Bob Shell

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-va--photographerconvi0831aug31,0,1478911.story

Follow up:

 

http://www.wdbj7.com/global/story.asp?s=7013808

 

moral of the story: don't ever date junkies and don't be stupid even you're in the middle of a midlife crisis.

<i>De mortuis nil nisi bonum.</i>

This is awful. I have Bob's C/Y-EOS adapter and exchanged some e-mails with him on Contax-SLR mailing list and I really have problem believing this.

 

Borek

Is this, perchance, the same Bob Shell who wrote The Canon Compendium?

One and the same Ben. Bob was a pretty well known and respected writer about photographic gear until a few years ago when this whole mess began when he got involved with that Marion and her pre-existing drug problem.

 

Bob adopted Marion as his "muse" -much to the detriment of his marriage, which was apaprently already flailing. My belief is that Shell was having a very hard time and was grasping for something to hold on to. Unfortunately that "muse" had far bigger existing problems which now have ended up destroying both of them. Maybe Bob thought he could save her and in her salvation he'd find his? I'm sure he loved her.

<i>. . .well-known and respected . . .</i>

<p>

LOL

He's actually a member of photo.net - http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=15831

 

I don't know the guy, but I remember from the days when I read Shutterbug noticing that many of his articles were illustrated with somewhat "cheesy" glamor shots of young models.

 

I've followed the case for a few years now as it surfaced off on on in the news. From what I read it's clear that he was involved in the death, the only question was who was responsible for what happened. I guess the jury made that decision.

 

Looks like he made some really, really, really bad decisions. Really bad.

 

There's more on the case here - http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/xp-67980

To paraphrase an old Trotsky trope: "Every man has a right to be stupid on occasion, but Comrade Shell abuses the privilege." Didn't Bob also have something to do with "authenticating" the Roswell "alien autopsy," too?

Yes. "...As for what is shown on the film: I believe the film shows the dissection of non-human humanoid bodies of unknown origin..."

 

See http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/aafilm/shell.html

 

Of course believing in alien autopsies doesn't make you guilty of anything other than questionable judgement.

Bob Shell came to Shutterbug magazine after it matured and no longer was a yellow newspaper rag. He sort of replaced Shutterbugs columnist Ed Romney; the repair guy. I think there was abit of a spat between them. Long ago in the early 1970's Shutterbug was cranked out by Glen and Patty Patch out of Titusville Florida; and was yellow and just a few pages of newsprint; about as thick as a highschool newspaper in Goobersville. Bob was active in e old yahoo groups Russian camera group; and helped it move to http://www.beststuff.com/ after way too many adverts on yahoo groups. http://www.beststuff.com/forum/index.php?3 At one time? the attorney Marc James Small was Bob's attorney. Marc is very deep into the history of Carl Zeiss; and Leica thread mount lenses' and has written a few books on this area.

"He sort of replaced Shutterbugs columnist Ed Romney"

 

Romney is (was? an expert on fixing old cameras. I have a copy of one of his typewriter-compiled repair manuals for the Canon FD system and it's pretty useful.

 

He had a reputation, however, for personal and political crankiness, which often seeped into his posts on Usenet's rec.photo forums. His first thing his otherwise-obscure website tells you is, " THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR PHOTO WEBSITES ON THE NET!"

Bob was a regular poster to the Cameraquest Voigtlander forum until about two weeks ago. I can't imagine how he was able to compartmentalize his life to continue daily rangefinder discussions while that trial was ongoing and looking ever worse for him.

According to Alexa, Ed Romney's website is, in fact, the 9,234,823rd most popular site on the web based on traffic.

 

Bob Shell's site currently runs around 2,100,000th.

 

Photo net is currently 2,283rd

"Bob was a regular poster to the Cameraquest Voigtlander forum until about two weeks ago. I can't imagine how he was able to compartmentalize his life to continue daily rangefinder discussions while that trial was ongoing and looking ever worse for him."

 

By all accounts - and judging by his actions in court - it looks like he had such an inflated sense of entitlement that he never believed he would be convicted - despite the overwhelming nature of the evidence

 

What's sad is how many people in the photo community seem willing to try and excuse excuse him and what he did "it was a lapse of judgement" etc etc is to be seen all over the photo lists.

 

No it wasn't a lapse in judgement. What he did led to the death of a young woman. It was an outworking of his essential underlying character, as became clear through the nature of his own testimony as well as the other evidence. He was attempting to engage young models for BDSM shoots almost up to the day of his trial. In all likelihood he is a sociopath. This wasn't a lapse in judgement by any means at all.

"Didn't Bob also have something to do with "authenticating" the Roswell "alien autopsy," too?"

 

I think a reading of what he actually wrote shows that he didn't. Indeed, he complains that the lack of access afforded to him of original photographic materials and the cameraman hampered his ability to determine any firmer conclusions. As to saying he "authenticated alien autopsies", he specifically rules out that autopsy took place at all, and he remarks that the most he can say is that non-human humanoid bodies were being dissected, adding further that the most he could say about the origin of the cadavers was that it was unknown, that other purely terrestrial possibilities needed to be considered first. With no co-operation forth-coming, he refused to investigate any further.

 

It's rather muddled thinking to translate this into Bob Shell "authenticating alien autopsies".