Pherdinand
the snow must go on
a young hungarian photo reporter on the train from my hometown to Budapest, Hungary. You'll see why this is not OT.
He got in the coupe in a city called Deva, about 2 hours after me. It was still deep in Romania, we had four more persons (six in total), three were speaking in romanian, they knew each other. The new guy was vewry silent, in fact he didn't say a word in the first 3 hours, after briefly greeting us. A very strange looking middle-aged woman was waving to him from outside, when we left the station.
He went out to the corridor for a smoke. I've seen a strange metallic flash from his belt pouch, but did not pay attention.
Within the next hour he repeated the action - a cigarette, and something more, with a large object. First it happened when the train passed some ugly urban ruins with some poor houses around; then, when some illegal sellers passed through the train he did it again, and i thought to recognize the winding and focusing action from behind.
In the city Arad, just at the romanian-hungarian border, the three got off the train. That's when it turned out, that the new guy was not speaking romanian, this being the only reason why he kept silent. The third person who remained, was also hungarian. So we started to talk, about soon crossing the border, and such adventures.
Then he opened his belt pouch, took a camera out, removed the baseplate and changed film in it. I was just quick enough to see a red dot on the front of it!!
OK, i thought, i ain't no gearhead, i will not ask him about it.😀
So i've asked him about what he was doing in Romania at christmas.
It turned out he's a photoreporter in Budapest, in fact for an internet portal-news agnecy-something called index.hu, and won some financing for a project of his own, which was, a week of living with and portraying the kids at the franziskan (grey friars? says the dictionnary)-founded orphanage at Deva. He related some amazing details about the kids living there, under the coordination of some nurses and a very famous monk.
I did not resist for long and i've asked him if he really used a Leica for this.
Well, he did. He used fuji iso800 colour neg in an M6 equipped with one single 28mm lens.He's something like 26, younger than me. He admitted to use a DSLR for the official work he does on a daily basis, but the Leica is his own camera, and he does all his personal projects with it.
He also told me, that if one is a respected, good photoreporter, he can achieve the "right" to film cameras, and to shoot film for the assignments. The we talked a bit about gear, i told him my adventures with the contax, illustrated with the contax iia that was hiding right there in my coat pocket, and he said his first rangefinder was an oly RC which he loved. He also admitted, that bottom loading is a PITA, and once he wasted a roll of film with some potentially good shots on it because of this "feature".
Then we talked about some ggreat photographers; Capa, Doisneau (i got a Capa and a Doisneau book from my sister, for christmas, by the way!!) and finally about Brassai whom he really likes. At this point the third guy in the coupe got very excited/proud, since he was born in Brasso, the same town as Brassai🙂 (not that he ever heard of the photographer).
I'm curious about the results of his project now, so i'm waiting for the 12 selected images to show up on the Net.
It was an 8 hour trip much above my expectations, i have to say.
He got in the coupe in a city called Deva, about 2 hours after me. It was still deep in Romania, we had four more persons (six in total), three were speaking in romanian, they knew each other. The new guy was vewry silent, in fact he didn't say a word in the first 3 hours, after briefly greeting us. A very strange looking middle-aged woman was waving to him from outside, when we left the station.
He went out to the corridor for a smoke. I've seen a strange metallic flash from his belt pouch, but did not pay attention.
Within the next hour he repeated the action - a cigarette, and something more, with a large object. First it happened when the train passed some ugly urban ruins with some poor houses around; then, when some illegal sellers passed through the train he did it again, and i thought to recognize the winding and focusing action from behind.
In the city Arad, just at the romanian-hungarian border, the three got off the train. That's when it turned out, that the new guy was not speaking romanian, this being the only reason why he kept silent. The third person who remained, was also hungarian. So we started to talk, about soon crossing the border, and such adventures.
Then he opened his belt pouch, took a camera out, removed the baseplate and changed film in it. I was just quick enough to see a red dot on the front of it!!
OK, i thought, i ain't no gearhead, i will not ask him about it.😀
So i've asked him about what he was doing in Romania at christmas.
It turned out he's a photoreporter in Budapest, in fact for an internet portal-news agnecy-something called index.hu, and won some financing for a project of his own, which was, a week of living with and portraying the kids at the franziskan (grey friars? says the dictionnary)-founded orphanage at Deva. He related some amazing details about the kids living there, under the coordination of some nurses and a very famous monk.
I did not resist for long and i've asked him if he really used a Leica for this.
Well, he did. He used fuji iso800 colour neg in an M6 equipped with one single 28mm lens.He's something like 26, younger than me. He admitted to use a DSLR for the official work he does on a daily basis, but the Leica is his own camera, and he does all his personal projects with it.
He also told me, that if one is a respected, good photoreporter, he can achieve the "right" to film cameras, and to shoot film for the assignments. The we talked a bit about gear, i told him my adventures with the contax, illustrated with the contax iia that was hiding right there in my coat pocket, and he said his first rangefinder was an oly RC which he loved. He also admitted, that bottom loading is a PITA, and once he wasted a roll of film with some potentially good shots on it because of this "feature".
Then we talked about some ggreat photographers; Capa, Doisneau (i got a Capa and a Doisneau book from my sister, for christmas, by the way!!) and finally about Brassai whom he really likes. At this point the third guy in the coupe got very excited/proud, since he was born in Brasso, the same town as Brassai🙂 (not that he ever heard of the photographer).
I'm curious about the results of his project now, so i'm waiting for the 12 selected images to show up on the Net.
It was an 8 hour trip much above my expectations, i have to say.
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