Photography, for me, is often a solitary pursuit. At times this is a blessing. The calm of twiddling dials and manipulating a tripod can be an almost meditative experience, and the solitude of being alone in nature, or anonymous on a busy street, is a familiar and comfortable place. Occasionally though, I pine for some company. I’ve noticed this is especially true when life becomes excessively chaotic.
It’s Sunday morning, 5 AM. I’m sitting at my office desk as a flashing text cursor continually reminds me of the half-finished outline open on my computer screen. Disorganized piles of notes are scattered across the desktop like leaves in fall. Head in hand, I shuffle through the notes; large, white postcards signifying articles to write for the website, or cameras that need to be shipped to customers of my camera shop. The hand-written notes stare back, with headlines like:
Ship these cameras…, Clean Nikon FE, Rollei Review Notes, AF35M Notes, Pickup Prints for Yashica T3, Nikon 50mm Lens Shootout Notes,
and a diagonally jotted and somewhat cryptic scrawl stating,
M3 – 1960 Wheat Bokeh
Apparently that’s supposed to mean something to me, but what that is I can’t recall.
Just then the excitable electric hum of a vibration motor signals an incoming text message. Snatching up the phone, and the welcome distraction, I see a message from a friend; Shoot some photos? It takes me about two seconds to respond; YES. We finalize plans to meet up at 6 AM and do some street shooting.
I move to the closet, grab my camera bag, and return to the office in which all the photo gear is kept. Looking down at the desktop, notes still strewn about, I plop the empty bag on the chair and begin to cobble together all the gear I’ll be bringing.
This is good, I say to myself, I can get some shots for the lens shootout. Oh, and I should bring the Yashica just in case those prints for the review don’t pan out. Oh, and maybe I should bring the AF35M since more test shots couldn’t hurt. So I’ll need the Nikon… four lenses… these two point and shoots… can’t forget film…
I don’t immediately see the ridiculousness of this.
In mere moments I’ve packed away a Nikon D610, a Nikkor 50mm 1.2, 50mm 1.4, 50mm 1.8, and a Series E 50mm 1.8. On top of this, I’ve stashed the Canon AF35M and Yashica T3 point and shoot cameras into a side pocket, some rolls of film into the rear pouch, and I’m even considering bringing the Rollei B35 to give it one more chance to impress me. As I’m staring down at the packed bag, this last camera in my hand, I catch myself.
This is too much.
I stand fixed in place, staring stupidly at the bulging bag of hefty cameras, at the desk covered in notes, and at the flashing text cursor from the night before still prompting me to get back to work. I’m tired, uninspired, and uninterested. I’m wishing I could crawl back into bed. I start to wonder how badly I’d feel if I canceled on my friend.
Turning and leaning against the desk brings my eyes to a shelf on the opposite wall. It’s the shelf where newly delivered cameras sit to be inventoried, repaired, and eventually reviewed for the site or sold through my camera shop.
One camera catches my eye. It’s a Leica M3, a truly legendary camera, and it happens to be the first M3 I’ve owned. I’ve never had the opportunity to use one before, and the 50mm Summicron glimmers at me in the dim morning light. I’d loaded the camera with a fresh roll of Kodak 400TX the day before so it’d be ready to shoot. This new machine should present an exciting opportunity, but I’m just so tired, and I cynically tell myself that any shots I take with the thing won’t be worth keeping anyway. So what’s the point?
I stroll over and pick up the Leica. It’s deceptive; small and concise, the weight of the camera is surprising. I pull out the retractable lens, lock it into place, and cock the shutter. It’s so smooth and quiet. I look through the viewfinder and focus on Cooper, my Golden Retriever, still sleeping in the warm sunbeams of the early morning light as it cuts through the blinds. The focus action glides with precision.
I blearily frame the dog and take my first shot with a Leica M3. Surprisingly, something pretty wonderful happens; it feels really satisfying. Somewhere in my brain a glimmer of the old excitement flickers to life like a cold fluorescent bulb as I wonder if the shot will be any good. I wonder if I had the focus just right. I wonder if I used an aperture that’ll render the peaceful scene in a way that conveys that peace. At the heart of this excitement is my anticipation. I can’t wait to get the film developed and see the image I just made.
Looking down at the top plate of the M3, I squint a bit, and start to nod. I look at the desk and the stuffed bag, and then back to the M3, thinking, Isn’t this all I need? A moment’s pause, and then, Yeah. This is it. The exhaustively prepared camera bag sits on the chair where I’ve left it as I slip on my jacket and head out the door. Those cameras can keep that winking bastard of a cursor company for a while. Today I’m shooting for me.
Hours later and I’m sitting with my friend in a cafe, a place he heard about on Chronicle. Chronicle, I wonder. We’re thirty-years-old. Who watches Chronicle? My friend’s been described as an old man in a young man’s body, which is fine. He’s my only friend who’s really into film photography, and he normally uses a camera from the 1970s, but not long ago I gave him a more modern machine, a Minolta from the ‘80s. The new-fangled LEDs and aperture priority auto-exposure are foreign to him, and we chat about how it all works over espresso and lemon poppyseed muffins. He’s really interested in the mechanics and engineering behind these old machines, and we’re both more than happy to chat cameras, and life, for as long as the coffee lasts. It’s a great time.
After a while it’s time to shoot, and for the first time in a long time, getting out to shoot requires no packing of bags, no manipulation of dangling cameras, and no stuffing of extra lenses into vacant pockets. All that’s required is to stand up with the M3 in hand, and walk out the door. It’s amazing in its simplicity.
Out on the street it’s about 20º F, and the frigid wind howls through the urban canyons of Boston’s Theatre District. Pedestrians shuffle along the frozen streets, mummified in their layers. The January day is overcast, and the whole world seems rendered in grayscale, meaning I’ll be less interested in shadows and light and more interested in people. Everyone is wearing black overcoats, black boots, black hats, and they alternately blend in or stand out amidst the dark grays and bright whites of the surrounding stone edifices. It makes me glad I’m shooting black and white film.
We take some time to shoot under the Paramount, an old theatre. The Leica is new to me, and I’m not completely sure I’ll be getting any of the shots the way I envision them in my mind, but I shoot anyway. Using a slow shutter speed, I try to capture the motion of the bustling passersby. The 50mm focal length isn’t the most dramatic at this angle, but I’m not putting too much pressure on myself to make an amazing image. I’m just having fun.
After that, we decide to head toward Chinatown, a favorite location of mine for street shooting. It’s one of the most interesting places for street shooting, and an entirely different world than the one I’m used to. It’s also about as unpretentious as it gets in Boston, a merit in my opinion. Plus, you can get a great deal on value-packs of Pocky.
Strolling through the streets we come across the typical vignettes of life in this ethnic enclave of Boston; groups of men in closed-off circles smoking cigarettes in the cold and playing familiar games together, restaurants puffing exotic aromas into the air, assemblages of slow-moving Tai-chi practitioners seemingly impervious to the cold.
As we delve deeper into side-streets and alleys, the conversation between my friend and me slows, eventually ceasing altogether. Our eyes are open, we’re taking it all in, looking for something interesting to shoot. I hear his mirror flapping and his shutter happily clanking away, while the Leica functions in virtual silence. Just something I notice.
Passing in front of a noodle shop, I pause to shoot a neon sign, the only garish thing glowing in the bleak, January scene. Focusing with the Leica is a bit tricky for me. I’m not used to it, and I’ve not shot a rangefinder since reviewing the Petri F1.9 back in the warm days of summer. The Summicron has a pretty long throw and a minimum focus distance that’s fairly long at 3.5 ft, another aspect of the camera that I’m just not used to. Still, it’s a pleasurable way to shoot, and one I’m sure I’ll fall deeper in love with the longer I use it.
My friend asks me what it’s like to shoot with the Leica, so I begin relating my thoughts to this point when I abruptly notice a man staring at me. He’s squatting on the sidewalk, smoking a cigarette, and puffing exhaust into the air with a scowl. I distractedly continue chatting with my friend, but my eyes are locked on the grimacing man who unflinchingly stares back. He’s an interesting looking guy, with a fluffy white beard framing a surprisingly youthful face. With our eyes locked, he pulls a drag from the cancer-stick and carelessly blows it up at the pedestrians passing in front of him.
I don’t typically enjoy photographing homeless people, especially with a camera and lens that have a combined value in excess of what many people earn for a month of hard work, but I’m not sure if he’s actually homeless or just not allowed to smoke in the house. In either case, he’s staring at me bitterly, and I feel that if an interesting looking person’s staring at me with obtuse hatred they at least owe me a photograph. I tell my friend, mostly joking, that he should probably get ready to run, squat down to the level of the staring man, and try to focus. But I’m not fast with the Leica, and he turns his head away just as I press the shutter release. Oh well.
We move on, and passing an open doorway, I pause, suddenly realizing what’s within the open door. Stacked floor to ceiling across the entire back wall of a closet-sized storefront are cages packed with chickens. They cluck and scratch lethargically at the bars. One cage is on the floor, the top open, and many chickens’ heads are poked through the opening like the periscopes of submarines.
The birds’ heads swivel mechanically, examining the room, their comrades in the cages, and the gaping door leading to the street outside. They must feel the open air, and know the freedom that they’d find a mere two feet away if only they’d flap their wings and bounce out the door. But they’re in no immediate peril, so they remain unmoved and insecurely caged.
I squat to the level of the birds, framing the shot so that the back wall and stacks of imprisoned animals are also visible. In the furthest recess of the room moves a man with a cleaver in his hand, and a chicken grasped by the throat. Its wings are spread, its legs and toes splayed like the branches of a leafless tree. Its fate is pretty obvious, and with its neck clenched tightly in the sinewy hands of the Chinese man with the knife, there’s no escape. He wasted his opportunity.
I’m trying to hurry; to set the focus, the aperture, and to lower the shutter speed on account of the darkness of the room, but it takes me too long. The man with the cleaver sees me, and he’s not very excited to have his picture taken. He starts yelling in a language which I’m ignorant of, and takes a few steps toward me while gesticulating with the cleaver. To hell with the settings, this is the decisive moment. I take the shot and, I presume the man’s advice as well by getting the hell out of there.
I spend the next few moments thinking how, at times, people are like the chickens. We can be a in a horrendous situation with danger and pain just ahead of us. There may be an escape just a few steps away. We may even see the oncoming disaster, see the escape, and comprehend it all. Why would anyone wait until it’s too late to act? Why is it that, sometimes, it’s not until the hand is tight around our throat that we look to change our fate?
A few exposures later I’ve exhausted the roll of film, and it’s time to reload. While I’ve never shot an M3, I’m familiar with hundreds of other cameras and they all share a common functionality. We duck into an alley and lean against the bricks. I flick the rewind lever on the front of the machine and start turning the rewind knob, but hesitate when I don’t feel the expected resistance. I keep rewinding anyway. Surely the film’s spooling back into the cartridge. Surely.
After a long time rewinding, I say to my friend, “It doesn’t feel right, and I can’t hear it rewinding.” He doesn’t offer much help, and after a dozen more seconds of turning the knob I assume the film must surely be rewound. I think to myself, I should probably just Google this right now, but I don’t.
I turn the lever on the bottom plate of the camera, opening the film compartment, and lift it as gently as I can. With horror, I see the film still wrapped around the take-up spool and slam the camera shut. Shit. What an idiot. Then, as if I’d known all along, my fingers robotically pull up on the rewind knob. It clicks into place and allows for rewind. There it is. What an idiot.
I rewind the film, properly this time, and stash the canister in my pocket. I’m pretty disappointed in myself, and worried that the photos are ruined. I can’t stop thinking about how badly I’ve messed up. I’m kicking myself the entire way home, eventually resigning myself to the idea that my shots are likely ruined.
As my friend and I part ways he asks me if I’ve fallen in love with the Leica.
“I don’t know.” I reply truthfully.
“Are you going to sell it?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Also the truth.
A week later I’m excited to get the prints back from the developer, and when I do I’m both surprised and disappointed. Some of the shots come out well, some are peripherally affected by the light, and others are nowhere to be found. At least the too-slow shot of the angry, smoking man is only half-ruined, I muse. Most disappointing of all, the shot of the chicken and its executioner is gone, lost to my idiocy.
As I review the images taken that day, it occurs to me that I wouldn’t have made any of them if I’d taken that bulging camera bag with me. I’d have taken test shots for bokeh, sharpness, chromatic aberration, and distortion. I’d have a notepad full of the pros and cons of the Series E Nikon lens as it relates to the Nikkor line. I’d have some digital shots that would technically outperform the shots I made with the Leica. I’d have 40-something exposures hastily taken with a Yashica and a Canon. I’d have thought little, enjoyed little, but accomplished much.
In short, I’d have had no fun, and for another week photography would’ve been just a task to be accomplished. Instead, shooting that day was a joy, a pleasure, and an experience. Even though many of my shots were ruined by a bumbling mistake, I still took those shots, and I still have those memories.
Sitting at my desk later on, I look again at the notes still strewn about and the outline still half-written. I minimize the window, shuffle the notes together, and place the stack to the side. I’ll get to that soon enough.
I’ve realized that it doesn’t matter very much if I get everything done, it doesn’t matter if my photos are any good, and it doesn’t even matter if other people like them or don’t. It doesn’t matter what camera I use. What matters is that I take the time to shoot. Whether it’s with a Leica, or a Nikon, or an iPhone, what matters is that I remember to make the time to shoot for no other reason than to make images.
When things get chaotic and work is oppressive it’s easy to forget what makes us truly happy. Making images is the only thing I love to do. While I don’t need an M3 to remember this lesson, if keeping the Leica is what keeps me remembering, I may just have it for life.
Casual Photophile is on Ello, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.
Shop Adorama for all things photography
