Leica M4-P

Throwback Thursday / No. 0001_15

0001_15 Mission Street, San Francisco 2003 About 13 years ago I bought a really beat up Leica M4-P on a whim, borrowed a lens from a friend and hit the street. Fifteen frames in I made this photograph and it changed the way I looked at and made pictures forever. At the time I was shooting everything digitally, having given up on film because, quite frankly, that's what everyone else was doing then, and that's what everyone told me I should do. After I made this picture I took all my digital gear down to Camera West in Monterrey, California, took whatever they would give me in trade, and put it all into 35mm rangefinders. I never looked back.

Cameras don't make great photographs, but there is something to be said for stripping away all the bells and whistles of modern digital cameras and focusing on what is necessary, instead of what is on the bleeding edge of technology. Getting rid of all my digital gear and switching back to old film cameras made me realize that there is a huge difference between taking pictures, and making photographs.