Pictures Come First

Funny. Thanks to James Boykin for finding this, and to the cartoonist, Adam Sacks, for giving me permission to publish it.

I don't know about you, but, personally, it both amuses me and also makes me feel a bit skewered. I'm its target. In that way it's like that humor book you might have heard of, Stuff White People Like. If you don't know it—it's a book made from a blog—you can get a good handle on the vibe by reading the Amazon sample. Some of the entries just make me laugh, but others nail me just a little too hard and it hurts a bit. Like this one, for me:

Okay, ouch. Got me there.

Serious thoughts about the funny cartoon: I've always thought of myself as caring more about pictures than I care about cameras. Cameras are appealing and cunning little devices, and I've always liked them, but I could never be interested in them if I wasn't using them. Pictures always come first. If it doesn't give me the results I want, I can cool on a camera fast. Would anyone be interested in guitars if they didn't play the guitar? I suppose somebody somewhere is, but I can't get interested in stuff I can't use.

When I was young there was a camera store on Wisconsin Avenue in D.C. owned by a Hungarian immigrant named Andrew Heller. As I recall he had been a photographer in Europe, and had led an adventurous and honorable life. His shop was largely a store-sized display for his enormous Leica collection. That store with its endless high shelves stuffed with rows and rows of Leicas caused me some serious cognitive dissonance...obviously he couldn't use all those cameras—there were thousands of them—but why else have them? What was the point? I couldn't escape the feeling that he was just taking them all out of circulation and keeping them out of the hands of people who would get some use out of them. This was influenced by the fact that young penniless me wanted one. (Mitch Hedberg in the jar of jellybeans joke: "Aww, come on, man, lemme just have some!") Weren't pictures the point? Mr. Heller probably planted the seed for my tolerance policy. I was brought around to realizing that everyone enjoys photography for different reasons and in different ways. He enjoyed collecting Leicas, and wasn't it enough that he enjoyed it? It wasn't up to me to judge.

As for people making fun of you, well, it happens. And if the shoe fits, well....

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Tom Burke: "Here in the UK one of the main 'missing' brands would be Praktica. They were made by Pentacon of Leipzig, which during the era that I recall was in East Germany, of course. They made a long-running range of SLRs that used the M42 screw mount. One of the UK's main photo dealers—Dixons, who had a shop in every town in the land—did a long-standing deal with Pentacon and they sold Praktica SLRs for 25 years or more. I had one—an MTL3 of one version or another—and it did me well. They weren't badly made, to be honest. They were solid (they weighed a ton) and very largely mechanical (so they could be adjusted and repaired). I'd wager that during the 1960s, '70s and into the '80s a lot of UK amateur/enthusiast photographers cut their teeth on a Praktica. The lenses were a mixed bag—the Pentacon lenses weren't bad (by the standards of the time) but of course you could mount other manufacturers' lenses, from Pentax down to no-name Japanese knock-offs, and the quality of these varied enormously. During the mid and late 1980s they seemed to vanish. First, the leading Japanese companies starting producing AF SLRs—Minolta Dynax (in the UK), Canon EOS, etc.—and the enthusiast market went for these in a big way. Secondly there was the collapse and disappearance of East Germany itself. But for some decades, Praktica cameras were everywhere in the UK."

Robert: "Other brands gone, the last of which I at one time lusted after: Topcon, Miranda, Ricoh, Kiev, Yashica, Plaubel Makina."

Mike replies: You might have dodged a bullet. I briefly used a Plaubel Makina 6x7 at one time (it was a 6x7 cm collapsible rangefinder, for those of you who don't know it), and I have a friend who bought one. He had repeated problems with the film advance, necessitating long and frustrating sessions in the repair shop. The third time it broke he was so incensed that he decided to put it in his closet and forget it was there, because otherwise, he said, it would drive him crazy.

Bruce Walker replies to Robert: "Whoa! Ricoh is very much alive, and the GR series of 'street' compacts is their current hit. Their other famous property is Pentax, which is also very much alive. Much to the surprise of many 'YouTube photographers.'"

Chris Bertram: "I used to read the Stuff White People Like blog, and much of it was very funny and shrewdly observed. It included, for example, things like 'black music black people don't listen to any more.' True, or true-ish. I don't know anything about the race or ethnicity of the people behind that site/book, but it was no more racist, as such, than Chris Rock's jokes about black people, which black audiences laugh heartily at."

Andrew L: "It's a real moment of reckoning for me to be confronted with the fact that every white person has at least one chapter of a novel or memoir stashed somewhere. And here I thought my single chapters of all my ideas meant I was really a writer. I guess I need to press on and finish all my chapters two.

Mike replies: Mon semblable, mon frere. 

Sean: "Economists would say the chap in the illustration is holding a ‘costly signal.’ It suggests he wouldn’t invest in that high-end gear if he didn’t take photography seriously. This doesn’t mean he’s a good photographer, of course, but it’s reasonable to assume the ‘non-trivial cost’ reflects his level of commitment."

Gerry Hiatt: "Many years ago, I took a test designed to show whether one is left-brain dominant or right-brain dominant. Given my training and profession, I expected strong left-brain dominance; I was therefore surprised that my results showed a 51:49 split. Thinking about the results, I realized that is likely why I love photography—it is a fusion of technology and art. Now, after a 30-year career as a scientist, I spend virtually all of my time as a photographer."

Ed Wolpov: "Thanks for bringing back memories of Heller Camera...that's where I bought my Leica M6 back when I worked in the Air Rights Building. Now it's a Fuji x100F (my digital Leica)."

Comments

[Jeff]

Bought my first Leica from Andrew Heller. He was Hungarian, not German, and deserves respect for his background, both personal and professional. Btw, he was really a Rollei guy. As far as the Leica M, he was adamant about sticking to Summicrons, which he used. I was flattered when he asked me later in his life if I were interested in buying his business; wise enough to say no, of course. Make money elsewhere to be able to afford a Leica!

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/washingtonpost/name/andrew-heller-obituary?id=6094599

[Scott]

“ Would anyone be interested in guitars if they didn't play the guitar?”

Leo Fender, inventor of the Stratocaster, Telecaster, Precision Bass and a multitude of other guitars and guitar amplifiers famously could not play the guitar. He presumably was very interested in them. He later became President of a new guitar manufacturer - Music Man - and co-founded a third, G&L Musical Products.

[Ray Hunter]

You could substitute a wall of photo books for the wall of Leicas, or as a substitute/corollary to the cartoon’s caption? Someone said that the difference between hoarding and collecting was an economic distinction.
We do well to be mindful of our behaviors and nudge ourselves in a direction that fosters growth as well as some pleasure. Thanks for the nudge.

[Richard Alan Fox]

The camera comes first, unlike an egg it doesn't need a picture to create it.

The camera exists independently of the button being pushed.

[Luis C. Aribe]

Thank you for the memory of the Heller store. Ages ago I bought an item there. It was a metal lens hood for a Tele-Elmarit that I had bought new a few years before in NYC, and its original rubber hood had disintegrated. So much for Leica quality—yes, I know, E. Leitz (as it was then) did not make rubber lens hoods, but then neither did Olympus, and their rubber hoods, of which I have a couple for an 85/2 and a 21/3.5, have lasted much longer in excellent condition. A camera maker should choose suppliers that match the quality of its cameras.

[Nigel]

That somebody decided to write a book called "Stuff White People Like", leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, Just like the (UK) Guardian is always slipping the "old White men", meme into lots of articles these days. This is pure racism.

What would happen If I wrote a book or published an article, where "white" became some other colour?

[Albert Smith]

Saw this photography related comic today and this looks like an appropriate place to link it for people that might like it:

https://www.gocomics.com/looseparts/2024/05/27

[Marc]

I’ve liked cars all my life. Not just as sports cars, just cars - 4WD’s, hatchbacks, family trucksters, vans, sedans, utes, and on an on. I subscribed to magazines, watched the TV shows, known “more about cars than anyone who doesn’t have a drivers licence”, as a friend told me. But I’m near 54yo now and got my licence four weeks ago.

Driving is fun*.

Also, I love me a good, skewering joke, when done well it can be like a camera flash in your messy, dark room.

(*I’ve a whole chapter about why this is transformative and healing for me me, but I’m holding out for a book deal)

[Kye Wood]

A B'ing. The process of trying one thing then placing it down and picking up another to compare it with.

It's usually how I would choose a camera in a store.

And it's how I culled my collection of guitars. Funny how a once precious guitar becomes dead to me, once it shows that it's no longer competitive relative to the others.

[robert e]

"Would anyone be interested in guitars if they didn't play the guitar?"

I'm not sure that's the right question. I suspect that 10 percent of guitar collectors own 90 percent of all vintage guitars and, whether or not they play the guitar, collectively utilize less than 5 percent of them for any musical purpose.

I'm in two minds about that. It would mean that 85.5 percent of vintage guitars aren't being used by working musicians to make music, and there is surely some hoarding going on. On the other hand, collectors tend to take better care of things than do users, and those guitars are more likely to be around and playable in twenty, fifty or a hundred years than if they were on tour with working musicians or belonged to a busy studio.

We're privileged to hear the world's best classical musicians play instruments made hundreds of years ago by legendary artisans in part because generations of collectors, investors, philanthropists and hoarders, too, preserved those instruments to get them into those hands.

[John Shriver]

I used to go to Heller's Camera when it was in the Air Rights Building on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, Maryland in the 1970's. What I remember on display there was his impressive collection of Japanese Leica clones.
The other "Hungarian" store I frequented was Serenade Records, on Connecticut Ave near DuPont circle. Fabulous selection of imported European classical LPs, back when American LP's were dismally poorly pressed. EMI HMV, Decca, Classics for Pleasure, Hyperion, Lyrita, etc.

[Ed Hawco]

There might be few non-players who are interested in guitars, but I guarantee there is no shortage of bad guitar players who are very interested in guitars. But bless ‘em, they keep the guitar makers busy.

[Dan Khong]

Similarly for me, pictures come first and they do not have to be taken by any special camera.

Second comes the play factor. I like cameras that give good play factors. For example, a folding camera like a Mamiya Six K2 may not have the sharpest of lenses but it's full of play. It changes from 6x6 to 6x4.5 with the flip of a switch and may well be the only camera that does that conveniently.

Lastly, having a camera that shoots and shows is nice but not a priority.

[Kye Wood]

Old white men.

I am one. Might I offer a counter point?

I read from all three stripes of journalism. Left. Centre. Right.

The lefts problem with old white men is with grotesquely rich old white men.

The Right conflates and misconstrues this to be about all white people. For the purpose of engagement and the associated financial gain they earn from that disingenuous rhetoric.

Might you also consider that no old white man was ever enslaved or despised on site, because of their skin colour

The centre looks for solutions and common ground. But there's no monetization from that, is there?

[Stan B.]

Collections are great, but if they're meant to inspire and be used, they shouldn't be gathering dust on a shelf, particularly in one's latter years- share it and pass it on!

Oh, and thank you, Kye- reason and good will always shine through...

[Anton Wilhelm Stolzing]

There is indeed nothing wrong with liking Leicas.
For history buffs: Leitz saved Jews in WW II.

[Jeff1000]

Us white guys, in theory, want to be writers, but when it comes down to doing the actual writing, not so much. I think it was David Foster Wallace who said that he’d spend one hour writing and eight hours stressing out about not writing; but he did, ultimately, get some good work finished.

[Andrew L]

It's a real moment of reckoning for me to be confronted with the fact that every white person has at least one chapter of a novel or memoir stashed somewhere. And here I thought my single chapters of all my ideas meant I was really a writer.

I guess I need to press on and finish all my chapters two.

[KeithB]

Of course here in Los Angeles, everyone does not want to be just a writer, but a *screenwriter*.

[Bruce Walker]

Robert: "Other brands gone: [...] Ricoh"

Whoa! Ricoh is very much alive, and the GR series of "street" compacts is their current hit.

Their other famous property is Pentax, which is also very much alive. Much to the surprise of many "Youtube Photographers".

[Robert]

Yes, of course, you are right. I even own and use a Ricoh GR III myself - it’s not a bad camera, with a very good slow lens. I was thinking of their SLR range, which never made it into digital.

In the 90’s I also used a Pentax LX and a Pentax MX, I loved the S69 screen in the LX, which had a wonderful viewfinder. I used it mostly outside the 28-50 mm range of my M6s when necessary. Its main weakness, apart from sticky mirror was mirror slap, which also plagued the Pentax 67, which I used briefly. Its owner would never use it off the tripod without flash. Canons firing! Unfortunately, for all their style, and their strengths, Pentaxes were plagued by poor marketing and very weird lens selection decisions. It was always a delight to get back to the quiet shutter snick of the Leicas, and not having to suffer shutter shake on a 100mm lens.

[scott kirkpatrick]

My first "real" camera was a Miranda, a long-gone one shot brand. I was in Japan sometime in the '50s, when Canon and Nikon had their emulated German rangefinder models -- Canon like the Leica 3s and Nikon like the Contax. For half the price, you could buy a Miranda and it was a real SLR. Lasted for nearly 20 years.

[Tilo]

Just a little correction to Tom Burke's interesting observation:
Pentacon was sitting in Dresden, not Leipzig.
Praktica cameras as well as MZ-motorcycles and Wartburg cars (sold as Wartburg Knight) were exported from East Germany to the UK. Of course, all three manufactures did not survive the reunification of Germany in 1990...

[Jnny]

Ah, jeez! You mention a shop with zillions of Leica, but don't post a pic of said shop? Inquiring minds want to know. (See?)

[

I couldn't find one online. That doesn't mean they're not out there. --Mike

]