Nothing Leica healthy relationship pt.1
As a disclaimer this is the Kendall Jenner version of a gear related photography blog post, where she moans about avocados from south Brazil being so different from the ones from the north. So before you think I am a pretentious a**hole, be assured that I’m fully aware of that but I insist of being just the latter. I’m neither filthy rich nor I think that my photos are of a special interest, so…
Not long into my not so long lasting instagram photographer career I was confronted with people who had a red dot in their profile description sometimes followed by the word “Leica”. I got in touch with one of these guys and as we were chatting he tried to influence me with the idea of getting a red dotted camera. But it wasn’t him who made it click, it was another friend who ignited the fire. I tried to talk her into the X100V back then, spoke to her about the joy of having limitations, I really tried to convince her and then out of nowhere she texted me the following (I will never forget these exact words): “I may have gotten a Leica Q2”.
A few glasses of red wine helped to absorb the shock and they also made me brave and careless enough to buy a Leica Q-P on eBay without any proper research. For those of you who don`t know nothing about the Leica Universe, the “p” variants stand for a more understated version of the specific camera model, usually missing the famous red dot, but therefore being even more expensive. That’s another tradition in Leica. The less a camera can do for you, the more Leica will take from you. They even have a digital camera without any display at all - and it is expensive as hell.
Anyway, the camera arrived in a good condition and it really was something special to unbox it. I took the first photo and it looked awful. Since I’m referring to first times, I can honestly confirm here, that the level of disappointment was bigger than the sum of her and my disappointment after a cold November night in the year of 1998.
The above photos all have one thing in common and that is what I call digital nightmare. It doesn’t matter how deep I go Into editing, they still look digital. I sold my Leica Q-P after only 147 shots. That’s an unbeaten record in my gear whore-house history. The story could be over here, but you already see it coming. It isn’t over yet.
Only a few months later on a random night I was watching YouTube when one of the early “street diaries” episodes by Joe Greer got recommended to me and lightning struck again.
I thought that, if I can get a Leica M6, I can totally shoot candid street photography like Joe Greer. I completely blended out the fact that I don’t live in or nearby New York and that I absolutely hate coming too close to people in almost every sense but that didn’t matter. The next day I called a guy from the Leica Store in Hamburg. The guy from the Hamburg Leica Store is one of the best guys I have ever talked to and he is the greatest resource when it comes to lenses especially classic Leica glass.
That guy hooked me up with an M6 and a Voigtländer 35/1.4 Nokton Classic SC, ready to be picked up at the Store in Berlin after a few days. The guy in the store was nothing like my Hamburg guy. He was wearing an angler vest with way too many pockets and he looked like that type of kid who was bullied on school (for a reason). I tried to be cool and asked for a better price but since I am so incredibly German when it comes to negotiations, I almost ended up paying a higher price. Subsequently I asked, if i could get a little accessory instead and the guy simply replied, that he had already put a battery in the M6. Maybe that battery was in one of the pockets of his vest. Or just in his a**.
And then I hit the street and transformed into a mixture of Joel Meyerowitz and Joe Greer watching the scene with one eye on the view finder and the other on the street, my new Leica M6 dangling casually on my wrist. After having the film developed, I realised I didn’t transform at all and I started to hate myself (never), Joe Greer (not true) but i fell in love with the M6 (true). This camera is the holy grail for me when it comes to film photography. Some of my all time favourite photos were taken with this solid piece of brass. With all that said, my Leica M6 is one of the cameras I will never give away. It made me appreciate black and white photography and I owe this to her and somehow even to Leica.
No, it’s still not over here, but I pause for some days and let you look at some of my M6 photos.
...to be continued…
