Duuuuuuuude! That's totally awsome. I got one of my earlier jobs filling in for a guy that got hurt falling off a ladder he hadn't opened but leaned up against a wall. The boss told me what happened and said they might fight the union because the guy had been trained on ladder safety. So I get the unsafe union reference fully! Luckily you didn't fall and bust that expensive camera lens let alone hurt yourself!
I can’t believe you lunatics actually bought this shit. Are all of you this cavalier with your money? Let me spell it out one more time: I am not a photographer. Never have been. I’m a camera collector—a glorified magpie with no clue how to properly use the shiny things I hoard. That said, I’ve got to hand it to you—thank you. Sincerely. Your faith (or folly) is appreciated more than you know. I actually mailed you something a little extra with your last order. Check the black envelope.
That's ok every once in a while even a blind squirrel finds a nut! Even a rank amatuer can hit the casino for a score! By the by, then what the heck are you even doing with a $12k lens...somebody had the wherewithall to lend it to you!
Yep, I saw that and HOPED it was a bonus and NOT somebody else's order, hahahaha. Getting a frame and it's going on the wall with my Weesner and Coop prints. AND - regardless of your feelings on your skillset, that overhead photo is BOSS! Merry Monday.
It’s a long, twisted tale, but nearly a decade crawled by before they bothered to send me anything else to review. In fact, the only other shipment I've gotten from them arrived a few weeks ago. They shipped me some wild black-and-white-only digital camera. Gorgeous piece of machinery. I sent it back last week. Anyway, here’s what the setup looked like back when it was bolted to my M9. That lens paired with that body? A street value hovering around $25k. Completely insane. The kind of rig that makes you question your life choices while also feeling like a god. Even crazier, earlier generations of that lens now sell for over $100k.
One hundred thousand dollars. I shit you not. Here's a 1.2 for 80k: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1352935669..._Chr1Hz-mK_SWNoZKUiSY4c1tvlS1Y0AaAvZCEALw_wcB
Thanks, man. This is the biggest print I’ve ever tackled, and let me tell you, it’s been a bloodbath. I just wrapped number 3 of 5 and have already burned through 8 sheets of 17x22 photo paper. That should give you a grim idea of my success rate. I knocked out the first print a couple of weeks ago and have been chewing on the idea of doing a run ever since. By the time I started, I had just enough misplaced confidence to think I could pull it off. But so far so good... They are all a little different due to hand done dodging and burning. I can’t imagine I’ll be doing prints this size regularly—too much stress and too many casualties. But I do like giving away the smaller prints and hope to do that fairly regularly. Feels less like war and more like arts and crafts or some like bullshit... I've also been toying a little with color.
It reminds me of the image I saw the other day of a massive iceburg with a little peak breaking the surface of the water. What they see vs everything it took to get there. Well worth the battle man. Keep going.
Damn missed it! Well if you’re not a photographer you should be! Man you have some sick photos. Don’t stop now. Dan PS at $100K for a camera your going to have get more than $50 a print lol
I was expecting you to run off 500 prints or so, - probably would have found a home for them all. Nice art/photo !
I spent so much time in my darkroom set up in our basement as a teen that my dad used to joke I was growing mushrooms. I've had dreams of setting one up in my garage but the space is still limited and I play around with fixing other people's guitars too much so I wouldn't really have the time. It's fun and frustrating at the same time. I hear there's a local college that has a darkroom they allow people to use. Think I'll look into that. Nice work, boss. Keep at it. Andy
Leica has a hell of a history when it comes to war. I won’t drag you through the weeds, but Ernst Leitz founded the company in 1869 and somehow managed to live through enough conflicts to understand the ugliness of it all. By WWII, the man had seen enough—he was so disgusted with those fascist bastards that he started quietly hiring Jews and smuggling them out of Germany to safer ground. How he got away with it, I have no idea. But he did, and that alone earns him a place in the pantheon of righteous rebellion. Pre-war Leicas and Hasselblads were tools of war, used by every side. My enlarger, for example? It came straight off a WWII-era German airfield—if those lenses could talk, they’d scream. By Vietnam, Nikons were the battle camera of choice, rugged and reliable, but a handful of field photographers refused to let go of Leica glass. There are a few of those battle-scarred cameras still out there, and some are worth millions. Here’s one of them: You know how some people collect guns and obsess over the details? I’ve got a full arsenal myself, but I don’t give a damn about any of them. Cameras, though—cameras are a different beast entirely. They’re precision-engineered works of art, built with tighter tolerances, more exotic materials, and craftsmanship that leaves most weapons looking like crude bludgeons. And here’s the kicker: a camera can do more good and inflict far more damage to the establishment than any gun ever could. A bullet ends a story—a camera exposes the whole rotten thing.
About nine months ago, I found myself in Dallas, TX crammed into a Schlotzsky’s booth of all places, surrounded by the CEO of Porsche, a designer from Leica, and the lead engineer of Sinn—my favorite German watchmaker. It was a heavyweight bout of intellect and precision, and I was so profoundly outgunned that my brain short-circuited on the spot. Desperation set in. Instead of shutting up and playing the quiet fool, I blurted out a wildly inappropriate WWII joke about Germans, the kind of miscalculated swing that makes the air go cold. The silence was biblical. I had no choice but to excuse myself before they could do it for me. Since then, I’ve spent a good chunk of my free time apologizing to anyone within earshot, hoping to atone for my crimes against conversational decency. Some battles you just aren’t equipped to win... and that was one of them. But when the smoke finally cleared and the dust settled on my spectacular failure, I somehow ended up with a Rivian out of the whole twisted affair. Life is a goddamned carnival, man—unpredictable, absurd, and occasionally generous in the weirdest ways.
To all that are reading this, do a quick web search on George Daniels, the man who wrote the book "watchmaking" and be amazed at the incredible fully hand made mechanical watch that he made, known as the "space traveler's watch" George was also a dedicated "Gear head" and racer ! His story and his legacy is really a good read! There are some fascinating videos of him on YouTube as well, you wont be disappointed! Thanks from Dennis.
The Jalopy Journal
