Holiday? Relapse? A Night Out with My Leica M3

I made it almost three months into the Year of Only One Camera (my Rolleiflex 2.8F) but then – as some of you predicted – made the decision to allow myself a brief holiday from my resolution. I prefer “holiday” with its festive connotations to the somewhat more pointed terms my daughter suggested. (Relapse!  Failure!  Surrender!) At almost 18, she’s far brighter than I am, but I leave it to you, dear readers, to judge the depths of my sin.

My reason for this choice?  Wanting to shoot a roll of Kodak UltraMax 400 (not available in 120 format) on an evening walk when the violet hour in NYC was surpassingly beautiful and moody. Having 36 exposures to play with felt like a luxury, as was the chance to (at last!) use faster optics again. The lens I carried was my 1950s Canon 50mm F1.4, aka “the Japanese Summilux,” mounted on a trusty 1961 Leica M3.

As dusk was falling, I set off across the Manhattan Bridge, then wound my way through the streets of lower Manhattan to the Brooklyn Bridge, whose pedestrian overpass brought me back full circle home. Along the roughly 5 mile route I discovered an unfamiliar passage in Chinatown, Doyers Street, that I don’t remember ever traversing before, even after 35 plus years living hereabouts. Doyers reminds me of some of the tiny passageways you find in European cities, lined with restaurants spilling pools of light onto damp cobblestones (only here it is damp asphalt with signage in English and Cantonese or Mandarin).

The restaurants were filled to capacity, yet because of the recent rain a calm prevailed on much of the walk (at least until I got to the Brooklyn Bridge, which in any weather is packed with tourists).

Refreshed from my “holiday” out in the city with the Leica, I refrained from showing any New York attitude, even to the oblivious young man who kicked my ankle as I was making my way around one of the piers (he was taking a picture, so would need to be forgiven in any case).

The Ultramax 400 didn’t disappoint. Its punchy colors captured the violet-neon mood of the evening in fine fashion. The “Japanese Summilux” revealed its typically glowy character but also rendered things with just enough sharpness (despite the lens’s all-too obvious flaws) to hopefully be interesting. I hope you enjoy them.

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