Missing an old friend
Reflections in the otter pool, Portland Zoo, Oregon
No, none of these children are old friends of mine; the friend I am missing is the Leica M6 with which this picture was made in July of 2000. I still have it but it has not been used since the day, a little over five years ago, when I bought a Nikon D100 and walked through the looking glass into an all digital world.
In July of 2000, I had just fulfilled a dream and bought an all manual, all mechanical rangefinder for more money than I had ever then (or since) spent on a camera. The only non-SLR that I had owned since the Kodak Instamatic my parents had given me for passing a 5th grade exam in (cough) 1969.
I could sell it, I should sell it. Why haven’t I? I won’t ever use it again, not really use it, so why not sell it?
All the usual things they say about Leica M cameras are true; the good, the bad and the terrible. Loading film into it is a royal pain and I had several very undecisive moments where the leader had failed to catch on the take up spool. On the plus side: to the modern eye this camera is almost invisible and silent; anyone who does notice it is certain you can’t be serious, not with that old fashioned point and shoot thing. I love the way it feels in the hand, and I really love its refusal to do anything for you – all manual, all the time.
But I think the true reason why I have not sold my M6 is because of a different type of decisive moment: I purchased and used it in the final days and months before the inflection point at which the balance of serious photography tipped from film to digital. It is the thread that connects me to the old world on the other side of the looking glass; perhaps the only thing I will ever have in common with Cartier-Bresson, Elliott Erwitt, Robert Frank and Ralph Gibson. It is the British accent that I still have despite now being an American citizen.
