Doc Freud,
how similar my connection starts with Ray.
it was his very first day at the salt, this was before he had his tough heart surgery, he had parked his car close to the impound, there was no vendor busy to this time.
He had a wonderful old analog camera in his hand and some of this very fancy digital, so I stopped and walked over to him. Found out that he was the first time out and was both a computer and a photography nerds....so I showed him my equipment...and one of his first comment was..."I have to think about"...seeing all this bodies (three) and lenses (five)...most impressed him my 14 pounds heavy (metal) 300 mm 2.8 lens.....yeah...shot with Canon....my first Canon I bought in 1975....1978 I had my first A1....later I update this equipment to the newest stuff at the market......all this we talked about....and later Ray done the same....what a smile in his face when I gave him my spare Canon 5D when his 7D was in the refurbish....from there on he was the owner of this 5D...and one happy guy...
May be I was one of some people who took care with my "bad influence" (or more my camera equipment) which got him in the position he was at last for the speed community.
When he went through my photo work he asked me a hole in my stomach (as we say in Germany)....it was very interested to hear his questions....and I was surprised, too....
Ray was a excellent photographer with a great eye for the picture....also in a different way as I....luckily, this makes photography so wonderful, when photo artists creating their own view of a picture....when Ray and I done together a photo shooting (like the Target 550 at Bonneville) the result was totally different....and we both looked on each other picture at the computer screen....WOW, THATS A GREAT SHOT, YOU DONE....we was never competitor...we only pushed as "higher and higher"...and we was a d a m n good team.
Ray's house in Taylorsville was my house....he gave me the key, I had there a sleeping room, I could be there also if he was away....I think he very enjoyed my company when I was at his place....and always we was working on one of his cars.....
There from was coming "the two world tallest dwarfs"...one day we worked on the BURB...which was very tough for us, so short we are....and so I said to Ray...here are working the two world tallest dwarfs.....it end up that from time to time our emails was signed with....the younger dwarf....the older dwarf...
I will miss my older dwarf....hope they got there upstairs a proper photo shop...
Pork Pie