My life with Leica: I was hooked when my teacher produced an old brassed camera

My discovery of photography was when I first noticed a Leica camera. I’m talking 1962 here. Of course, my parents had a camera, a Kodak Brownie, for taking holiday “snaps” but that did not count as I’d barely noticed it. But I sensed something special in my future.

The Leica was owned by a teacher at my school who had worked in Burma. He showed the class photos he had taken there with his Leica which he then passed around.

It was small, black and brassed. It oozed precision. I was really intrigued.

First steps on the journey to discovery

Soon after, I went to the local library and read Amateur Photographer and other photography magazines and found out that Leicas were special but expensive.

But nonetheless, I became genuinely interested in photography, so although I could not afford a Leica, I bought a camera and later home darkroom gear. I was hooked. 

My first Leica

Five years later, in 1967, I was able to afford a Leica — a IIIa which had been traded in against an Asahi Pentax. The fact that it was even then 30 years old did not concern me at all — it was a Leica.

I still own that IIIa and last year it was restored. So I can claim 58 years of continuous Leica ownership.
I used the IIIa for eleven years. However, while in Hong Kong in 1978, I was seduced by an Olympus OM2, in one of the then numerous duty-free stores. That became my camera for seven years. The IIIa was retired to a cupboard.

A chance discovery

Then by pure chance, in 1985, whilst visiting Adelaide, one morning I had time to kill and wandered into the PhotoCo Camera House store which was, and still is, located among the fruit and vegetable stalls in the Central Market.

I came out of the shop with Leica: A History Illustrating Every Model and Accessory by Paul-Henry van Hasbroeck. On the flight back to Sydney I started reading and by the time I landed I was convinced. I had to have a Leica M. It was the start of a slippery slope. 

Growing a Leica family

On my next trip to Adelaide, I purchased an M4P from PhotoCo. Two years later, I traded that on a new M6. From there, I built up a collection of M lenses and used them on the M6 for 18 years until I sold them and the M6 body. 

Leica nearly lost me in 2007. I owned the truly awful Digilux 1 and the M8 did not appeal at all. But the X1 rekindled my Leica enthusiasm and from there it has gone from strength to strength through X1, X Vario, Q, Q2, and most recently an SL2 and a set of L lenses. I even have a Sofort.

A 63-year-old journey within a 100-year celebration

So Leica represents my discovery of photography — and the start of a 63-year-long hobby. 

In the past ten years, I have contributed no fewer than 123 articles to Macfilos and, as Mike tells me, this is more than any other author on the site, apart from the editor himself.

Although I enthuse about the wonderful gear, by far the best part is that the chance encounter with that Leica in my geology class set me on a path to taking tens of thousands of photos, all over the world.

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