Colorful or not? Street shots

Color and black and white for street shots. Kosher or sacrilege? These are mostly streetscapes, so there may be something to say about their not being "street" but then... Take a look.

Isolation, or poor frozen bike (M5, Nokton 35 f1.4 on Kodak Plus, at f1.4, 1/125.

Corner with light and snow. Same gear as above, and almost identical EV, but on Kodak BW400CN.

Chair-Line by the Water Tower, on Michigan Avenue. Same rig, lens slightly closed (probably at f2.8) and a nice shutterspeed (like 1/250).

Why is it I remember all this? Simply because the M5 requires me to pre-meter, almost as if I had a meterless body, so that in the final adjustment I know what changes I'm making instead of turning madly the shutterspeed dial or the aperture ring.

Any preference? Let me know!

The reason I picked a Leica

Here they are, some photographs from a trip to Cartagena in August 2003. They turned out to be good enough (and my wife praised them so much) that I decided it was time to get a Leica camera. I earned it. They were all made with my old Canonet G-III QL17 and color slide film (except for the B&W, which are in Scala). See for yourself...

Couple in the Cartagena walls (which circle the city).

The street that follows Plaza Santo Domingo, in 2003. It's changed a little ever since...

I cannot recall the name of this street, but I think it leads to the Plaza Rodríguez de Madrid, in the San Diego neighborhood of Cartagena.

I still have my Canonet. Selling it would be out of the question. It's been resting for a while, without a battery, and I don't know exactly when I'll pick it up again. But it took going to a town that was in the middle of its summer, and it reacted remarkably well to all the abrupt temperature changes I subjected it to. After buying my Leicas I still used it a couple of times... but never later. Probably it's about time to dust it off and take it for a walk.

Next time I may have some recent scans from a nice slide roll used in my M4-2.

What if I had done these with a digital camera?

I have traveled all over the place with my Leicas. Here's some evidence, mostly produced with my M6TTL bodies and my trustworthy Hexanon or my newfangled Summilux, both 35mm.

In Amsterdam, I managed to capture these three men, not too far from a busy, commercial area. The whispering queen (M6TTL) did its job and they remained unfazed, in an image that strikes me as representative of urban solitude.

The fleamarket near the North Church (I don't dare write the name in Dutch as I cannot recall it well), with lots of vendors offering their wares.

Here, with my 28mm Elmarit and Scala film, I photographed the sign just because it made me chuckle. I don't quite know why... but the "Welcome seafood" made me think of a cook beckoning lobsters and crabs into a kitchen, while hiding behind the back a large stash of pots and pans.

In Dresden, my favorite German town, we arrived one time right before dusk. Walking down the Elba river after crossing the bridge, we were treated to this sight. I can imagine what a digital P&S would have done with this image: "rectify" the colors on the stone walls (!!!), and fix that terrible sky.

Then, there's the issue with the sun in this image below, with the backlit rider, the yellow sky and the dark foreground...

Now, what would have happened to the photograph below? Probably nothing, as digital gizmos are notably efficient at registering night images. I wonder why, actually... It was good that I was using a Leica M6TTL and my Summilux for some of these photographs, and good old Provia ISO 400.

I will return soon, with further images from the M4-2 on slide film.