I now have a very long list of unwritten blog posts. I am so looking forward to hunkering down for the winter, and publishing at least a few of these. Just two more weeks' caravanning, and then I can make a start. It's hopeless to try while on holiday. Maybe I could dash a post off on the first evening, but thereafter photography will consume my time, and the blog can't get a look in.
If you blog yourself, you may have the knack of writing a piece that perfectly expresses what you want to say in just a few minutes. I don't have that gift. I have to allow at least two hours per post. If it's all text, with no supporting pictures, then there will be a lot of words to churn out, with - inevitably - infelicitous turns of phrase and typos to correct. I want to make it all flow well. Elegance is beyond me, but attention to good grammar and proper punctuation is not, and I will not be lazy about writing a post that can, at least, pass ordinary tests for acceptable English.
So what is the obsession that I have escaped? It's the adulation of all things Leica. Note that I haven't turned against the brand. Not at all. But my attitude towards Leica products has changed. I had allowed myself to be seduced or infatuated by Leica's luxury cameras, almost seeing them in a holy light. That's now gone, and I feel better for it.
I have owned three Leicas: I thought my next camera would be another, yet more expensive Leica. Maybe still not a new one, but a step up from what I had been using. And then on and on, until old age would curtail my ability to travel and take pictures. Ironically, less travelling would free up more money to spend on Leica equipment. There might be no stop to it. There's a Leica World around which I had been circling without fully plunging in. Leica had constantly drawn my attention to that World. It was enticing, inspiring, rather exclusive, definitely elitist, and peopled by some big-name photographers. But I won't be joining them now.
What has happened? Nothing sudden or traumatic. It's an accumulation of little disappointments over the span of several years, but recently coming to a head. And finally, a realisation that I had spent money and energy on Leica cameras without achieving any better results than I had with other makes of camera. The shots I took with my Wetzlar-made Leicas were beyond question very good; but in my vast archive of pictures there were plenty of photos taken with other cameras that could stand comparison with them. I'm not talking here about the capture of extraordinary detail, just for the sake of it. I'm talking about the creation of interesting and arresting pictures, with sufficient sharpness but no more, pictorial effectiveness being much more important than any technical metric. Some of those other cameras I had used were from way back: I'm thinking particularly of a Canon I bought in 2006, and a Nikon I bought in 2008. And the camera that has outlasted every other since 2009, to which I always return, carries the famous Leica red dot but is a restyled Panasonic.
Earlier this year one of my Leicas developed a shutter fault a few days into a major holiday. It was my long five and a half week trip from Sussex to Northern Scotland, with a magical week on Orkney. You can imagine my frustration. I had to resort to the camera on my Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra phone. That phone performed excellently. Thank goodness it did! I didn't like the awkwardness of taking photos with it, but it more than did the job, and I especially appreciated its telephoto abilities.
On my return home, I had the Leica's shutter repaired - actually, replaced - at very reasonable cost. But some psychological damage had been done. A device that I thought was so well-built that it might outlast me had faltered. My faith in it was blown. Ongoing, what might fail next? One thing that I didn't immediately notice was that opening up the camera for repair had somehow rendered a thumbwheel inoperative. In other words, fixing one thing had created a new issue. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. It's like having a major repair done on a car, or installing a major new part. The car is never quite the same afterwards.
I had no idea why that thumbwheel wouldn't now work. Nor was I keen on trying to get it fixed: that seemed like throwing away yet more money, for an unknown outcome. The loss of functionality didn't matter for my ordinary daytime pictures. But there was no longer any way of making a time-exposure, as I couldn't set the shutter to open for more than one second, whether manually or automatically. So no more shots of starry night skies.
Meanwhile my Samsung phone, and (once home) my Leica-badged Panasonic camera, had together come up trumps, and between them had delivered thousands of memorable shots. And I awoke from the Leica Dream. I didn't feel disappointment, so much as a sense of liberation. I still considered Leica a name to salute, but not necessarily to revere. And now I was free to consider other makes.
So if I were at this moment in the market for another camera, I would probably look closely at a Nikon mirrorless with a 24mm prime lens. That's the focal length I use most. And for my occasional telephoto shots, I might as well stick with the phone. A minimum kit, and at far less cost than a new Leica. No worship or elitism involved. Sorry, Leica.
