Oh hey another Leica M6… let us not worry about that too much. Enough has been said. The feeling. The simplicity. The expense. Either way, it was a camera I bought myself to document the expansion of our family when our daughter was born just over two years ago. Now, it goes with us when we go out allowing me to take photos of our time together. Several lenses, not all of them Leica. Such is life.
I sort of remember when my father handed me The Brass Brick as I unaffectionately called it for years. Not precisely, but at least withing the ten year bracket that was the 1990s. It was a camera he had bought years before in St. Petersburg during a Russian winter when his trusty Canon failed to function, a solid block of pointless weight in his bag. Some things we can’t overcome, batteries and severe temperatures still don’t play well to this day.
Hello old friend. We have previous. But that is ok, I’m happy to take you out and walk you around. Doing what you do best. Capturing moments in time. Moments he’d nod curtly at and enjoy. I hope.
My neighbour called around a few weeks ago with a box, a big box, full of cameras. They belong to her father who, as with many things, is moving inexorably onward in time. No longer what he once was he’s moved into care with other people and his possessions are moving on to other homes. From what I know of him he was an avid photographer, and the box I was handed “to see if there was anything worth keeping” was a veritable treasure trove. A Contax 2, a Nikon F2 with 7 pro lenses, an old Brownie Mk1, and among other things a Nikon Nikkormat.
It is dark. Cold. Wet. Normal really. Spring in the Calderdale Valley is not a time to rejoice for the green shoots of a new year, but a time to wait for the sun to finally crest the skyline and flow like syrup along the valley floor. It is not that winters here are as …
