**** Please Keep to Our Topic ****

A good number of threads are being deleted lately for various

reasons which means that it's time for another friendly reminder to

stay on the subject of Leica Photography, hold the politics and

trash talk, and be nice to each other.

 

so here goes...

 

1) Please discuss Leica Photography.

 

2) Please avoid posting personal opinions about politics OR religion.

 

3) This is not an eight-grade locker-room, so please don't talk the

trash. That means don't be vulgar. Don't use terms here that you

wouldn't use in front of your mother. You know what I mean, and I

don't want you to quibble with me on this point. Leica is a class

act, and I want this forum to follow suit. KEEP IT CLASSY.

 

4) Please be polite. You know what I mean on this point.

 

5) I am here, and I'm watching things closely. So is Josh, and he's

a lot more strict than I am!

 

Now.... discuss. :-)

I'm with you on this one, Tony! I usually take folks trashing me in jocular spirits but it can be tiring!

I still find it suprising that you have not removed this thread yet.... <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00A6JE">click here</a> ...and the comment where the poster wishes a fatal disease upon other contributors is left intact and the poster is left unbanned despite voicing his wish that some people here should suffer from the said fatal disease!!

That toxic thread has led to others involving 'photo shootouts' (fun) and they have led to a thread discussing a religious happening in LA (as a possible photo shoot venue) which has turned nasty as well. (Not fun)

Anyone who trashes Al (well, Al especially, but anyone else too) should be

either flogged for their troubles or simply laughed out of the forum. We should

count ourelves lucky to have such fine characters and knowledgable

contributors- those who feel the need to resort to personal thrashing in a

forum such as this must really be insecure. Anyway, thanks for the reminder

Tony- we are supposed to grown-ups, after all.

The rules are the rules!

 

Long live the rules!

Good idea. And don't use this Leica forum to talk about Canon, Voiglander,Bessa etc. If I wanna know about those I will look in the appropiate forums.

yea, leicas=class, cmon people...get with it!

I really hope that thread gets deleted too- it would be better for everyone. I obviously do not agree the comments, as interpreted, but it does take more than one person to turn a thread into a bun fight- more than one to be less polite than desirable.<p>

 

Sincere apologies if I am not mean to refer to another thread here.

BTW, I agree. Why would anyone trash Al? He's one of the most helpful people here- Often via email.

<i>I usually take folks trashing me in jocular spirits but it can be tiring!</i><p>

Al, not that you're not a great asset to the forum, but really, you're beginning to sound like Jay. As in: everything is about you. <p>

Tony, you're stepping in stride a little with the current Republican administration which is in fact in favor of more government control, not less. Sure, this is a photo forum, and things do go over the line a bit at times, but when topic is confined specifically to "Leica photography" it just dries up and dies. How about if we try to strike a happy medium?

Good idea. And don't use this Leica forum to talk about Canon, Voiglander,Bessa etc. If I wanna know about those I will look in the appropiate forums.

 

and just what forum would that be?

 

i'd love a canon screwmount forum here.

 

joe

It's shocking how far people will go in an argument on this site. Somebody joked on Luis' thread that it was Leica's fault--and maybe it is. Check out the long and passionate thread following Kirk Tuck's review of the Leica M6 and it's lenses. Somebody in there tells him that his pictures are all crap!, all because he preferred the M6 to the G2.

 

Friends: you're putting your ideas, next to your NAME, in most cases, PERMANENTLY on the net (sorry I have Word but I still don't know how to make italics).

 

It's one thing to look foolish in an argument in a tavern after a pint or two; it's another to wish AIDS on someone because he prefers digital cameras. In "print", on a site that saves it's information for bleeping YEARS. You get to overreact, and to be seen overreacting, FOREVER.

 

When you consider that the motive behind it is to "win", to impress others with your "superiority"--well, kids, it's bad tactics and bad strategy.

Gee Tony; sorry about that "bleeping". I guess I got carried away.

You do the crime ! You do the time !

My apologies to those of you who think that I'm the one who started the "Al Cult" for purposes of self agrandisement. I think it might have started last February when I suggested that those of us in the South Florida area meet for the annual photography flea market at the North Miami Armory and go out for coffee afterwards. Then Johnny G's photo was posted, and James Mitchell, not even present at the Armory, started the T-shirt thing, and then I went to North Carolina for a few days and posted that I'd enjoy meeting some of the crew up there.

 

Any one of you could do the same thing when you're traveling, or even in your home town. Ask others who might be coming to town to email you and get together with them. I suspect that a lot of us cross paths with more frequency than we suspect.

 

I've been primarily a Leica rangefinder photographer for over 40 years and have a collection of Leica Manuals from the 1930's to the 1970's along with several other vintage books that talk about Leicas. I recently acquired a nice clean 1961 edition of "Press Photography" by Rhode & McCall, published by Macmilan. Leica info inside! All these books make it easy to look up old lenses and whatnot.

 

Off forum I keep in touch with a number of people I've met here and it never gets mentioned here. The recent hundred plus posts thread started by James started out mostly because of a lens he wanted to try, my 85/2 LTM Nikkor. Keep in mind that there was a time when Leica toting PJ's HAD to get that lens to use as a fast "90" because Leitz didn't make an f/2 back then. I doubt if more that 25 or 30 of those posts have anything to do with photography. They could just as well be deleted!

Al, you're a great asset to this forum. You're ugly as sin, and that picture on the Tee scares the krapp out of me, but you keep it light, you have a wealth of knowledge on Ghosts of Leicas Past, your political/social views are always moderate and gently expressed, and when you've posted pix here they've been outstanding.

 

Kaplanology is one of the better diversions we have here. People who don't want to study it-- stay out of the classroom!

Al,

 

you're a treasure to this forum. No need to apologize to or because of Ray. IMHO, he's

waaaaaaaay out of line with his comments. Again, IMHO, and WADR to him, if he doesn't

like it, he can stay away. No need to snipe at you.

 

regards,

Tony, you're stepping in stride a little with the liberals that lobbied the senate for government sponsored censorship on pop music. Next thing ya know we?ll be asked to submit our photos for the appropriate ?Tipper sticker? before we can post.

Tony is not talking about Al, you guys. I have never seen anything offensive from him here. A lot of us appreciate the wisdom and experience that he does his best to share which is the purpose of the forum.

 

This whole thing drifted OT again. Staying off religion and politics and not trashing each other was the request.

i like the forum as is...

I also feel the Leica Forum has become a little more agressive and less polite

recently. Perhaps, I've contributed to this. If so, I'm sorry. I don't mind some

tough comments and a dash of attitude, but over the last week, it seems like

anyone posting anything is just asking to have his head handed to him.

 

And we wonder why there are not more female participants on the Leica

Forum?

i thought leica photography was a male dominated sport?

The problem is decidedly *not* Al.

 

Even in the "Al-related" threads, when you look at what Al himself says, it's usually on-topic -- sometimes historical, sometimes infused by personal recollection or nostalgia for another photographic era, but on-topic.

 

The other day, when a good picture of Al was posted (along with a story that was worth a chuckle), the fire started because a rather nasty remark was made about the quality of the scan.

 

Do those of us who get a charge out of Al and make jokes about his battered cameras over-do it at times? I'm sure we do. If anything, we owe the apology for that. Not Al.

 

In that respect, I'll disagree with Pete (though still I'll tip my Akubra to him). But when he mentions "camps" -- Pete's onto something there.

 

It's not false modesty on my part to say that if the real photographers on this forum were choosing up teams, I'd get left on the bench ... where I belong. (Maybe next season ?) That seat on the bench, however, gives me a birds-eye view of some of the more ludicrous and offensive back-and-forth that goes on. Occasionally this takes on the appearance -- and almost certainly the scent -- of tag team wrestling.

 

Speaking as a man more fond of disagreement and argument than almost anyone I know, there's a way to disagree (or in the case of art, to criticize) without becoming disagreeable or overly personal in a negative way.

 

I think Tony is trying admirably to point us in that direction, and he's absolutely right.

<p>Al, you say</p><p><em>I've been primarily a Leica rangefinder

photographer for over 40 years and have a collection of Leica Manuals

from the 1930's to the 1970's along with several other vintage books that

talk about Leicas.</em></p><p>Well, put them in a humidity-proofed

box, put the box in your shed [do people have sheds in Florida?], and

forget about them until your old age. Do please instead continue writing

interesting first-hand observations/advice (as well as taking photos, of

course). I'm much more interested in your experiences than in, I dunno,

stuff like which hood is the "authentic" match for which lens.</p><p>As

for the topic, if it's limited to Leicas I'm out of here.

Not that my absence would be anybody's loss, but a lot of other Leica

non-users contribute a lot to the atmosphere here, in my perhaps

worthless opinion.</p>