Shooting Leica Ms and a Hasselblad 500 CM in the Canadian Rockies

It’s still a little unbelievable, but my son was recently gifted an extensive collection of vintage high end still equipment that had been sitting in a friend’s basement for decades.  It was an incredibly generous gesture by his friends, but no one in their family had taken it on when it was passed down by the woman who built the collection.  When they learned my son was taking a photography course in college, they invited him over and loaded six or seven camera cases full of top professional camera equipment from the 1960’s & 70’s into a cab — with the only condition that he would use it personally and/or share it with people who would.  Our jaws dropped when we laid everything out on our dining table and took an inventory — it was a cornucopia of legendary gear!  So much so that my son was able to lend me a Leica M2 with a 50mm Summicron f2 and a fairly complete Hasselblad 500 CM kit with the ‘classic’ set of Zeiss primes from wide to telephoto, including the famous 250mm lens that was used to shoot the Earth rising over the Moon from an Apollo capsule.

I’ve always been interested in photography and have owned a range of different cameras over the years, going from 1950’s era American made hand-me-downs from my dad, through a variety of mass market film and digital cameras, culminating with a mirrorless micro 4/3rds with interchangeable lenses.   I had never dared to dream of shooting with either a Leica or a Hasselblad; both legendary brands seemed glamorous and out of reach, something that wealthy people or famous professional photographers would use.  And then out of the blue, I suddenly had one of each!

I also had a new hobby/mission – to teach myself still photography on these 100% manual mechanical marvels!  I had never gotten deeply engaged in the photographic process with any of my prior cameras, perhaps because they were increasingly automatic and electronic; because the camera was making decisions about focus, aperture and/or shutter speed on my behalf, I wasn’t learning much about how to make better shots.  I’ve been having a blast going ‘old school’ without any of that, but with lots of trial & error learning to calculate exposure, hitting focus when the depth of field is narrow, and most importantly to be patient rather than trying to make an interesting photo in bad light or when there isn’t anything to draw either your eye, your heart or your brain into the image.  I also learned the hard way that it’s wise to service cameras that have been in storage for that long before shooting a lot of film with them.  It’s been a little bit like learning to drive a Ferrari and a Rolls Royce at the same time after they had both been under tarps in some garage for 30 years!

Being on the edge of the Canadian Rockies, where I’ve been since July on a job, has been an amazing place to be when you’ve been bitten by the shutter bug. I’ve been fascinated by where the two different systems have been leading me in terms of what I end up shooting on medium format vs. 35mm.  My best landscapes are all with the Hasselblad.  This was shot on December 16th in Canmore from an old 19th century railroad bridge over the Bow River (you can see a large metal I-beam on the lower left of frame.) I love the fine grain and rich blacks and the full dynamic range of the image with the reflections of deep shadow and bright light in the river.

This was on December 15th standing on the frozen surface of Lake Louise at dusk.  I went shooting with Marc Laliberte, a friend who happens to be a very talented film and tv cinematographer.  We were taking turns shooting on the Hasselblad by swapping backs until we lost the light.  The Hasselblad’s ingenious modular system that includes interchangeable film backs makes it possible to switch film stocks without needing to shoot out a roll in progress — or on that day for two people to take turns shooting with one camera.  With some exposure advice courtesy of Marc’s much more trained and experienced eye, it feels like we caught the “Magritte moment” in a landscape.

The next morning on the same roll I caught the moon handheld over Canmore as the sun started to light up the tips of the mountains.  There is something romantic about shooting the moon with a Hasselblad…

Speaking of celestial formations, this shot of the Aurora Borealis in Kanaskis was a 1 minute exposure wide open, notice the elongated star trails from the rotation of the earth; I figured out how to use a cable release on the Hasselblad for the first time that night.  There was a crowd of people out there that night shooting on digital cameras and seeing instant results.  I was the only person shooting film and had to wait about a month to see it.

This shot was something of a happy accident. I had done a reasonably strenuous hike (for me) straight up a mountain to take some shots of a pair of beautiful emerald green alpine lakes just outside Canmore. As I started to work my way back down a path that felt about right for a mountain goat, I thought the clouds and sky against the big granite face of the mountain looked interesting in a black and white way, in contrast to all of the color shots I had been taking of the lakes.  So I put on the red filter and the black & white back and grabbed a quick shot before putting the camera away.  This wasn’t the shot I was looking for when I went up the hill, but it was the last and best thing I shot that day.

Part of the advantage for a newbie like me of shooting landscapes with the Hasselblad system is that geological formations are by their nature immobile and don’t move away or get tired or bored while I fiddle and fumble through setting up a shot.  Everything is a deliberate choice, from picking the right lens, to which film back/stock to use, to making sure you are metering correctly for whichever stock you are using, and then re-metering because you forgot to actually change the shutter and aperture on the lens after deciding on the right settings for the shot you want. Focusing, framing and leveling backwards through a mirror requires you to think of nothing else while you are doing it.  Then when you think you’re ready to fire a frame, you realize you forgot to pull the dark slide.  Finally you can shoot!   It’s amazing for mountains and lakes and rivers, but I have yet to get a truly satisfying shot of my dog!

If the Hasselblad is the perfect instrument for the most precise and beautiful image that you can make, given enough time and the right conditions, or control of lighting and a cooperative subject, for me the Leica feels like the perfect instrument for capturing a moment or telling a story.  While I’m still learning, the Leica’s combination of the large bright integrated viewfinder/rangefinder that doesn’t see the world in reverse, the way the controls are laid out so you can swing the camera, focus, shoot and advance to the next frame with minimum fuss, and having triple the number of frames to play with on any given roll make it much easier to be ready to grab shots quickly and respond to what is in front of you more intuitively.  Because of its relatively compact size for a high level professional grade camera, it’s also that much easier to have it with you at any given time when you find yourself in front of something that might make a cool photo.

This is one of my favorite shots on 35mm, made with the Leica M3.  I grabbed it in the final moments of a short winter’s day; there was something both eerie and romantic about the attractive young couple having a private dinner in a glass dome under the dusky sky at a luxury hotel in Banff. I love how the reflections and the clouds both heighten and obscure the mood and wonder what kind of evening they are having.

I was drawn to the strange poetry of this Lethbridge, Alberta pawn shop’s window display, “We Buy Broken Gold.” Brief and to the point, but rich with implication.

I was lying full length on my side on the frozen bank of Bow Lake to shoot this snowman, which was only about 18 inches tall. I was trying out a wide angle lens from the late 50’s.  (I’ve started a small collection of vintage  lenses both for the fun creative possibilities as well as affordability.)

This was at Lake Louise in December when the lake was fully frozen over.  This may not be a ‘top ten’ shot of mine technically; it’s fairly grainy and there isn’t much detail in the shadows.  But I’ll live with some imperfections if the shot draws me in mentally or emotionally. On the day, I was intrigued by all of the people enjoying the frozen lake and tried to get a shot that evoked Pieter Breugel’s paintings of skaters in Holland, and I think this came the closest.

I think my shot does maybe feel a bit ‘timeless’ until you notice the person in the foreground taking a selfie with an iPhone.  Marc and I had an interesting philosophical chat about shooting landscapes that are busy with lots of people, and my thought has been that people are often part of the landscape so I don’t go too far out of my way to avoid them if the shot feels cool.

On the theme of treasured shots that have some technical issues, early during my time in Calgary I spent two days at the Tsuut’ina Nation Pow Wow shooting the indigenous people at their annual summer gathering.  They were extremely impressive, dignified and welcoming to non-indigenous guests and it remains a high point of my time here.  This was one of my first photo outings with the M2, before I had it CLA’d.  Everything I shot that weekend came out a bit underexposed and quite grainy, but perhaps as a result this feels like it could be 150 years old and might be my single favorite shot so far.

Note:  The 35mm shots on this post were a mix of frames shot on an M2 and an M3.  My earliest shots are with the M2 my son was gifted, but after I got it CLA’d (thank you, Gary Clennan) my son reclaimed it.  I was by then so smitten with the Leica system that I picked up a late model M3 single stroke from a leading photo gear upcycler.  I chose the M3 both because many camera enthusiasts rate it as the high point of the famous M line of cameras, but it also happens to be one of the more affordable M bodies on the second hand market compared to more recent models.   I love my M3 and now find myself carrying it with me far more than any other film camera I’ve ever owned.

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