Mr. Lucky Foot

Greetings,

One of my secret names is Mr. Lucky Foot. What does that mean you may ask, well let me tell you in simple, plain, clear and concise English, the language of barbarians.

It means wherever I go and pause to meet people; like shopkeepers, merchants in Venice, rest-a-rant owners and various non-descript sad, lonely, neurotic and well adjusted humans struggling to find their personal way inside the labyrinth, when I show up, because 90% of life is Showing Up, their day, life and fortune changes. For the better. It happened in the Middle KIngdom and it's happening in Asia Minor.

Take yesterday for example. I wandered through a gleaming atrium filled with your standard array of badly dressed silver bald dressed dummies fronted by glass, screaming ineffective indifferent bored mistresses out on good behavior and pram wheeled infants.

I happened into a shop hidden well behind the "upscale" zones where, to my delight, I discovered five varieties of carved chess sets; Roman, Ottoman, Egyptian, English football motif, and the Middle Ages. All the sets were realistic and well done. The game of kings. The owner also had sizable sculptures of Black jazz musicians; sax, trumpet, clarinet, keyboard, drums, singers and electric guitar. He also had a good selection of Swiss Army knives. Sharp and to the point.

Anyway, so, at first it's just the two of us, talking and drinking tea. Then a couple of university girls arrived, bought Zippo lighters for gifts and left. They were followed by boys looking for lighters. Then a well dressed man, maybe 60, in a worn beige leather jacket came in with a school boy, wanting a lighter and pen. Simple tools. Another man followed them standing nearby. He looked Russian or Tartar; thick neck, alert eyes, short hair, and stocky in a light brown suit with expensive wing tips. He clasped his meaty hands together watching the man negotiate with the owner. He was the bodyguard and he never moved.

We made brief eye contact. He swiveled his gaze back to the man and boy. There was a problem with the credit card transaction. The man reached into his right leather pocket, pulled out a cell phone and called his bank. He spoke a few words and disconnected. The owner punched in numbers and the sale went through.

Satisfied, the man took his purchase and we spoke - How do you like it here? What is your job? Where are you from? His gray eyes were meticulous and direct. We shook hands then he and the boy left. The bodyguard slid out the door close behind.

"Who do you think he was?" I asked the owner as we resumed drinking tea.
"Maybe the boss of a big organization, maybe a bureaucrat. Well connected. I never saw him before."

More people entered his shop.
"Goodbye," I said.
"You brought me good luck today," he said. "You have a lucky foot. Thanks."
"Perhaps. You're welcome."

Peace.

Leica

Greetings,

Here is an excerpt and link to a Leica article in The New Yorker. Another amazing optical invention. Happy reading.

"...Cartier-Bresson could have picked up a Box Brownie and done more with a roll of film—summoning his usual miracles of poise and surprise—than the rest of us would manage with a lifetime of Leicas. Yet the man himself was quite clear on the matter:

"I have never abandoned the Leica, anything different that I have tried has always brought me back to it. I am not saying this is the case for others. But as far as I am concerned it is the camera. It literally constitutes the optical extension of my eye."

"Asked how he thought of the Leica, Cartier-Bresson said that it felt like “a big warm kiss, like a shot from a revolver, and like the psychoanalyst’s couch.” At this point, five thousand dollars begins to look like a bargain...

"When I spoke to his widow, Martine Franck—the president of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, in Paris, and herself a distinguished photographer—she said that her husband in action with his Leica “was like a dancer.” This feline unobtrusiveness led him all over the world and made him seem at home wherever he paused; one trip to Asia lasted three years, ending in 1950, and produced eight hundred and fifty rolls of film.

"His breakthrough collection, published two years later, was called “The Decisive Moment,” and he sought endless analogies for the sensation that was engendered by the press of a shutter. The most common of these was hunting: “The photographer must lie in wait, watching out for his prey, and have a presentiment of what is about to happen.”

"Here, if anywhere, is the Leica motto: watch and wait. If you were a predator, the moment—not just for Cartier-Bresson, but for all photographers—became that much more decisive in 1954. “Clairvoyance” means “clear sight,” and when Leica launched the M3 that year, the clarity was a coup de foudre; even now, when you look through a used M3, the world before you is brighter and crisper than seems feasible. You half expect to feel the crunch of autumn leaves beneath your feet.

"A Leica viewfinder resembles no other, because of the frame lines: thin white strips, parallel to each side of the frame, which show you the borders of the photograph that you are set to take—not merely the lie of the land within the shot, but also what is happening, or about to happen, just outside. This is a matter of millimetres, but to Leica fans it is sacred, because it allows them to plan and imagine a photograph as an act of storytelling—an instant grabbed at will from a continuum. If you want a slice of life, why not see the loaf?"

Peace.

Candid Camera

I Am A Camera

Greetings,

"I will tell you the secret," said the owner of a silver shop in Istanbul.

"Be honest. If you rip someone off, if you cheat them in the slightest, you will lose them and then you will lose others."

"Thank you," said the stranger. "You have taught me a valuable lesson."

Later in the day. Made images with a new workhorse, a Nikon D200 dream machine optical tool. It's been ten plus years since I enjoyed the pleasure of using Nikon in the pre-digital era. It's a great feeling to be using them again and this thing, while heavy and bulky, has the technological requirements I need. It gets the job done.

Visual experiments. "Shoot through things."

Breathe and squeeze.

Smile, laugh and sing.

Move slowly.

The excellent Museum of Archeology. A vast historical perspective at the crossroads of civilizations; Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Persian; sites, excavations, stories of conquest and development.

Cuneiform "writing" symbols from Sumerian culture.

Greek and Roman statues and sculptures. How the Greeks idealized the human form and the Romans focused on realism. Apollo, Aphrodite, Pan, Marcus Aurelius, Sappho the poet.