[Leica] Living with a D!X, picking pockets with an M

[pmjensen <pmjensen@concentric.net>]

>In a way what you're saying about working
>with the D1X and with Ms could be said about working with any autofocus
>modern reflex camera and working with Ms - if you want to be unobtrusive,
>you can't shove an F100, F5, EOS1n, etc. - or a D1X - in someone's face.
>Once again, it's not a matter of brand, film v digital, etc., it's a matter
>of the right tool for the right job. 

I'd like to offer a counter line of thought on this by twisting it 
around. I don't think that you can be unobtrusive under any circumstances 
while holding a camera, of any type, in someone's face, even in a crowd. 
And, to that extent, it doesn't matter what type or size of camera you're 
using. My experience is that the larger and more obviously 
professionally-sized cameras reassure by virtue of their obvious function 
(and, by extension, the photographer's function or place in the social 
order). The Ms, by contrast and by looking insignificant, call into 
question why the photographer's broken the social contract and moved in 
so very close: is he going to pick my pocket (or some more amorphous 
fear)? What's he doing, what's his purpose here?

That's my projection, of course - no real way to tell the truth.

Instead of trying to be invisible, which comes off looking questionable, 
it might work better to be so persistently present that people eventually 
get bored and lose interest in your workings - then the interesting stuff 
can happen, and that's when the Ms gain the upper hand: by not constantly 
(re-)calling attention to their mirrors, shutters, motors.... But there's 
so much cultural stuff at work here, too: New Yorkers are far more 
tolerant of personal-space intrusion than, well, just about everyone 
else, as a for-instance.

[Slight digression. This whole topic presupposes wide angle lenses, I 
guess. It amazes me (in a good way) that some photographers are able to 
make such complicated, interesting images, spatially complex in two and 
three dimensions, with normal and longer lenses. Now recovering after 
years of being paid to please graphic designers, I've got a terrible 
personal aversion to anything that flattens the picture plane. 
Kon-see-kwentlee, I'm in everyone's face, all the time.]

At least that's my experience. In any case, I agree, >>it's a matter of 
the right tool for the right job.<< Thanks alot.

- ---Peter



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