All posts by Thomas Pindelski

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Leica – Witness to a Century

Book reviews, Leica

A fine chronlogy, if factually flawed

I picked up my copy of this book a couple of years ago from overstock bookseller Edward R. Hamilton for a few dollars. It’s actually worth that sort of money.

This is the last place to go for factual accuracy regarding the various Leica models; I am no maven but could scarce find a page without several technical errors accompanying each of the illustrations of the many models of cameras made by Leitz over the years.

On the other hand, the book does a fine job of showcasing the work of some great photographers from Oscar Barnack, the inventor of the Leica (he was a fine photographer), down to modern times. Especially pleasant to see is the work of a couple of relatively unknown Italian photographers, probably attributable to the nationality of the Italian author, Alessandro Pasi.

And, technical errors apart, who can argue with the caption for the M3, first sold in 1954? “The turning point: Leica M3”.

Indeed.

Print the facts, forget the rumors

Photography

The best photography company publishes the best results.

Before someone accuses me of conflicted bias, let me confirm two facts. I am conflicted, as I own a boat load of Apple stock, and I am biased for the same reason. And as long time readers of this journal know, I am also a customer, electing to put my money where my mouth is.

Today, confirming that Wall Street analysts for the most part commit grand larceny every pay day, Apple published its fourth quarter results, disclosing iPod sales up 34% (the analysts had it that the iPod had ‘peaked’) and excelling in all other areas, with dramatic growth in notebook and iMac sales. Now watch all those analysts become historians (they get paid for that?) as they raise their earnings targets.

And all of this is before iTV hits the shelves, allowing you to route movies from your Mac to your TV. Then add the forthcoming iPhone, which will be the first cellular phone that will have proper ergonomics, and you have a company on a roll.

For this user it’s the iMac and Aperture and iPhoto which constitute the most powerful photographic triumvirate ever known to man. Forget front end gear. Any one of dozens of cameras by Canon, Nikon, Leica, Sony, Samsung, HP, Casio, Pentax, etc. etc. can take great pictures. It’s delivering them to the viewer that matters and that’s where Apple’s products excel.

So do yourself a favor. Make some coin for that next camera, or better, for that iMac, and buy the stock. Generally, it’s best to buy right after some two bit bed wetter calling himself a stock analyst, one better suited to garbage collection where he can pick up his detritus, pontificates that the stock is a ‘hold’ (Wall Street euphemism for ‘sell’) or a ‘sell’ (Wall Street euphemism for ‘run for the exits’). These fellows are the perfect contrarian indicator.

Don’t believe me on analysts? Try this well informed Apple Blog which appropriately bestowed its Jackasses of the Week award on two analysts from a purportedly reputable firm.

Apple used to leak famously; now that Jobs has learned his lesson, leaks are punishable by death. So the company blithley refuses to comment on Wall Street noise and just delivers the goods. And the financial results.

As for that option thing? Forget it. No way the US is going to lock up the most popular man in America.


The world takes notice. Apple stock over the past six months.

Apple. The best imaging company in the world.

Take 55

Book reviews, Photographers

A useful and inexpensive photography book series

There are many photographers whose work I enjoy but not enough to splash out big bucks on a monograph of their work.

Enter the ’55’ series of small paeprbacks published by Pahidon.


Panasonic Lumix LX-1 included for scale

I think that means there are 55 pictures in each 128 page book, as they are printed one every other page, with descriptions on the left. Phaidon says that their goal is to emulate the Penguin paperback pheneomenon of the 1930s which made so much great literature available inexpensively to so many. They want to do the same for photography. A laudable goal.

These are easily obtainable remaindered from on-line booksellers. I generally pay inder $4 (under $4!) for each. While the pages are small, the quality of printing is high and it’s an economical way of finding out if you want to learn more of an individual’s work.

Phaidon continues to list a dozen or so on what has to be one of the worst designed web sites of all time, and you can do better for less by simply going to Powell’s Books.

A part of me is no more

Cameras, Leica, Photographs, Photography

After 35 years, my Leica M3 is sold.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.

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.


A great shutter, one last time

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.

Did he, or didn’t he?

Photographs, Photography

Decisive moments don’t last.

In London, on business back in 2000, I made a point of taking some time off and rambling around the charmed streets of Mayfair, where my hotel happened to be.

Something of a throwback as I had not seriously indulged in street photography since leaving New York in 1987, having left London – heaven for street snappers – ten years earlier.

On this trip I brought along the Leica M6 (a camera with a flawed rangefinder which flared out at the drop of a hat) and but two lenses – the 35mm Asph Summicron and the 90mm Elmarit-M. You could go around the world with little more and have just the right equipment for nearly all photographic opportunities. And this was before everyone passing through an airport was subjected to deadly levels of rays passing for security. Not so good for film stock either.

This decisive moment stuff is not as difficult as it seems, with a bit of practice. The secret is in anticipating the juxtaposition of subjects a few seconds before things come to pass. The result is unhurried and fairly predictable, though a stroke of luck never hurts.

For those who love London – and absent the weather what’s not to love? – these obviously wealthy women were making their way down Conduit Street from Berkeley Square. I always made a point on London trips of paying a visit to the Rolls Royce dealer in Mayfair, not as a prospective customer, but merely as one gawking at the latest and greatest in their showroom. That day it was a gorgeous yellow pre-war Rolls.

I spotted them some fifty yards away, allowing me time to mess with that awkward meter and pretending to gaze at the car in the showroom. As they passed me it was the work of a second to raise the camera to eye level and press the shutter. Only as I was doing so the street smart one of the two cast a backward glance of undiluted anger at me. On the one hand she was probably concerned that her privacy had been invaded. On the other, she couldn’t quite be sure whether her likeness had been captured or whether this was just one more tourist taking a picture of an exotic car. Adding to her confusion was the fact that I was wearing my ever present Harris Tweed cap, like a proper Englishman. You can see my reflection in the front side window of the car.


The Angry Woman. Rolls Royce dealer, Conduit Street, London, 2000. Leica M6, 35mm Summicron.

I delayed pressing the button for the merest moment as she looked back at me and the picture was in the bag. It says everything I like and dislike about the English dowager in one decisive moment and is a pleasant memory of a fine trip.