After 35 years, my Leica M3 is sold.
Did I really needed to sell it? After all, it was so hard to buy, back on August 2, 1971. It had won many prizes and kept me in film and paper when I was a poor kid trying to make his way.
“It could be worth a lot one day” I thought.
“No, it’s a machine for taking pictures and it needs to be used. And I will not let it lie around gathering dust.”
Trying to console myself.
So right before packing it and including an autographed copy of my book, every picture in which had been taken with that M3, I ran through the shutter with the tape recorder on. There was that familiar second curtain bounce, common to all Ms, at 1/15th and 1/30th. The sound of the escapement on the slow speeds. The joyous sensuality of 1/60th or 1/125th. Not so much a click as a susurrus. The delayed action – so useful, I wonder they ever deleted it from later models.
But one thing none of the above can recreate is the feel of that Leica body and the flare free nature of the great view/rangefinder, equalled by the M2 and destroyed in later models by accountants who thought they knew better than the engineers.
And all those pleasant memories.
Pictures speak louder than words.
Roll 1, Picture 1 – a winner:
Girl on a train. My first ever Leica photograph, August 2, 1971. Roll 1, Picture 1. M3, 50mm Elmar, TriX
Then, but a few rolls of TriX later, that crazy wolfhound at Cruft’s Dog Show:
Crufts Dog Show, 1972. M3, 90mm Elmar, TriX at 800ASA
Or how about that tough guy with the balloons?
Balloon Guy, 1973. M3, 35mm Summaron, TriX
My first big prizewinner – Photographer of the Year, 1974, Photography Magazine (UK):
Comparisons, 1974. Reg Butler sculpture show, Holland Park, London. M3, 50mm DR Summicron, TriX
Or that Parisienne – I leave it to you to guess her profession:
Lady and dog, Paris, 1974. M3, 35mm Summaron, TriX
These and many more like it chronicle 1970s London and Paris in my book.
In 1977 that M3 accompanied me in the cabin of PanAm’s 747 with a one way ticket to America, leaving behind poor, socialist England, with its class distinctions, foul climate and punitive taxation.
And the magic continued, this time in color:
Late sun, Anchorage, Alaska, 1978. M3, 50mm Summicron, Kodachrome 64
Later, when the west coast beckoned, the M3 was just as much at home:
Ojai, CA, 1990. M3, 50mm Summicron, Kodachrome 64
But it would be disingenuous to preach ‘Change or Die’, as I am wont to do, and have this magnificent machine gathering dust in some never opened cupboard, a victim of digital technology.
So the Leica M3 had to move on.
May its next custodian have thirty-five great years with it.
Sob.