James Lehrer wrote:
Hi Anthony. My first experience with Leica was with my Dad's IIIg. He used it to take hundreds of Kodachromes in Europe, then just set it in a drawer. I think he preferred the Polaroid, which was new and exiting at the time. So I "adopted" the IIIg. I had absolutely no instruction in photography and besides, the camera had a pinhole in the shutter curtain which had me stumped for a while. I never got much use out of it, and it ended up with someone else in the family.
I really started to learn about photography in my first summer job during high school: my Dad - who was in the fashion business - got me a job as a gopher for a fashion photographer here in LA. I got a Pentax SLR which I carried everywhere and started looking at books by Avedon, Skrebneski, Adams, Frank, and Cartier-Bresson. I got to know my way around a B&W darkroom, and the following summer got a job as a clerk at Beverly Hills Camera. I added a Hasselblad 500C with an 80mm Planar lens to my gear, and began making extra money doing headshots for aspiring actors. I took some photography courses, started working with a Linhof 4x5 view camera, submitted a portfolio to Art Center College, and in 1972 was accepted there.
Then my Dad put a "course correction" into effect and I ended up in Law School.
While working as a lawyer, I sold the Hasselblad and purchased a used M4-P, and carried it in my trial case. I did a lot of candid and reportage shooting, and had a pretty nice B&W portfolio at the time.
Over three decades later, I retired from law practice and am studying and beginning to work as a portrait painter. I've returned to photography first with a Canon 5D MkII, which I later sold in favor of a Leica M-E with a Summicron-M 35mm ASPH. I've added an M9 and a Summicron-M 50mm, and now all is well in my little corner of the world.
You sound like the George V Higgins of the Leica James.[emoji4]