I’ve been enjoying my modified Leica SL … FrankenLeica … or Frank for short (see a previous and entertaining entry on this) … and my Leica M2 and M3 cameras this year quite a bit. There really is something special about using these wonderful machines built in a time when … well … things were really built. The form factor, the metal construction, the weight, the tactile pleasure! I know, you have heard if all before. In my opinion it’s all true, but for me the critical feature common to these old rangefinders and SLRs are their viewfinders. When I look through them I see a clear, bright and mostly uncluttered view of the world.

Yes, you might say that the Leica SL has a needle (f stops) and a “lollipop” thingy (shutter speeds) that move, and when they intersect indicate correct exposure. And shutter speed information is visible at the bottom of the viewfinder. All true, but since my newer ROM lenses are not coupled (again, many thanks to Don Goldberg for solving this problem!) and I don’t use a battery, the meter is therefore fully inoperative. Only the lollipop is visible and how much I see of it is based on the shutter speed selected. If you don’t want to go the Leica route there are similar vintage and beautifully made SLRs that don’t have a meter at all, such as the wonderful Asahi Pentax SV. And many of the screw mount lenses made when that camera and the follow-on Spotmatic (with built in meter) was produced are outstanding.

The bottom line is that I’m hardly aware of what little there is in the viewfinder.

Then there are the M cameras without built in meters – M2, M3 and the M4 and its variants. No metering distractions to be concerned with. And with the M2 and M3 you only see the frame lines for the specific lens mounted on the camera. So no distractions at all!

I have always been attracted to cameras that exhibit as little information as possible in the viewfinder and especially don’t like blinking lights or other lit data found in more modern cameras. I only want to see is the scene in front of me I wish to photograph and these viewfinders allow me to do that. I think using these simple tools help me concentrate more on composition and make better pictures.

I work very simply; in most situations I merely take a meter reading of the palm of my hand (making sure I’m not in a shadowed area) using a handheld meter, then open up one stop. When I’m walking around on the street, one reading is all I need unless the light changes. For pictures of objects, buildings, or a landscape containing white clouds, etc., I take a reading of the brightest part of the scene and open up three stops. That’s it. This works for me and may well work for you.

Plenty of people use “sunny sixteen” and don’t need a meter at all. Then there are those so good that they just intuitively know the right exposure. Henri Cartier-Bresson comes to mind.

An ancillary benefit of my approach is that I don’t worry about batteries anymore or the reliability of camera electronics. Ok, my Pentax 1 degree spot meters use a battery, but I never have had a dead one in thirty plus years of use. Every couple of years I change them. On the other hand, I cannot tell you how many times I accidently left my Leica R9 switched on only to find out I had a useless paperweight when I was ready to go photograph. As much as I loved the R9, I have flushed electronic cameras out of my system.

So does using a camera with an uncluttered meter-less viewfinder, no batteries and electricity make me a photographic Luddite? Perhaps. Do I make better photographs than I might otherwise? I think so. Does it matter? Definitely.

It’s that time again at the end of the semester when my Center for Learning in Retirement (CLR) students have to present their theme based project of ten 8×10 photographs and accompanying written essay. There’s no grade so people sometimes skip the essay, but always talk about what they did, and of course discuss each of their photographs during their presentations.

Some of my students have hung in with me for the three semesters I have been teaching and are threating to return in the spring. It’s very gratifying for me so see how they have grown over the last year and a half and I’m most appreciative of the friendships I have made during this time.

For those that follow my weekly entries and are familiar with my love of black and white film photography, it may come as a surprise that I was absolutely blown away by a particular project done completely in color with a digital camera.

My objective is not to push the use of film cameras or the production of black and white images made in a darkroom. Well, maybe someday! What I really want to accomplish is to get them to become more open to their surroundings, to look beyond their normal field of view for new and exciting possibilities. Maybe even get outside their comfort zones. Hence the concept of the project!

My student accomplished all the above and produced a truly sensitive, beautiful and thought-provoking series of abstracts made where she lives and in the locations she traveled to during the course of the semester.

The work was outstanding and worthy of exhibition; but just as important, she discovered a brand new avenue of inquiry for her photography that she will continue to pursue.

Perhaps an unforeseen result … but a welcome one that comes from a willingness to try something different and giving it your best shot.

She pushed herself to do something new and creative, and succeeded in meeting her goals. In other words, she is a photographer.

Just renewed my inLiquid membership and realized that a year had come and gone since I was first juried and accepted as an inLiquid artist. It made me think about all that has happened since that time … I had a couple of shows and prepared for an upcoming one in Lisbon, taught my darkroom workshop and my two courses at the Center for Learning in Retirement for two semesters, met with my Photo Chat group during our monthly Sunday get-togethers over coffee, led a number of photo walks, visited a number of great museum exhibits, and even made some good photographs.

Now that I think about it, that’s a lot, given everything else I have going on in my life. Fact is, that even though I got all of this done there’s so much I more wanted to accomplish that I didn’t. Why? Because I got caught up in a lot of time and brain wasters outside of photography and at its edges that just didn’t matter … taking precious time away from creative opportunities that do matter.

Sound familiar? Have you fallen into this trap? When it comes right down to it, wasting time … and mental energy … on non-essential things that don’t matter and are counterproductive to your overall and creative wellbeing is not a good thing. I know this now because in retrospect I’ve done a lot of it!

In the end there’s only so much time we have, so I want to do something really creative … make more time for meaningful photographs. And I’m not waiting to January 1^st! No! I’ve decided to take stock of all this right now, and work to clear away all the non-worthwhile activity and focus on what is important to me. So should you.

This past week I took my two photography classes from Delaware Valley University’s Center for Learning in Retirement to see a small but meaningful social documentary exhibit at the James A. Michener Art Museum here in Doylestown. There always seems to be a great photography exhibit at the Michener during the semester so it really works out well for what I want accomplish, which is to show the students the many photographic opportunities that surround them.

A Time to Break Silence: Pictures of Social Change is being presented to coincide with the 50th anniversary Martin Luther King’s famous speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” and includes striking black and white photographs made primarily during the 1960s. Civil rights, anti-war and anti-nuclear protest, racist acts and other signs of that turbulent time. Almost all the photographs were made by two Bucks County based photographers, Edmund Eckstein and Jack Rosen. Prior to visiting the show I wasn’t familiar with either photographer’s work, which is sad. The work they produced was wonderful and important! One image made in a Sears department store shows rows of televisions displaying the news of John F. Kennedy’s assassination and a anguished young woman sitting in front with her head in her hands. Another particularly troubling and dramatic picture of a nighttime Klu Klux Klan cross burning refuses to fade from my memory.

I walked away from the exhibit thinking of the power and character of black and white film based images and their ability to capture raw emotion. The photographs also served as a strong reminder that in 50 years some things haven’t changed very much.

A Time to Break Silence: Pictures of Social Change Exhibit runs through February 4, 2018.