Veteran Car Concours in Regent Street: Leica M with 50mm Apo-Summicron-M

Last weekend was the culmination of the RAC’s annual motoring week, with all eyes on Sunday’s London-Brighton veteran car run which attracted an astoundingly wide variety of vehicles from the period between the 1890s and the outbreak of the First World War. The day before, in Regent Street, it is the run’s preliminary concours d’elegance where around one hundred of the premier vehicles are invited to the display. Dressing up is a big part of the day and this year I decided to concentraton the owners and passengers who are often just as interesting as the old vehicles themselves. In fact, it is difficult to get good shots of the vehicles because of all the spectators milling around.

On Saturday I went for a leisurely stroll along Regent Street with editor Mike Evans (he’s the annoying individual in the Fat Face woolly hat and clutching his Monochrom in the last picture. Everywhere I pointed the M-P he was in the frame). Continuing my one-camera-one-lens policy that I adopted last year, I took my by-now very familiar Leica M-P and the superb 50mm Apo-Summicron-M. Over the past year I’ve been honing my technique with this lens and I remain convinced it is the best Leica lens I have ever used, Noctilux notwithstanding.

See more of George James’s photography here.