May
25
An Elph is my new Leica bicycle
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I was a photojournalism student at the University of Missouri in the early ’90s when I discovered the Leica M. In contrast to the massive steel Canon and Nikon bricks we all used at the time, Leicas were small, elegant and unimposing.
Image from a fantastic New Yorker article on the Leica mystique
Despite my lavish $4,000 annual income, I vowed to acquire one. Luck would smile upon me (in the guise of a friend’s crazy photographer boyfriend) and I soon had not one, but a pair of well-used M2s.
My big Nikons (and later Canons) were the workhorses, with their choice of wide-angle and telephoto lenses, motor drives and fancy light-meters. Framing in an SLR was precise, showing you exactly where your focus was and what you would be capturing on film.
But I always had one of those little Leicas tucked away under my arm, loaded with forgiving Tri-X black-and-white film. In the large, bright viewfinder, everything appeared in sharp focus with transparent lines to show you *about* where the edges of your frame were. Focus was fast, but not precise- that’s why God made Depth of Field. There was no built-in light meter. Most of the time I’d set exposure by experience and let the film’s latitude take care of the details.
The Leicas were all about shooting fast and loose, ideal for catching quick, unguarded moments at unexpected times; the perfect tool for making pictures when you weren’t Making Pictures.
Fast forward about 10 years. Digital had finally stopped sucking and I bought a pair of Canon EOS 10d SLRs. Instantly in love with the ease of digital, my old Leicas were immediately relegated to the closet. I’ve been an digital SLR user for years now, but I’ve continued to long for that fast and loose, go-anywhere camera in digital form.
May
17
multi multi tools
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My beloved Leatherman Charge Ti
I’m ‘that guy.’ You know, the guy in the office you find if you need a knife, a screwdriver or a pair of piers. I’m the dude everyone calls ‘MacGyver’ (both in that jokey to-your-face way and, I’m sure, in that creepy behind-your-back way). My boss has brought my nickname into 21st century and calls me Jack Bauer, which is cool ’cause she also allows me to torture people with electrified lamp cords.
I haven’t always been this way, but having spent 10 years traveling to places like civil-war-era Macedonia, Papua New Guinea and post-Katrina Louisiana, I’ve acquired a few hard-to-shake ticks. I never let my gas tank get less than half-full and I always carry a Leatherman.
History
Grandma has a tradition. When the boys in my family turn 12, she sends them a Swiss Army Knife. For all of high-school and college, it served as my one-and-only multi-tool. Being young and even stupider than I am today, I abused it repeatedly and managed to break both of the knife blades. I still have it, but it’s long since been retired from active use.
Supertool
By the mid-90’s, I’d finally arrived at my current place of employment, and I started getting mailed off to remote parts of the country and globe to cover news events. I carried lots of equipment- cameras, laptops, tripods and lights, and found myself in need of a more substantial tool to make minor and even major repairs. After a trip to REI, I became the proud owner of a then-new Leatherman Supertool.
It was monstrous by comparison to the little Swiss Army, but it could do so much more. The piers were a godsend and (hallelujah) it had locking blades. I still have a scar on my right index finger from that original SAK closing up on me in use, and I’ve never trusted a non-locking knife since then.
Even Lee D. Zlotoff, the creator of MacGyver, recently admitted that today Mac would almost certainly favor Leatherman tools.
