This morning, my husband, Timothy Vanderweert, died at 4:04 a.m. Tim’s most recent hospitalization was New Year’s Eve. It was then that he learned that the cancer he had worked so hard to keep at bay had become aggressive and had taken over. If you know Tim personally then you know he was a strong-willed and stubborn man who did not easily accept the word no. And yet – over the 2 years since he was diagnosed with cancer he has always and in every way met the challenges before him and ultimately his own death with dignity and grace. He told me so many times he was not afraid of death or of dying. It was the task of living while knowing he would die that was hard. Tim met this in the way that most defines who he is for me: through his photography and his relationships with all of you who love this art as much as he did. In developing the (100’s) of rolls of film he had lying around, reviewing the vast body of work he had created, and in creating a legacy from this wondrous, magical, painful, challenging reflection of our human existence that his work captured, he found meaning and reward in these final months.

Tim has always been the most talented and gifted artist that I have personally known. I know how much not only his art but his thoughts and meanderings on this has meant to all of you. You meant as much to him. When he started this blog it was for his own edification. It became something so much more. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining him in this endeavor. You pushed him to think harder and broader and to go to places that we all need someone to go to for us – so that for just a moment, we can share the vision they offer.

Tim’s final week was everything that he and I had talked about, hoped for, and planned for so long. He was here. With me. With our dogs and cats. With our family and friends and neighbors – all those who came from nowhere to hold us both up and help us as we lived through his final days. He fell asleep on Saturday after a visit with an old friend, having spoken to everyone he needed and wanted to speak to, after having completed everything he had set out to do just 6 short months ago. He told me many times he was ready and at peace. This was reflected in every gesture and word he made. It covered him like a blanket in his silence. He did not suffer but slept easily from Saturday on. His death was painless and he was in our home with loved ones around him.

This is not an easy loss for me and it will be a long time before I find solid ground beneath me once again. I know you share that loss for whatever he was to you. He made me promise that on the day he died I would create just one more post to let you know. This then is how I would have you think of his death:

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On December 8, 2022, I sent the following email to Leica Germany:

Dear Sirs/ Madams:

I write a blog about Leica cameras: www.leicaphilia.com. It’s been active for over 8 years, has a very loyal following (over 20 million page views) and, if I might say so, is one of the more thoughtful and unbiased Leica sites on the web.

To this day, I’ve never asked Leica for anything. Not my style. But there’s always a first time. What I’d like to do is borrow a new M6 for a few weeks and put it through its paces so I can do a number of unbiased write-ups about it. I do currently own both a M9M and an M240 and am a dedicated B&W shooter. In particular I’d like to use the M6 to do comparison tests between the Monochrom and the M240 and the M6 in respect to various film stocks. Obviously, Tri-X might be a good place to start.

As an aside, I bought one of the first M6’s produced in 84 and loved it, but unfortunately sold it in 2004. I’d love to see how it’s evolved, how its feel and use compare to the old one and to the newer digital M’s. I can envision doing a number of linked posts about the M6 – its history, its current iteration, Leica’s admirable decision to re-introduce a film Leica now, how analog Leica processes compare to digital M usage.

If you agree, I can promise you that I’ll be even-handed in evaluating the camera and my experiences with it, but will not be emphasizing negatives given your generosity in trusting me with a loaned camera. I’m a 50 year lover of Leica, having bought my first Leica, an M5, in 1977 at age 19. I’m now 64, and terminally ill, with a cancer diagnosis that gives me maybe a year. I’d love to cap off my Leicaphilia blog with an extended series on the new M6. Thanks for considering.

With Warm Regards, Tim Vanderweert

Leica never responded. Any Ideas why not?

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Above is my well-used Billingham something or other. It’s one of the original 1973 bags, made at the Halesowen Billingham site where the first bags were sewn between 1973 and 1978. It’s a collector’s item apparently, not that I care, but it is nice to have an authentic vintage bag. Irrespective of how it looks in the photo, it’s still in great shape – all the leather is intact and functional, zippers all work, no rips or tears in the fabric. The guy who had it before me covered it in obscure sewn patches, literally everywhere, which I eventually removed. I’m left with a well-used Billingham…that I haven’t used much…until now. Now it goes out with me on my morning walks, slung over my shoulder, carrying a camera or two just in case in run into something interesting. All I need is some Doc Martens, skinny jeans and a man bun and I’m set.

Not seeing anything to shoot this morning, I hopped in my car, with Sigma SD15 in said bag, and headed to the skeevy part of town. There’s always good subjects in economically depressed areas, there to be exploited by ‘socially conscious’ liberal minded chroniclers of general human misfortune. Plus, you don’t even need to get out of your car, which limits potential interaction with the often unsympathetic locals. Below are a few gems from my morning ride, all of them shot with my Sigma SD15 and given the grungy B&W treatment in Silver Efex. Given my renewed interest in film, I would have chosen the F5 and some Fomapan, but my bulk loader hasn’t shown up yet so I’m limited to digital. Given a desire for a gritty, grainy, film look, I choose the SD15 over the Monochrom. Surprisingly, it just does the B&W film look better than the dedicated B&W Monchrom, which I’ve tried to explain elsewhere. [As an aside, the Foveons are technically monochrome cameras, having 3 discreet monchrome sensor stacks for each pixel – RGB – which means you can isolate any of them and have a native B&W Tiff file. As a practical matter if you just use the blue filter, which sits on top the the 3 stacked sensor, you get almost noise free B&W at ISOs up to 3200. This is one of the great little secrets about the Foveon that Sigma should be, but aren’t exploiting to the hilt; just build in a RAW Monchrome option that uses the top blue sensor layer, and voila!, you have a dedicated authentic monochrome capture option in a camera that also allows you to shoot color via its regular RAW file.]

Here are the results of my ride:

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Camera bags: we all use them, most of the time out of necessity given the amount of stuff a photography assignment requires. They are not, however, one of my favorite photographic accoutrements. Mostly, they’re a pain in the ass, bulky and unwieldy in use, limiting your mobility, constantly needing to be repositioned against your body as you move about. If I’m able to access their awkwardly zippered interiors, I’m constantly digging in various sub-pockets, usually unsuccessfully, to find that last roll of HP5, or that LensPen, or that 21mm viewfinder I’m needing right now. Typically if I do succeed in finding something nestled away, it’s an exposed roll of film, an auxilliarry 28mm viewfinder I’d thought I’d lost forever a few years back, a ticket stub to the Vatican Museum or something similar.

Everything about them seems designed to limit whatever enjoyment you might otherwise be experiencing being out and about with your minty new Leica M6. And then there’s the issue of aesthetics and its interplay with practical concerns. A mint Sage Chocolate Leather Billingham Hadley One hanging around one’s neck at the Paris Clichy Metro stop is going to make you a lot of friends on your subway ride. It just screams “expensive things inside” and, based on prior unfortunate experiences with Paris Metro thieves, there’s a good possibility you’ll be exiting your Metro car without your bag, probably not even knowing it (Parisian Metro thieves have nicked me more than once, even when I’m fully aware they are in fact thieves. Among other things, they’ve gotten a Tag Heuer watch off my arm and numerous Euros out of my front pocket. My last unfortunate experience involved actually announcing to the guy lurking next to me that I knew he was a thief and he shouldn’t bother followed shortly thereafter by finding my wallet gone after I’d gotten off and tried to buy a bottle of wine for the dinner I was heading to. They’re good. Really good.)

My response to all this has been to use non-camera specific canvas bags, the rattier the better, something that looks like it’s carrying a few quarts of motor oil you’ve just purchased. Plus, they’re easy to get into, which of course cuts two ways – they’re also easy for other people to get into too, but, given the aesthetics, they usually don’t bother.

Not needing the Billingham, I sold it on Ebay for $175. It fetched that amount because of its vintage status. Seems excessive to me, but things are worth what people are willing to pay. I’m now back to my old ratty bag below.

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Speaking of bags, a reader sent me a picture of his bag. He’s obviously been around a bit:

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“When photographers get beyond copying the achievements of others, or just repeating their own accidental first successes, they learn that they do not know where in the world they will find pictures. Nobody does. Each photograph that works is a revelation to its supposed creator. Yes, photographers do position themselves to take advantage of good fortune, sensing for instance when to stop the car and walk, but this is only the beginning. As William Stafford wrote, calculation gets you just so far – “Smart is okay, but lucky is better.” Days of searching can go by without the need to reload film holders, and then abruptly, sometimes back in their own yards, photographers use up every sheet…. Why is photography a kind of intoxication…so that occasionally photographers discover tears in their eyes for the joy of seeing? I think it is because they’ve known a miracle. They’ve been given what they did not earn, and as is the way with unexpected gifts, the surprise carries an emotional blessing” – Robert Adams

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I love this passage from German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche (1844-1900) on how to find your identity: “Let the soul survey its own life with a view of the following question: ‘What have you truly loved thus far? What has ever uplifted your soul, what has dominated and delighted it at the same time?'” Answer these questions, Nietzsche says, and they will reveal your fundamental self.

Obviously, I’ve been thinking about these issues a lot recently. It’s 12/12/22, and I’m just back from another visit to the hospital and then ‘recovery’ at a hospice home; hospice homes are where people go to die. Mine is coming soon. I’ve had another bout of intestinal blockage which has left me on a liquid diet till I die. I’ve told them the next blockage is probably the end. I don’t intend to seek further treatment but rather want to simply be sedated and allow the inevitable. I suspect, given the amount of cancer eating away at me, that that should be in the next month or so. If I suddenly stop posting, that’s probably the reason – I’m dead. I’ve made arrangements for a post notifying readers of the fact; whether that get’s done I can’t say.

I bring up the Nietzsche quote because it applies to the role photography has played in my life. For some reason, even as a kid, photography resonated with me in a way nothing else did, which is wonderful, because I somehow chose an avocation that’s allowed me to reveal something of my true self, affording me an intense means of expression for intimate concerns I may not have been able to articulate in my thoughts, in conversation, or in writing. That’s a remarkable gift.

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What do I want my legacy to be? I’m not sure. What I am doing now that time is short is putting my entire photographic corpus in order. I’ve digitized everything I can, negatives have been discarded, old prints thrown out. I’m printing 50 of the photos I like the best – a lifetime distilled into 50 photos; try to do that – all 8×12 mounted on 16×20 matts. My intent is have have my estate exhibit them at a memorial for me at one of the art spaces in Raleigh – maybe the CAM Museum here downtown. I can’t think of a better way to say something about who I was.

In doing so, I’ve had to make some hard decisions about what gets in and what doesn’t. It’s one thing when it’s simply an exhibition, one among others, that you’re mounting. It’s another when its purpose is a summary of your life. And old habits die hard – its incredibly difficult to be tossing books of negatives and prints accumulated over 50 years, but the reality is if I don’t do it, someone else will once I’m gone. At least this way I have some control over what survives me.

So, back I go to pruning and printing…..

Which leads me to a question for you readers: What do you want to see happen to Leicaphilia when I’m gone? Should I pass it off to someone else? Should I just let it sit as a memorial until someone neglects to pay the hosting fees and it vanishes into the ether? What should I do with all the (admittedly) good things that I’ve done with it? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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