Leica M-D: Pure for the sake of . . . purity?

Thanks, friends. Such a fabulous tool. Though it may be silly to admit, I am learning to trust what it can do without knowing instantaneously whether I got the exposure I wanted or not. After all, for the past ten years, each of my digital cams featured instant feedback. And the feedback is addictive, like what’s contained in that ubiquitous Pandora Box, the iPhone.

I *do* tend to bring along a buddy camera with the M-D. It isn’t always a “seeing eye” digital, functioning like a Polaroid to check large format exposure, though the Leica T is good for that function, or the X100s. It may be one of my film Fujis, or the M7, since I am trying to maintain a roughly parallel parity between digital and film images—at least of the ones I plan, and also have time to make its analogue/backup.
 
Recently I worked on these images from Veterans Day in local cemeteries. I had the ZM 21 2.8 on the M-D, and the CV 35 1.2 on the M7. (Those negatives are not yet scanned.)
rve.

med_U45148I1550314962.SEQ.0.jpg


This grave is at the uppermost wooded edge of the steeps of Ferndale Cemetery. Our little town gathers at its feet. Egrets roost overhead at night. The family has left a folding chair for visits. I wanted to show the whole space from a neutral but genuflecting perspective.

med_U45148I1550314964.SEQ.1.jpg


I liked the boxed toy sports car placed as a memento on this grave, and decided to add my own symbolic memento, one of my tools for bearing witness.


med_U45148I1550314967.SEQ.3.jpg


The men you see in this amphitheatric Catholic parish cemetery, a bit further out from town, are VFW volunteers who came late in the day to harvest the little flags they had planted earlier that weekend. These are not the only local cemeteries they serve.

med_U45148I1550314966.SEQ.2.jpg
 
I had the Leica M-D fitted with Summilux 35mm v2 (circa 1972) with me on my bicycle ride this morning. I made four exposures with it, mostly near wide open. One caught my eye when I got home and looked at them:


Leica M-D typ 262 + Summilux 35mm f/1.4 v2 (1972)
ISO 320 @ f/1.4 @ 1/30​

The only processing beyond LR's default rendering I did on the original DNG was to crop it and add the border effect and framing. It just amazes me how beautifully this ancient lens renders. There is a sharpness and a softness to it that works so well.

enjoy,
G
 
Godfrey said:
😀

When I was younger, my bicycle was a 1972 Cinellii Criterium Racer (from 1983 until 2004), supplemented on and off over the years by a mountain bike. I realized in 2004 that I simply could not ride the Cinelli anymore with my damaged hip, AND it needed a complete overhaul, so I sold it to a friend who restored it. And wept. Couldn't stand to see it sitting unused any more. I loved that bicycle.

Returning to two wheels in 2016, after hip replacement and all the other miseries of the years had been beaten down, was the biggest emotional moment of the past two decades for me. I lived two wheels on bikes and cycles for so much of my life, from 1965 to 2004, almost as long as I'd been into Photography. To lose it was to die, in a way; to have it back is returning to my life from the Crystal Cave. 🙂

G
Click to expand...

I hear you Godfrey. Last week I was able to get out on the Beemer in the midst of our insane spring weather (multiple 70ºF days, then a major snowstorm, repeat). Was commenting to my wife that when I'm out on the bike, I'm twenty years younger. Have started looking around for a cheap mountain bike, as I slacked off cycling in my early 50's and sold off most of my bikes. Need to get the blood flowing again, and cycling does it with less shock to the joints than running (at least for me).

Best,
-Tim
 
Vince, lovely dry oxidized Western reds. The desert sky looks drinkably refreshing in contrast.

My wife and I will be moving southeast soon, driving I-40 more or less to North Carolina. Depending on the moving van’s schedule, maybe we will be able to set aside extra travel time in New Mexico for photography. I’d love to hear your suggestions about places and roads where you’ve found joy.

We’ll be transporting the family (3 terriers/3 cats) in the Outback, so I won’t be able to make serious off-road sorties or lengthy detours, but I’ll take any suggestion I can scout, abbreviate, bookmark for later.
 
rhl-oregon said:
Vince, lovely dry oxidized Western reds. The desert sky looks drinkably refreshing in contrast.

My wife and I will be moving southeast soon, driving I-40 more or less to North Carolina. Depending on the moving van’s schedule, maybe we will be able to set aside extra travel time in New Mexico for photography. I’d love to hear your suggestions about places and roads where you’ve found joy.

We’ll be transporting the family (3 terriers/3 cats) in the Outback, so I won’t be able to make serious off-road sorties or lengthy detours, but I’ll take any suggestion I can scout, abbreviate, bookmark for later.
Click to expand...

I'd be interested to hear about your relocation from West to East -- isn't the saying 'go West young man'?

For New Mexico, there are just so many places, it's really hard to choose one. However, if you want one of the best drives around, the drive to Los Alamos on Rt. 4 through Valles Caldera is hard to beat. The next best drive is way up in the NW corner of the state, from Shiprock on Hwy 64 west into NE Arizona. I just did that drive two weeks ago and it was beyond stunning. I also like the area of Chimayo, Truchas and Las Trampas -- a real 'energy' there, if that makes sense. In the SW part of the state, Lordsburg and Deming are worth a look. The other place - if you're at all interested in this sort of thing - is in Clovis. The town itself isn't all that compelling, but the Norm and Vi Petty Recording Studio is. You have to call ahead to make an appointment to tour it, but the recording studio is phenomenal. It's like they just closed the doors in 1967 and left everything intact. Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Duane Eddy, Jimmy Gilmer and Waylon Jennings are but a few of the artists who recorded there to get that 'Clovis sound'. Plus you can actually get up close to the items that are there -- I actually was allowed to play the Solovox organ that was used on Jimmy Gilmer's 'Sugar Shack'. Bet you wouldn't get to do that at Sun Studios or Muscle Shoals. Looking at the map, from Clines Corners on I-40 you could conceivably do an Encino-Vaughn-Fort Sumner-Clovis dip via Hwy 285 and then Hwy 60, and then head back up to I-40 at Amarillo. It's a bit of a desolate drive (though all the roads are paved and generally fine), but it would give you some real insight into the beautiful emptiness that much of New Mexico possesses. You'd also be in 'Billy the Kid' country down there 🙂

Another place just popped into my head - Canyon de Chelly in eastern Arizona. It's north of I-40.
 
Thanks, Vince! We’ll figure out what is possible and save the rest for a future trip.

Canyon de Chelly I know firsthand, as well as a few other on well-known byways like Four Corners, Canyonlands, Hovenweep, the Hopi mesas... it has been 35 years, though that is nothing to the time they inhabit.

I’m from North Carolina, and Linn my wife on retirement was ready for a new adventure beyond the rainy winters and cool summers of the Pacific W/NW. We almost bought a home and acreage in the Sierra foothills near Yosemite, but that whole swath of the intermountain West is high fire risk. You have to evacuate with short notice in lightning season. Not for us.

However, she so enjoyed a 2018 tour of the N.C. Piedmont and coast, my old friends and certain relatives, the relatively mild climate, that she suggested we move there. It’s an adventure we can afford to enjoy. We’ll be in a small town in the Sandhills region where my mother’s people once owned a lot of timber land they sold, now known as Pinehurst. A good many family members are buried close by, including my parents and sister. There’s a plot for me, too, if I want it.

I imagine that once I have time and inclination to develop and post after the move, some of the first results will be in this thread.
 
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