[Leica] Theory and practice (slightly long, but on topic ;)

["Martin V. Howard" <marho@ida.liu.se>]

I first bought a camera in my late teens about 12 years ago.  I owned
SLRs for a number of years, before venturing into compact, fixed-focal
length rangerfinders.  I also dabbled in darkrooms for a bit, enough to
get caught by the magic of seeing prints develop in the glow of a red
safelight.

I'm the sort of person who (nearly) always aquires theoretical knowledge
before practical experience.  So, naturally, I bought loads of books on
photographic gear, composition, developing and printing before having
taken a single frame.

About five-six years ago I sold off all my cameras, because they were
not getting used, for one reason or another.  Recently, I was lucky and
fortunate enough to find a very nice Leica M3 with 50mm Elmar in good
condition and I bought it.

In trying to learn photography again, I've discovered something very
interesting: I know a fair amount of compositional theory, but I find
that the best pictures I take are ones where I haven't thought too much
about the composition, but just taken the picture.

Yesterday I was out photographing people in the summer festival going on
here in town.  For some pictures, I didn't have time to think about
composition, just raise the camera (prefocused) and take the shot. I
noticed that compared to the pictures where I carefully looked at all
the contents in the framelines, the quick pictures would "click" into
place. I could almost "feel" when things were in the right places, but
when I thought too much about it, then it was much harder to determine
when to press the shutter release.

Of course, being rather new to the camera (and photography in general
after my lapse ;) there were many shots that were "nearly" on, but where
I was too slow to catch the moment, any many others where I didn't even
have time to raise the camera to my eyes before it was gone. But I could 
feel it.

My point is twofold: First, my appreciation of Leica cameras has
increased tenfold. I've never experienced this feeling in my gut of
suddenly knowing "Bam! There's the picture", but with the 0.92x VF and
bright framelines of the M3, this seems to come natural.

The other point is that reading about theory, looking at photographs and
"priming" your brain seems to work, at least to some degree. OK, so I'm
the first to admit that I have a *loooong* way to travel before I start
taking pictures of consistent, high quality, but I'm tremendously
encouraged by this weekend's experience.

Perhaps that's the Leica's single greatest advantage: it helps you see
things that you otherwise wouldn't.  I've made a point of trying to take
at least 15 frames per weekend, by just walking around with the camera.
I find that I pay much more attention to my surroundings, the quality of
the light, and the compositional details of things I see than I ever
did before.  I can't see that happening with an autoeverything plastic
SLR.

M.

- -- 
Martin V. Howard, Application Systems Laboratory,     | 
Dept. of Comp. & Info. Sci., Linkoping University,    | Just DOHH it!
SE-581 83 Linkoping, Sweden.  Tel +46 13 282 421,     +----------------+
Fax +46 13 142 231; marho@ida.liu.se; www.ida.liu.se/~marho