It's a plea that sometimes is played for humor ("... is my two front teeth") and sometimes for heartwarming pathos ("... is my Daddy home from war"), but sometimes it's a bit of a palate cleaner in the bacchanalic greedfest that Christmas can become. And sometimes it is something that you just can't get out of your head.
All I want for Christmas is my camera and lens back.
Some time ago, a very nice man -- a retired professor of biology here in Lexington -- stopped by to show me a camera he had bought new some years ago. He knew of my book, and had seen me carrying, now infallibly, a Leica as I went about life in town. He had an M4-2 that he had bought when it was new in the 70s and wondered if I would like to buy it from him along with a 135mm f/2.8 lens. The offer took my breath away.
The M4-2 and its mate, the M4-P were unusual (perhaps unique -- though I think that word overused, and I guess if there are two they can hardly be unique) cameras in the Leica inventory. When they were built, Leica's leadership had seen the writing on the wall. Nikon and Canon were rising out of the ashes of post-war Japan, and had begun to totally command the camera market with single lens reflex cameras (SLRs), having switched to them in the late 1950s and early 1960s after a decade of producing Leica M imitations. Leica decided to change with the times, disposing with the iconic (another overused word) M rangefinders to concentrate on the R-series SLRs. (Also, the disasterous M5, the most unloved Leica M this side of the M8, didn't help their attitude any.)
Walter Kluck, the Leica executive in charge of its Canada facilities (where some lenses were produced) thought stopping the M line was an incredibly bad idea, and asked to be allowed to make Ms in Canada. Leica reluctantly agreed, and it can be argued that not only the M but Leica itself was saved. The M4-2 and M4-P were the cameras Kluck's factory produced.
Anyway, I did some quick EBay research and told my new friend that he deserved at least $1000 for his camera and lens, if not significantly more (the lens, for example, was still in its box). I didn't have $1000. Not by a long shot. I might, for four years, send him $20 a month to get near that amount, but he could do significantly better on EBay.
He wasn't concerned, he said. $20 a month was okay. He was happy to know I loved the camera, and I did. I loyally sent him my money -- sometimes a month or more late, with a $40 or more check, to make up the difference, but he was never cross. Sainthood is made by such as he.
Then came a rainy evening, when I climbed out of our minivan. I had the camera with me as usual -- it made many a great picture -- with a Zeiss 21 f/2.8 lens on it. The lens was my wife's last extravagant Christmas gift before our total financial collapse, a thing of beauty that made images with gray values beyond belief. It produced pictures the way I saw life; it was no accident that I was traveling with that combination.
But what happened as I got our of the car was an accident: the shoulder strap -- itself a thing of beauty, a soft, black, leather strap produced by Luigi Crescenzi of Leicatime -- caught on my knee, and in one of those moments when reality seems to drop into slow motion, I watched the camera arc past me and onto the hard pavement of our driveway, landing with a painful smack.
Leicas are tough cameras -- when the M4-2 was made, they were commonly carried by war photographers into Vietnam and other rough, dangerous places -- but they can only take so much. Both the body and lens were damaged.
I did some internet research, where I was depressingly told at one point to just throw the M4-2 away -- it would cost more to fix it than to just find another -- until I came to the legendary Sherry Krauter, beloved of Leica enthusiasts everywhere. Sure, she could fix it, she said, but it might take a while. She was busy. I told her that was okay, as it would take me a while to find the money to pay her. Little did either of us know ...
Dance rehearsal, shot with the M4-2 and Zeiss 21
She took the poor camera and lens in, and I put my mind to rest. I had told her to take her time, and thought surely the money would come in one way or another. But when she called to say it was ready, I wasn't. I sent a portion of the bill, assuring her that Christmas bonuses were coming, and she was again more than patient. That was roughly three years ago. How's that for patient?
Each year -- each month of each year -- I look at payments for extra work, windfalls from jobs that come my way, and that eagerly anticipated Christmas bonus, thinking: This is it. Now I can pay Sherry. And every time, like the cruel torture when a prisoner is told he will be released, then sent back to his cell at the last minute, the money has to go to something else. I'm sure she gumbles under her breath, and she should.
So what do I want for Christmas? I could list a lot of little things: Some film, some random fascinations of late, even the money to process the film I've already shot. And, mind you, I'm not losing sight of the big things: I'm happy that my family is housed and fed and more or less healthy. It's not by chance that my money gets allocated to things before it comes to my camera. But really the thing I want -- the self-indulgent gift I'd automatically ask for if you asked me without warning -- is my camera and lens back.
Maybe next month ...
No comments:
Post a Comment