When I was growing up my father had an old Leica camera and I was amazed by it. He bought it in the late 40′s when he was in the Army and taught me how to take photographs when I was 10 years old on family vacations.
I purchased my first Leica M4 film camera in the mid 80′s. I loved the way it felt in my hands, but most of all, I really liked the quality of the camera and especially the lenses. When I went to UT in Austin, some of my friends had Leica’s but I could not afford a used one. Garry Winogrand, a famous street photographer, was one of my professors at UT in the Art department and that was his camera of choice.
Fast forward years later when I turned 50 and Suzi, my lovely wife, purchased the latest digital Leica and a 28mm 2.8 lens for me. She was able to find the new Leica M-240. There were over 300 people on a waiting list on the east and west coast for this camera. Suzi used her sweet personality and talked Arlington Camera into getting the camera and lens in time for a great gift for my birthday that I will treasure for the rest of my life. It’s the camera I used to shoot my musician and friend, Steve Miller, in concert recently.
The digital camera is made just like the film camera. It is all manual, even the focusing. This slows me down some, which is good, but it takes time to readjust to the manual focusing but it’s well worth it. When my father passed away my mother gave me my father’s Leica. Now I have two, the old film camera and the new digital camera.
Off the Wall is a weekly installment showcasing work from our staff that is currently on the wall in the DMN building.