I had totally forgotten about this, which is strange, given the brief drama around it… or maybe not, given my abhorrence of drama.
So Nick Exposed wants to give away his Leica M2M (a rare-ish M2 Leica fitted with a port, allowing attachment or a motor drive) and he decided to link the giveaway to a print sale: buy a print and get an entry. Some helpful commenters on Twitter and elsewhere pointed out that this sounded suspiciously like a raffle, and raffles are illegal. Oh well. He closed the raffle-linked sale and opened up a regular sale. He goes into more detail in the video apology.
Now I have no need of a Leica M-anything, but I do have some curiosity, so I checked out the prints. I found one that I really liked—a multiple exposure of, I think, an older VW Beetle— and decided to drop the $10 to buy the print and, maybe—but probably not given my track record with raffles—win a Leica.
So Nick closed the raffle, and opened up the apology sale. He apparently offers (at least) two varieties of prints: the raffle prints were standard, but the apology prints are his “fine art” prints, on heavyweight Hahnemuhle 308gsm Cotton Rag, so I again plunked down the $10. I quite like the print, after all.
https://youtu.be/EUDAieZtZjU
Nick still plans to give away his Leica, now via a competition of some sort. I haven’t been keeping track of that side of it, as I don’t have the faith in my work necessary to open it up to serious competition. So many others are so serious about photography, and I really just want to enjoy this creative outlet and play some.
I’m thrilled to have this little print. Sadly, the sale has ended, but keep an eye on Nick Exposed. His YouTube channel is great and worth subscribing to.
