The M8

The day I was out shooting in Tucson….a buddy and I got there around 5pm and we were having a beer around 8. So, …what……give or take 3 hours of street work? I was with one of my film cameras and 35mm lens. I was also experimenting with my Voigtlander VC11 light meter which attaches to the hot shot of my Leica film camera.

Now,…loved it…loved it, loved it, loved it. A small learning curve cropped up I overcame. The camera is pure mechanical….nothing to help me as all manual. So the Light Meter was placed in the hot shoe but since the camera isn’t at all mechanical, it doesn’t read the settings on the meter like other cameras might. So, a few mishaps where I just shot without transferring those settings to my lens/camera, but ….it worked all in all. It takes one step more, so not fast. It almost pays to just use the sunny 16 and estimate, …time wise that is.

But as the sun faded, as it does fairly early in our western area…my camera soon found itself unusable. Simply no light. So I ended up walking around watching Robert have fun with his digital.

Yet like all things, …one needs to look at the silver lining which was this experience got me thinking. I need a (EGADS) digital camera for certain situations but, and this is a huge but….it has to fit my ‘analog craving’ lifestyle. Is there such a beast out there? So my homework was ahead of me and I did just that. I read up, questioned, was on forums etc… all on that analog / digital quest. And I ended up with my perfect style…my analog digital style. I found a camera that was an analog wanting to be digital, instead of a digital wanting to be analog.

A Leica M8, and while not a Monochrom, with the CCD sensor, it surely produced excellent BW images.. COSTLY….remember that. Don’t try this at home unless you are aware of the cost.

The M8. I only shoots in BW …period so color rendition beyond is useless to me. That meets my style. It is 15 years old…..with a crappy LCD you can’t read, …yet, I don’t want to even have a LCD so a crappy one is next best thing. Some other NO’s…

NO live screen….. NO exposure meter beyond center weighted (very limiting). NO automatic focus….all manual baby. NO wi-fi, NO video…NO SD card over 32 MB. NO usable ISO beyond 800. My style is showing. NO EVF but only an optical which is what I shoot with on my manual film cameras. NO ratta-tat-tat as continuous shooting is nil. NO quiet shutter sound. Can I get any more analog…any more like my Leica M6 or MA or Olympus OM1 or OM2? Just happens to have as an ‘output’ some digital files instead of negatives but wow, pretty dam analog.

The games begin…..

Down a Dusty Lane

Wickedly hot….. not normally a time I enjoy shooting. I picked up my legs though and slugged along down the barrio of South Tucson. Door country…..window country….. with a Spanish flair.

While not my usual shoot….I shot. The old barrio of Tucson has a shot around every bend, for each house being unique and covered with character. Cobwebs on some cringe along the wood. The rod iron that twists itself along each house and over, and thru…and around and on. I love iron. Rust….matte black…...tweaks of color from lost paint. Together with the doors and window I shoot in this area, I can find enough character to showcase a culture, still being defined as it passes with age.

But….dusty….a lane I take to the right soon stops, no where to go yet to backtrack. I twirl around and face the other direction and see a new dimension of view, as now I am returning, as opposed to going. A small door rests itself within an alley barely a foot in width behind a bush and between two walls. Seemingly to no where, a side door lays. Where does it go? It can’t open outwards for it would just bang into the wall opposite. Must be an inner door but who can fit in here? Who can slice their way thru a foot of space and then have the know-all to enter. Push the door open…. And does it open, or is it locked.

No knocker…..and no, no doorbell. Just a door caked with an outer layer of dust that tells time has passed without a visitor. I take a reading on the alley and take a snap or two with my camera & 35mm lens. I hope to. capture a span showing distance as well as peripheral. Does it turn out using my film?….not sure. But I have a memory and sometimes when I walk about, it isn’t always about the shot, but the memory that leads up to that shot.

Egads

I was with a friend today….to whom we just met in physical form as he came up from DC. to Philadelphia. Up until now, we have zoomed…texted, and shared images.

But a realization became apparent; that was he is a ‘digital’ nomad while I am a ‘film nomad’…. Not a lot of either of us blends to the others likeness when it comes to the end product. It is like I prefer an old dusty spy novel from the 1940’s and he prefers the latest from Lee Child or the like.

I eat up on random noise….I enjoy a scratch or two on my film….stray dust particles are a welcome site….water marks from developing is an imperfection element of perfection. Even stray light from an accidentally opened film canisters are a thing of beauty. … To me, sharpness is a bourgeois concept …blur is character. I enjoy shooting ‘into the sun’…. or purposely exposing wrong.…. or speed set too low to create a blur…. expired film…. The list of what can be done continues, not to mention the fuzziness of wide contrasty subjects and a general feel of messiness inherent in film.

My friend…. ‘none of that’….. No, none. He enjoys nose hairs on his images to be perfectly sharp. In fact, ‘sharpness’ is central to his thinking as focus peaking is key. Auto-mode is necessary. Using ‘live view’ and adjusting some toggle switch to set exposure and end product. Or, taking 5x the number of images I take and still end up with one good shot. Now I know he has knowledge, so don’t get me wrong. He has an excellent understanding of photography and I know that includes camera basics as he goes back in photography time, as long as I do.

But somewhere near Albuquerque we each took another turn and haven’t looked back. We both grew up in a film world….both embraced the Digital age as it hit upon us like a surfing wave. But yes, somewhere, sometime…our paths as photographers separated. He kept going down the Digital Nomad path and now has and believes in having the best camera and lens one can get. As he says, you only live once. And yes, I agree. I took the path back to the ‘film nomadic’ approach…..While on occasion I do ‘look back’ to that time we both were in Albuquerque (metaphorically speaking), yet each time I go out to shoot, I grab the film camera. Like him, I want the best….and have deemed my Olympus OM series from the late 70’s to mid 80’s as best; coupled with my vast array of Zuiko lens. And to boot, I do have a Leica MA plus lens if I prefer that route. All film though.

Now, we both go out and find approaches to viewing a scene or subject….we both look for light and wait for the scene to appear. Nothing really different. Just that the nomadic approaches we each have become married to, has been dictated to us almost via osmosis. Digital and Film… equally as different as painting with Acrylic or Oil or Water Color. That is recognized in the painting world, and now, we need to recognize that same difference in photography.

Creating Art

I still find myself in Australia, just five more days….. My Leica 1 ‘ate’ my film and split it. As I advanced the film with each shot, unknown to me, the leader splice on the film was being torn in half as it advanced. Eventually it clogged the advance mechanism leaving me no choice but to open up the back and rip it out. Within that ‘process’ of splitting and advancing, the shutter is now not working so a soon to be, CLA is in order. My Leica model 2, ….with my Russian 50mm, ended up being my main squeeze.

This past week saw me in downtown Melbourne doing some street work. Extremely enjoyable as I find Melbourne to be very conducive to Street work. My Model 2 with a Russian lens had me wondering but I quickly became familiar with it. And like most film cameras I shoot, it forces me to slow down….I was relegated to a 50mm which is not my preferred street use, as I enjoy 24-28-35…But hey, it all worked out. With those few days I shot around three rolls of film. Lots of alleys, lots of architecture and some interesting people I chatted with. . In a month or so, Christmas will come as I develop my film.

Yesterday though as well as today I turned things on end by taking out my Ricoh 11. This experience proved to be a remarkable difference in what I shot, how I shot….and the experience. Let me explain…..

First…. with film….I ‘create art’….. With digital, …I ‘take pictures. Indeed yes…there is ‘that’ much of a difference. With film, the process of determining exposure and honing in with focus, composure, framing ….all add to ‘creating art’. It simply takes time and it takes creativity. When I print my images I know the image I view is all because of what I did from the start. No light meter, no AP, no P mode…no exposure comp…nada. Just my wits.

With digital (Ricoh in this case) the process just felt rushed, a bit contrived even. I already know what my end result is as I can view the shots on the camera before I take it (Live view) and obviously after the fact. With ’ live view’ i visually set my composure comp and style even beforeI press the shutter. It is that easy. While the images come out strong, the process, the experience….the feel…..all differs in that it simply ‘lacks’. I follow Sean Tucker on You Tube who shoots with his Ricoh on the streets of London (not that much different in feel from Melbourne). He shoots ‘live view’ and knows he can visually gauge exposure and contrast etc just by looking at the screen. It is pretty easy. Even though I need reading glasses, in this case…I am not here to read the photograph in terms of sharpness etc….rather, I take a wholistic approach and view the ‘LCD’ screen for composure, how light is hitting it etc. It is all about the visual ahead of time.

Now I obtain nice shots…. yet surprisingly when I look back on my shots I still get about 1 out of 36 that just hit me as being those WOW shots…not much different from my film. But shooting digital has me leave the day with ‘a lot of shots’…. as opposed to 2 full days of shooting with film and only a few rolls. Digital is just taking shot, after shot after shot. After all, a benefit is that those shots are ‘free’….yeah! But with that lack of expense outlay, I find myself being less picky, less thinking….less experiencing each shot.

Bottom line…. as I have stated in previous blogs….my film shots just make me more creative and less reliant on just snapping away. The end result in numbers of WOW shots is about even, but that experience, oh that experience of film is the greatest intangible I can think of, and is what continually draws me back to photography.

For this recent trip to Australia, I am a bit remorseful in that I didn’t bring my Leica MA or my Olympus OM-1. Next time….they are in the bag.

I still have a few days left but not sure if I will get much of an opportunity to shoot, with the exception of ‘family’ like shots. I envision a few with my Leica with grandkids and scooters and yes, film..

Jan 18th 2023 Pima Air and Space

First blog of 2023….New Year!

Today I am going into Pima Air and Space in Tucson, Arizona to do a shoot. I was going to go with the wife as she could shoot her Canon AE-1 ( which she has had since it was brand new) and I with my Leica MA. We could have a competition of 50mm. But she banked out, so…..I will be able to most likely get in the ‘zone’ a bit easier now.

But I am looking forward to the angles, the sun….shadows…odd views, both inside and outside. I have a few rolls of 400 Fomapan and my MA….

UPDATE: January 23rd, 2023. I spent 4 hours at the museum and went thru 3 rolls of film. You can view my images on my project pages under Air Space.

I came in to this project wanting images that were unique, and not the everyday Plane snapshots that offer little creativity. My images were taken with “Geometry’ in Mind….’Shadows’….”Pieces of Planes’…. I wanted something that offered a perspective where I could document uniqueness.

This first attempt underexposed my indoor shots. I shall return and re-capture those.

The outside images were taken on a day were most were shot in the F8 and F11 @ 1000. I liked the result in which they present themselves. My lens was a 35mm Voigtlander instead of the 50 Summicron I had initially planned. I am happy with that decision as a 35mm allowed me a bit of expanse in the images. If I would have used a 28 or 24 I felt I might have cropped too much. A 50 would have allowed for little ‘expanse’.

The film I used was 400 Fomapan where it “illicits” a noisy…rough….gritty feel to it. Again, my style…my intent. I enjoy creating Zines and I can see where this project will eventually turn into a Zine.