Imperfection and Discomfort
A duck landing on Loch Morlich captured using a Novoflex 400 adapted to a Leica M11
This was originally published in my Prime Lenses Newsletter. You can sign-up for a weekly update to your inbox here.
Former guest of the show Thorsten Overgaard talked about going out with only one lens as opposed to a bag full of lenses. I’ve heard him say that if he has a 135 on the camera then he’s shooting that for the day and that’s it. I like this idea, constraints make for fun creative challenges. Coupled with this I have recently realised that it’s good for me to make images, come back, think about them and then go back to where I made them to try again. It’s obvious really. we see images from great photographers all the time and assume that they nailed it first go but there’s bound to be far more iterations in there that led up to that great, finished piece of work than we realise. The timing of this particular epiphany is also good as for the next few weeks the kids’ ski lessons are booked on a local mountain so I’ll be going back to the same place in different conditions for a few weekends in a row.
Shot using the 135 Tele Elmar f4
Armed with a lens I don’t use often and a new location we hit the snow covered peak. Leica cameras are occasionally labelled luxury or poser cameras online, usually by folks who’ve never used one or don’t really want to. The assumption seems to be that something that’s aesthetically pleasing can’t possibly also perform in challenging conditions. Come to think of it this is a lot like the criticism the Mac used to get. Can’t possibly be a real computer for real work because it’s also pleasant to use. First, they call you crazy …
Well, this weekend I took my M11 with a couple of Leica lenses, one from the late 80s and the other a modern 28 Elmarit, also often overlooked and sometimes maligned for their quality, up a local mountain in -15C snowy conditions and shot from about 9am through to the early afternoon. I had background Bluetooth transmission to my phone turned on, I was swapping lenses and going in and out of the cold and wind. It was a lot. As a tourist I don’t think I’ve taken a camera to more challenging conditions. By the end of the day I had made some images I really liked, the camera had worked flawlessly and I had over 20% battery left. The camera smashed it. The operator? Well, his hands eventually warmed up but I think it was a day later :)
The weather was an additional challenge to that of the one I was initially seeking, namely focusing a 135mm manual lens on fast moving skiers and non-moving landscapes. When Kaj O’Connell was on the show, we spoke about using long lenses for landscapes and I wanted to experiment with it too. I found that a lot harder than I’d expected. I could see the frame I wanted to make but 135 was often a bit too much reach and the amount of compression can lead to an image which feels a bit too flat.
The 135 is a lovely lens btw and very accessible in Leica terms. It made great portraits of the boys on the slope and I was able to track some skiers and get some passable action shots at f5.6 and f8. For the landscapes 90 would probably have been better so this weekend that will be my go to as we head back out.
Overall I’m really glad I took something unusual with me and that it challenged me. Recently when I’m sitting down to look at the images I’ve made it’s the ones that didn’t quite work that I like the most. I could sell all my Leica gear and buy a modern camera like a Canon R6 or Sony A7C with some fast long lenses and likely nail the action shots I’m after far more quickly with autofocus and IBIS but I think there’d be fewer happy accidents along the way and I feel like I’m learning something from the investigation and failures as opposed to something that might feel "good enough” after too few tries.
Last night I was speaking with Gajan Balan for this weekend’s episode and he used an analogy which I really liked where connections with people happen like the ball inside a pachinko machine. I feel this way about image making too. Those iterations, unexpected frames, half finished thoughts, I feel like that’s the route to creative satisfaction. Hope you find your own enjoyable pings along the way. Next week I have another unexpected ping to share.