Confessions of a Leica snob

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On a trip to Florida in 1991 to see my old college roommate we stopped at one of the many outlet malls that dot the state. I bought a brand spankin new Kodak Super 8 film camera for $10. Twenty-two years later that still seems like a bargain. I shot two reels on the trip. When I got home I happened to find a fairly new Super 8 projector at a garage sale for $15. And like the camera, 22 years later that still seems like a bargain.

I don't know where you'd get super 8 film these days, let alone someone to process it. Today, one of the favorite features of my Nikon D3200 is 24p video. It gives you the same look and feel of movie film and with a little bit of post processing and turning off the sound during playback you can have that look and feel of old home movies shot on film.

Luckily black and white photography did not suffer the same fate as Super 8. It is an art form all of its own. You can read all over the internets about the virtues of shooting black and white photography, blah, blah, blah and blah. Some folks are vehement about it. I'll just say I like the look and feel of black and white pictures. It is as simple as that.

I was introduced to photography in college when somehow I landed in a photo journalism 101 class. Though I was a journalism major, I had no interest whatsoever in photojournalism and somehow got enrolled in the class through a computer glitch. Computers were not nearly as smart back then. At the beginning of each semester, if you got enrolled in the wrong class or decided to switch classes you had to wait in a long line or two, or three, at the registrars office to get things straightened out. That didn't appeal to me so I just took the class.

After the first day I was hooked, and I've never looked back. All black and white, all the time. To paraphrase the late TV painter Bob Ross: "There are no mistakes in signing up for college classes, just happy accidents."

And though I didn't realize it at the time it turned out to be a useful class. The first day on my first job out of college at my hometown weekly newspaper I was handed a camera. I would be shooting and writing. The late Bob Voris, the editor, was an excellent photographer and a master in the darkroom. I thought I knew a thing about news photography but he taught me some things.

The big thing: Get it right in the camera. Listen here, whippersnapper, when I started there was no such thing as PhotoShop, and there was the time factor, too. We were in the news business in at a small-town weekly; news meant fast. News was in black & white. Shoot. Develop. Print. No time to mess around fixing things unless we really had to.

While I didn't always meet that objective, I always strove toward it. Along the way I learned the nuances of black and white photography.

Shooting as a hobbyist now I take mostly color shots. For black and white shots I prefer using my Leica D-Lux 4 set on black and white.

I'll admit it, I'm a Leica snob. Even though I've read articles deriding the D-Lux as not being a real Leica, and save your money and buy a cheap point and shoot camera. I've also read that a any Leica camera in the hands of a crappy photographer still gives one crappy photographs. Listen up you D-Lux haters, it's the Leica magic. I think I'm a better photographer if I'm shooting with a camera sporting that distinctive red logo. And I'm not the only one who believes that.

Okay, so maybe the haters are right, just a teeny tiny bit,  but a lottery jackpot is the only way I will ever afford a real Leica. The D-Lux series is affordable - barely -- but if you spend some time with the camera and can master the clumsy manual interface you will get some good black and white shots. Color ones, too.

But as soon as I with the lottery I'm going to the camera shop to buy the latest digital M. Maybe two.