Paul Glendell, known to us mainly for his wonderful hand-crafted Classic Cases for Leica, is also a professional photographer of standing. From time to time he contributes delightful slide-show videos to our mutual friend, Phil Coomes, picture editor of the BBC website. He’s also a great Leica fan and is currently loving his Leica Q.
Often Paul features local crafts, such as the tannery where he gets the leather for his cases.
In the same genre is this recent video in which he went hunting Leica fodder on Dartmoor, where he lives in the small town of Bovey Tracey, known as Buvvy to the locals.
Dartmoor is forever associated with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles and can be a scary place at times, especially for the unwary. But Paul’s intrepid quest took him to the infinitely less threatening Mac Foliage farm, where, instead of a terrifying hound, he unmasked the cuddlesome Koala of the Macphersons.
On this 60-acre moorland site, Paul and Sally Macpherson grow a most unexpected food. It’s not camouflage for MacBook Pros from Cupertino as you might have expected. No, these Macs grow eucalyptus treats for coddled koalas throughout Europe. Who would have thought it? And from Dartmoor which is hardly the Australian Outback?
The Mac Foliage eucalyptus farm grows no fewer than 46 varieties of the tasty leaf to satisfy the ever changing dietary whims of the fastidious marsupials. Sally and Paul make twice-weekly deliveries to zoos throughout the continent to keep the little animals content.
What other surprises are lurking on darkest Dartmoor? No doubt Paul will find them and produce for us one of his entertaining videos. Incidentally, the photographs in the eucalyptus video slideshow (and in this article) were shot entirely using Paul’s current favourite camera, the 28mm Leica Q.
Find more of Paul’s videos here:
BBC Audio / Slideshow – The Dartmoor Classic
BBC Audio Slideshow – In the Valley of Orchids
BBC Audio / Slideshow The Tannery
BBC Audio / Slideshow Padstow Obby Oss
And the low-down on some of the finest hand-crafted Leica cases here