Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: josh.reichmann on May 18, 2019, 12:16:32 pm
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It is the 3rd anniversary of my dad Michael Reichmann’s passing.
My wife Irene and I were holding each of his hands.
Thank you to the community for being patient and tolerant with us as we adjust to the roll of carrying forward and building on the site he founded and nurtured.
To those of you who knew my dad or who were impacted by his words and art, for those who have lost loved ones, let’s all take a moment to reflect with gratitude for all they have left us with.
When asked what he thought happens when we die, I heard a wise person recently say : “All I know is that those who love us, miss us”.
X
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We miss him. He left a legacy, for which we are grateful.
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I didn't know him personally, but he sure did project a powerful, yet quiet personality.
He had camera presence too, which I don't believe can be learned successfully. As you say, he left a great legacy in LuLa, for which I thank him again.
I sometimes wonder, had he not become ill, in what direction he might have led his site. I get the feeling he may have simplified it back to basics, as it were.
Rob
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I didn't know him personally, but he sure did project a powerful, yet quiet personality.
He had camera presence too, which I don't believe can be learned successfully. As you say, he left a great legacy in LuLa, for which I thank him again.
I sometimes wonder, had he not become ill, in what direction he might have led his site. I get the feeling he may have simplified it back to basics, as it were.
Rob
Interested to know more about your ideas of what that might have looked like.
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That's a difficult one to qualify with any depth because it's no more than a feeling.
He was really - based on the visual information available on the site - into photography per se, having worked at it professionally, too. That's an experience that forever changes one's attitude to it, and to the groups that can sometimes grow around anyone with that experience and subsequent exposure like a kind of fungus, photo groupies, if you like. The pressure of remaining calm and polite in the face of what my granddad used to call damfool questions; the need to encourage when you may, instead, just want to scream... but that's no more than projection on my part, and could probably be a hundred nautical miles off course. I just don't see him as having an infinite patience or even the mindset that chases every buck.
LuLa apparently needs income to stay alive: I have no idea whether that was always the case; whether it was, but got absorbed as the cost of doing a labour of love; whether the operating situation outgrew the ability for that sort of operating strategy.
I never went on any trips with LuLa, first of all because they would draw too much out of retirement resources but even were that not true, nothng would get me into a situation where I had to spend time doing time with a bunch of camera freaks; it would be a version of hell for me. Did Michael really dig those gigs? Maybe he loved 'em - how would I know otherwise? - but I can't lose the feeling that for any creative soul it would become one mother of a chore and obligation, especially if not essential to one's actual fiscal survival, but something that developed of its own momentum.
You may or may not know the answers to all or any of the above, and I think you'd be nuts to come out and say anything to confirm any of it if it were so. This is a commercial venture, after all!
But, you did ask, and to the best of my ability, I have offered an opinion based, as I said at the start, on nothing but a feeling which may be quite mistaken. If it makes any difference, I often am.
Sonny & Cher are just singing I got You, Babe and The Beach Boy just did Good Vibrations before that: the joys of Radio Caroline back, but on the Internet this time. How amazing to have these memories to soothe the savage, empty beating breast. Before I joined the Tony Stone stock agency I had a little side venture of my own called Wild Honey. Guess I really dug those guys, that sound, the places I heard it as I worked. Barbara Ann takes me to a nightclub on the beach at Fregene, just outside Rome, where I did my first solo shoot for a travel brochure before fashion photography became my reality. Sometimes it feels like a distant dream.
You see where your Dad has taken me tonight? Thank him for me.
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Wow!
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I miss him more than I would have thought before he was gone. I felt the same way about Bruce Fraser when he passed away. Never met either of them, but felt that both had made significant contributions to my life. Taught me things that I still use today.
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I did not have the pleasure to meet him, but through his interactions in the forum, articles and videos I felt he was a true gentleman, somebody you could trust.
I miss him and hope his legacy stays alive.
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I did not have the pleasure to meet him, but through his interactions in the forum, articles and videos I felt he was a true gentleman, somebody you could trust.
I miss him and hope his legacy stays alive.
+ 100%.
He was a wonderful photographer too, lets not forget.
Rob
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+1000
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Josh,
As I've told you in some PMs, I did have the pleasure of meeting your dad several times at the Photo Plus Expo in NYC. He was always very gracious and friendly to, how shall I say it, his fans :)
He would chat with people on the PPE floor for as long as they wanted and always had time to speak with more of the crowd that would inevitably gather around him. I did not realize that your Dad's illness had returned so the news of his passing was a real shock to me.
I still treasure my memories of the dinner he hosted at Ruby Foo's in NYC and also of meeting Chris Sanderson and Thomas Knoll there. Whenever I'm feeling a bit down I go and rewatch the video with your Dad and Kevin reviewing the Sigma Quattro Pro :)
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One of the really good guys - long may the memories remain.
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I can't add much more to what has already been said. I have never met him in person, but I know Lula since early on. Your dad used to run a feature where people submitted photos for critique. He was always so constructive and to the point, he was really a good teacher. With is background in imaging and technique, he was riding the digital waver from early on, forming his opinions on experiments.
I suppose today he would be saddened by the fact that so many opinions are posted without any scientific or experimental basis. So much chaff and hardly any wheat.
In my mind his memory and his work lives on.
All the best from Portugal.
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Josh,
As I've told you in some PMs, I did have the pleasure of meeting your dad several times at the Photo Plus Expo in NYC. He was always very gracious and friendly to, how shall I say it, his fans :)
He would chat with people on the PPE floor for as long as they wanted and always had time to speak with more of the crowd that would inevitably gather around him. I did not realize that your Dad's illness had returned so the news of his passing was a real shock to me.
I still treasure my memories of the dinner he hosted at Ruby Foo's in NYC and also of meeting Chris Sanderson and Thomas Knoll there. Whenever I'm feeling a bit down I go and rewatch the video with your Dad and Kevin reviewing the Sigma Quattro Pro :)
That video warms my heart as well. I grew up with his occasional complete surrender to tear inducing laughter.