If you go to this website(cut and paste, I don't even know what HTML means let alone how to use it)and scroll partway down the page you will read an interesting Leica accolade from an NG photographer whom I would never have suspected would use one.

www.michaelnicknichols.com/article/gear

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), February 02, 2002

Answers

www.michaelnicknichols.com/article/gear

-- Fred Sun (redsky3@yahoo.com), February 02, 2002.

Thanks Jay. I've been a fan of Nickols' work since the mid-1980s, and have never seen anything that would have led me to think he has ever used a Leica M.

I once saw him in a NG TV special where he was having trouble closing his tripod mounted camera after changing film because of about a thousand tiny flys swarming him and his gear in an African jungle. In another scene his partner was pulling leaches from his (Mike's) butt. That old romantic notion of being a NG shooter, ala The Bridges Madison County, was quickly dashed.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), February 03, 2002.

Interesting accolade

"when I work with Pygmies that are afraid of cameras, I want to have a camera that doesn’t draw a lot of attention to me. I use a Leica rangefinder."

Interesting indeed.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), February 03, 2002.

I must be out of sync here. I found his website very interesting, but I really did not think much of his photos. His images seemed to me to be blurred (he likes to call it incorporating motion) and rather uninteresting, and weird use of flash (clearly this is his trademark). There was also rather a lot of macho nonsense about how tough it all is. Maybe true, but I expected better results from all that. His photos of Jane Goodall are nice, I suppose. I looked at his trek across the rainforests in Africa in the NG and they were about the dullest shots I have seen of Africa. I know he tells us that Africa is not just the beauty of the Serengeti, Ngorongo etc. but after all the difficulties of the trek through the reainforest, I found the photos rather uninspiring. Mind you he does say photographing the rainforest is difficult...Maybe the Ituri rainforest is really not inspiring?

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), February 05, 2002.