Photographing the Photographer... post yours

Fujifilm X-Pro3, Fujinon XF 50mm f2 R WR lens
Yokohama, Japan - January 2020

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All the best,
Mike
 

Sally Mann by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

Finding some things in the archive that I forgot I even had.

This is photographer Sally Mann. She paid a visit to my school in Savannah back in about 1996, and spent about an hour or so with our 2nd Year MFA class. She was completely disorganized and was pulling out all these beautiful large loose prints from a box and passing them around left and right. I wasn't overly impressed with her work at the time, and her work was quite controversial then (her 'Immediate Family' work in particular), but over time I came to admire her and what she was doing.

Actually I had another encounter of sorts with her a number of years later. I was talking with my good friend and camera repair guru, Frank Marshman, and he knows Sally quite well (she's from Virginia and I hope I'm not telling any tales out of school in saying that he has repaired her cameras over the years). Anyhow, during the course of our phone conversation, Frank asked me if I knew anything about old Leica lenses. I replied yes of course (I've been using Leicas since I was 17), and why did he ask? Well it turned out that Sally had this old Leica M3 camera (at least I think it was an M3) and she was looking for some old lenses that gave a fuzzy, glowy look, but she didn't know anything about these old Leica lenses. Would I mind giving her a call? Sure can! So Frank gave me her number and I called her up. We ended up talking for about 1/2 hour, and we were both looking online at various Leica lenses on KEH, Leica Shop etc and I was advising her about the pros and cons of various types etc, and pretty much giving her a primer on 'old Leica lenses that would give a fuzzy, glowy look'. Summars, 73mm Hektors, Thambars -- you know the deal.

I don't know if Sally ever followed through with any of my advice, as that was the one and only time I ever spoke with her at length. But now that I think of it, I should probably update my CV and list that I was 'once a technical advisor to Sally Mann'. Think that would fly?
 
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