This story begins with an afternoon drive through the local countryside accompanied by my spouse. The air was lovely and warm. The skies were clear. The weather was what we expect for late June in Ohio after enduring six months of gray flannel skies that accompany our winters and much of the spring. As we …
Breaking Digital Habits and Relearning Film With a Leica IIIf – By Christopher DellaCorte Read More
“Mountain sawn by angels”, so says the hymn of the Montserrat monastery. This mountain is a symbol of Catalonia and on its steep north slope is located the monastery (720 m.) that houses the image of Our Lady of Montserrat, patron saint of Catalonia. With vertical walls of hundreds of meters on its north face it is a paradise for climbers.
After years of working as a concert photographer, I decided to move to analog full-time last year. The transition wasn’t easy—I had to reconcile the comfort of shooting 900 frames during a two-hour concert with the inherently laborious nature of acquiring, handling, and processing film.
When I first saw the Leica IIIF, it was in a video someone posted on Instagram that demonstrated how to load film into the camera. I’d heard about these rangefinders being a real pain in the butt to load, but I thought, how hard could it be? I have a Leica M2. It can’t be too much harder than loading that. I’m a moron (just kidding). Blinded by the shine and beauty of it, as I often am when seeing a camera I like, I had to have one.
I only ‘returned to film’ last summer. The last time I really enjoyed photography before then was in the late ‘90s; mostly with medium format TLRs. My film photography rebirth has been a complete revelation to me and I now know what will keep me active and inspired when I eventually retire – something that has been weighing on my mind for some time.
