My huge preference for M Leicas stems largely from the fact they seem to vanish from people's consciousness. Part of this is their smallness, another part of it is their great quietude. Even in projects like my current work -- a commissioned biography in which I am constantly photographing my subject as he talks about his life -- the Leicas made a huge difference: while my SLRs (K Pentaxes) not only distracted him but made him obviously self-conscious, the Leicas quickly receded into the environment, whether in his study or outdoors, with the result that what materializes on the film is the real person, not a facade.
Another part of this is that when one shoots with an SLR, one's entire face is masked -- the photographer becomes a cyclopean camera-face -- while when one shoots with an RF camera, at least half one's face remains visible, reassurance that the subject is interacting with a human being not a robot. Then when the subject relaxes, so does the photographer: the doorway to the Zen aspects of photographing.
Don't know when or how I learned this save that it was a very long time ago, no later than 1967, more likely earlier, and probably a composite of working experience and reading (mainly Susanne Langer, Daniel Schneider, Eugen Herrigel).
As to street photography, I find there's a huge geographic difference in how people react: in NYC you're invisible or an object of amusement, in Seattle (where there are severe statewide legal restraints including at least one successful lawsuit against a newspaper), street photography can land you in the hospital as an assault victim, with the judge subsequently throwing out your effort at legal revenge by ruling that you started the fight merely by pointing the camera at your assailant.
The newspaper lawsuit is particularly instructive: one of the Puget Sound area's major dailies published a photo of an accident victim -- shot on a public highway by a staff photographer. The subject sued for invasion of privacy and won a huge judgement under state law. This occurred in the late 1970s -- the judgement was handed down maybe in '79 or '80.
If I remember correctly, the paper was The Everett Herald -- its loss in court all the more significant because it is -- or was then (don't know today) -- owned by The Washington Post, which lost the case despite all the legal resources at its command.
In this instance, WaPo ownership probably hurt far more than it helped: in the Puget Sound area, the hatred of Easterners and indeed anything associated with "Back East" was (and remains) the most intense and violent brand of xenophobia I have ever encountered anywhere, including as a civil rights activist in the Jim Crow South. It is venomousness of a magnitude that really cannot be imagined until it is encountered in person: note for example the region's 40-year rejection of adequate mass transit as "Manhattanization."
Because of this court case, local editors will not buy human interest pix -- street photos -- without signed model releases, and are very reluctant to purchase (or publish) even news photos that might be in the least bit controversial.
By the way: I moved to the Puget Sound area for its wilderness access, its trout fishing and the truly breathtaking beauty of its natural environment, not its (savagely anti-intellectual) local culture. When I left Manhattan in 1986 it was only because I believed the 1983 fire that destroyed all but a tiny fraction of my work had also ended my career. Twenty-five years later -- with that part of my life unexpectedly resurrecting itself -- I find it beyond ironic I'm in the one part of the U.S. where street photography is effectively illegal, prohibited both by law and the huge antagonism toward anything that bears an "outland" taint -- especially of Europe or "Jew York."
