeting that year in Denver I met Tom A.
smoking a pipe outside of a meeting hall and I said "what's going on in
there?" and he said "its a LUG meeting" and I said "what's a LUG meeting?"
and within a year I was a registered LugNut posting hourly odd ramblings to
the list ...  As the tech guy when you call Hasselblad called us when I
called in there one day around then.
If you told me then that my Leica would  be festering in my camera chest for
five years while I played with some other new technology I'd have called you
a damn liar to your face! But the world moves in mysterious ways.
So as it happened ten years after becoming a Leica M6 person I got my first
digital SLR a D100 for $1699.95 2 July 2003 and it was all downhill from
there. I do think its the most exciting time to be a photographer since
Daguerre  got together with Ni?pce to see if they could improve Ni?pce's
process resulting in  Ni?pce  dropping dead and Daguerre coming out with the
Daguerreotype in 1839; proving the importance of rubber gloves in the
darkroom  and don't drink from an unlabeled beaker.
And that's the history of photography as it relates to me.
- I'm off to go make a Rabuerreotype.


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Mark William Rabiner