Seattle, Washington, 2026

Leica IIIG, Summicron 50mm f/2 Rigid lens (1999 LTM edition), Kentmere 400 film

Printed on Ilford MG RC Glossy Paper (10” on long side)

The Athenian, a Seattle, Washington landmark, has been open for business since 1909. The stories set here must be countless.

Some are known. It held Seattle’s first beer license after the end of Prohibition. A scene from Sleepless in Seattle was filmed here, though it’s never been a movie I cared much about. Most of the stories, however, are private, or at least shorter-lived. How many proposals have happened here? How many celebrations, arguments, affairs, reconciliations, and goodbyes?

What story is taking place in this image, which I made after closing time on an April evening in 2026?

To me, the story looks like it’s in a final chapter of some sort.

The scene above reminded me of the artist Edward Hopper, who sketched real scenes and details “from the fact,” building them into complex composites of people somehow isolated, separated from the rest of the world in distinctly American settings.

In particular, consider the Hopper painting entitled “Automat” from 1927 (https://whitney.org/guides/79?stop=14075&open=true). A couple of elements of this painting made me feel Hopper’s influence on my visual perception when I stepped up to the window at the Athenian: a single person, alone in a public place designed for larger groups, and the fact that the Automat was a place where food was dispensed from vending machines. I wonder if that early form of mechanization carried some of the same unease that online ordering and ghost kitchens carry now: food without much human encounter.

Looking at the print I made of this photograph in my darkroom, I found myself inventing a story.

I imagined that this was the fourth-generation owner of the Athenian, looking over the day’s numbers after closing time. The restaurant is quiet now. The customers are gone. The spring evening light is fading over Elliott Bay.

Maybe business is becoming more difficult than it once was. Maybe expenses are climbing faster than revenues. Maybe the next generation is willing to take over, if the restaurant can survive long enough for them to do so.

People once came here to anchor their stories on the edge of the continent, looking out toward Bainbridge Island and the Pacific beyond. Today, many experiences arrive through a phone screen. Restaurants increasingly compete not only with each other but with convenience itself.

Perhaps he is wondering what another hundred years might look like.

The longer I looked at the photograph, the more real the story became.

Of course, all of this is made up.

For all I know, the Athenian is thriving, new locations are in development, and the person at the counter was simply checking an iPhone before heading home for the evening.

That’s one of the things I love about photography.

A photograph records evidence, but rarely explanation. It tells us what was there. It tells us almost nothing about what was happening inside the minds of the people it contains. Faced with that uncertainty, we begin filling in the blanks ourselves.

In that sense, photographs and stories have always been close relatives.

A personal example: a few years before my grandmother passed away, she showed me a photograph of her family when she was just a young girl (ca. 1920s?). Standing outside their home in the rural hills of Kentucky, a rough road running just in front of them, there didn’t seem to be much of an occasion for a photograph. But I know that they did not have the means to make images like that without a reason. Turns out, it was a sort of victory photograph. You see, they had won the right to have that road run through their property; it had been a competition with the other subsistence farmers living on the other side of the ridge. My family, the Allens, won access to the new road because the families on the other side of the ridge already had access to a river which could be used for transportation.

Back to the photograph in question, I made it after arriving in the Pike Place Market area later than I had intended. The flower vendors, souvenir shops, and seafood stalls had already closed for the day. The crowds that normally characterize the market had largely disappeared.

The transformation surprised me.

During the day, Pike Place is energetic, loud, and crowded. After hours, it becomes something else entirely. The place feels larger. The shadows deepen. Empty walkways and closed stalls create a sense that the city is briefly catching its breath before starting over the next morning.

And yet, there were still quiet little stories to be found. Walking along the concrete corridors that alternate between open outdoor and interior spaces felt a little like walking along a film strip. Lots of dark frames empty of information, punctuated by occasional frames of light, contrast, and depth. Frames open to interpretation. A little sparse perhaps, but still a great place to be exploring. I just had to look a little longer, a little more closely. Pike Place isn’t large, so I did feel the need to explore every little scene, leaving none behind before I ran out of frames and out of evening light. Carrying a simple camera kit, my Leica IIIG fitted with a 50mm f/2 Summicron lens and loaded with Kentmere 400 black-and-white film, I made a handful of careful exposures.

This scene stopped me.

The person at the counter was just large enough to become an important element in the frame. With a wider lens, I think the figure would have become insignificant. The 50mm lens forced me to make decisions about what to include and what to leave out.

I made a conscious decision to truncate portions of the neon signage. I also chose to focus on the silhouetted figure, allowing the signs on the glass to fall slightly out of focus. I’m pleased that they remain legible while still encouraging the eye toward the person inside.

The Leica IIIG is the last of the Barnack-style Leicas, small and beautifully limited in a way I find appealing. While I love the compact size of these cameras, later Leica M cameras are unquestionably easier to use. Focusing a IIIG in low light can be challenging, especially compared to modern cameras.

But this film photography thing isn’t really about ease.

For me, it is partly about overcoming challenges, controlling variables, and accepting the possibility of failure in exchange for a more deliberate process. The camera asks more from me, and in return it gives me a different relationship with the act of making photographs. And when I’m successful, I feel a small victory of my own.

I shoot film and use vintage cameras for many reasons. In this case, in addition to the challenges the technology presents, I felt a connection to one hundred years of history, both photographic and location related. Looking back at the image now, I think that’s what connects the photograph, the restaurant, and the camera for me.

Places like the Athenian have survived for more than a century because people chose participation over convenience. They showed up. They sat at the counter. They celebrated birthdays, conducted business, fell in love, ended relationships, and created stories that became attached to a place.

Film photography asks something similar of me.

It asks me to leave the house, look more carefully, and participate in the world rather than simply consume it.

Some days, a quick online order and a wait for a knock at the door is exactly what’s needed.

Other days, maybe we should get out and make some stories.

San Francisco, California, 2026

Leica M6, Cosina-Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Aspheric lens, Kentmere 400 film

Printed on Ilford MG RC Glossy Paper (10” on long side)

Fillmore Street near Japan Town. It has been a few years since I visited San Francisco. My former home was in the East Bay, and I used to make it over quite often back in the day. While San Francisco has changed during the past twenty years since we moved, and so have I, it’s still one of my favorite cities. And, I think it feels a little healthier now than when I last visited.

Landing in SFO, I picked up my rental car and went to meet my wife for lunch in Japan Town (she’d arrived a few days before me). Driving there, I had my first experience consciously sharing the road with a driverless car. Pretty cool. I think the Waymo was probably more considerate and careful in following traffic laws than the average human driver.

After lunch, my wife continued on to Kinokuniya Bookstore for some shopping. I headed out for a walk around the neighborhood. The scene above welcomed me back to the Bay Area almost immediately. Now, I know there’s no focal point that will grab you and shake you, nothing you’ll even see if you scroll past too quickly. But, in line with my goals for this series, I’ll take my time with it and at least share with you how it makes me feel. Maybe that will entice you to also spend a minute and see if it translates at all to you. If it doesn’t, I understand. And thank you for your time.

What really caught my eye first was the trees. They seem almost metallic to me in real life, and I think they print well with the silver salts on photographic paper. A lot of the detail in the tree bark is in shadows, making it important to have lots of shades of gray in the print.

This is a scan of the handmade print, made with my Epson V850 scanner with Silverfast software. I then used color grading in Adobe Lightroom to match the slightly warm tone of the Ilford paper.

In composing the shot, I’m sure that the bottom-left to top-right verticals of the trees and stairways influenced me. Of course, I didn’t consciously design around them, but the entire image has a diagonal stripe feel to me: dark at top, (very) bright in center, back to mostly shade near the bottom. And the trees reaching skyward pull it all up nicely for me. I also like how the tree branches, a major element, are not what grabs your eye first. They’re not in the center or the brightest area of the image. They’re a reward for a longer look.

Speaking of bright, that white wall in the center of the image took almost two stops of burning in on the enlarger to get the small amount of detail you see here. With both the bright wall and the shaded trees, I didn’t want to go too far in bringing them closer together. The scene was as you see here; I’ve just made the gray levels fit within the capabilities of the paper.

My usual tendency, probably based on focusing on nature photography a lot, is to isolate those tree branches with a longer lens. That would entirely lose any sense of location. As it is, the Victorian style buildings are emblematic of San Francisco and really add to the scene. And, as I’ve already mentioned, the front steps angling up and to the right are an important graphic element.

So, I’m pleased that I had the constraint of a single 35mm lens. It could have been any 35mm lens, as I was shooting fast film in bright daylight and therefore didn’t need the fast aperture of the Nokton f/1.2 lens. I think this shows that the Nokton can perform really well at smaller apertures. It’s not always easy to find a lens that can perform in low as well as abundant light but I think this lens does.

Leica has recently debuted the 35mm Noctilux f/1.2 Aspheric. I have no idea what 10x the price compared to my Nokton would bring and won’t make any value judgements because of that. In fact, I’m sure the Leica lens is superlative. All I can say is that while I do prefer and own many Leica lenses, since buying the Nokton, I have not taken my M6 out without it in the bag, and usually on the camera. Mine is the Generation IV model, which I gather is lighter and smaller than previous generations. I find it to be a very reasonable size; it never gets in the way.

I cannot say the same for another excellent Voigtlander 35mm lens, the f/2 APO Lanthar. While the image quality from the APO is truly outstanding, the size just doesn’t work for me on a rangefinder camera. I know that it deserves more of a fair shake, but for travel and street photography, I’ll always grab a smaller lens. If I can live with f/2, the Leica 35mm Summicron f/2 Aspheric is tiny and performs very well.

Now that I think about it, maybe I should use the APO Lanthar on my Nikon ZF with an adapter. On a mirrorless Nikon body, it won’t feel too large at all. Always good to have ideas for future projects…

Many people would want a person on the sidewalk in a shot like this. I did not. In the end, for me, it was about a graphic orientation of elements, again, driven by the trees. It also takes me back to exactly how it felt to be in San Francisco again for a short time. Mission accomplished.

If you’ve hung with my writing this far, I hope that means you’ve spent a little time with the image itself. And I hope you found that time well spent. Personally, I’m enjoying the experience of writing at least one thousand words with a small selection of images. I’m sure it will help to make me a better photographer and artist.

Chidorigafuchi, Tokyo, Japan, 2026

Leica M6, Cosina-Voigtlander 90mm f/3.5 APO Lanthar (LTM)

Fuji 400 Color Print Film

Live at Budokan! That’s what I had in mind as I trudged through the driving rain from Tokyo’s Kudanshita station before sunrise on March 26, 2026. Funny how our minds work in situations like that.

I’d had not a single moment of hesitation in dressing in the dark, grabbing my compact backpack loaded with my Leica M6, 28mm Elmarit pre-aspheric, 50mm Summicron ASPH, and Cosina-Voigtlander 90mm f/3.5 APO Lanthar lenses, and heading out into the spring rains. It was a brief period of solitude, and yes, the potential to create something meaningful, while my family slept better than I had been able.

I’d been to the Kudanshita area a day or two before and while I knew that the sakura had not yet hit peak bloom, the cherry trees in the area were primed to live up to their fame in making this one of Tokyo’s most well-known sakura viewing points for a short week or two each year. So popular that on weekends during that period the sidewalks are reduced to one-way traffic to keep the thousands of visitors moving through. I was virtually alone on my pre-dawn walk in the rain on this morning.

There’s something special about Tokyo without crowds. Maybe it’s the same with any large city? I have experienced it so many times in Tokyo because the particular jet-lag you get from flying there from the United States leads to very early awakenings. When I think of Tokyo it usually brings to mind unimaginable crowds, the crush of rush hour train rides, the vast population that ensures that whatever you may be interested in, no matter how specific, you can find it in Tokyo. But it’s not really a city that never sleeps, in my opinion. Yes, my morning walks do sometimes lead me to encounter small groups of young people who’ve been out drinking all night, bowing their goodbyes to each other before going on to whatever their days may bring. But for the most part, mornings are peaceful, unpopulated. For me the crows (“karasu” in Japanese) that are so common in Tokyo are also hallmarks of early morning. Black as the night itself, they rule the early morning streets.

Getting off the subway at Kudanshita, I walked right by Budokan, the same Budokan where Bob Dylan performed live for his 1978 album “Bob Dylan at Budokan.” In fact, I had a short text exchange with a colleague back in the United States as I went by that morning. I told her that I was “live from Budokan” at that very moment. Work concerns covered for the moment, my colleague went on with her evening back in the United States as I looked ahead to what the morning and day would bring.

I walked for a couple of hours, making my way through Kita No Maru Park, with a few isolated yet gorgeous sakura displays, looping back by Chidorigafuchi Boat Piers, where friends and lovers who plan far enough ahead can rent boats to paddle beneath the legendary sakura in this very special place. It was here that I made the image above.

I found it difficult to find the scene I wanted to record that morning. While I had brought five rolls of Kodak Ektar 100 film to Japan with me in hopes of capturing vibrant spring colors, on this morning, the roll of Fuji 400 color print film loaded in my M6 was far better suited to the cool rainy weather. The two stops of extra sensitivity also helped in the low morning light. In order to narrow the field of view to include only what was strictly necessary, I chose to switch out my 28mm Elmarit lens in favor of the longer focal length 90mm f/3.5 APO Lanthar. An older lens that hit the market in 2001 in Leica Thread Mount (LTM), I’m always impressed with what it produces. For some reason, on that morning, including less in the frame was exactly what I needed.

You may have heard that you should photograph how a scene “feels.” In fact, I’d recently completed a useful virtual course produced by David DuChemin (https://davidduchemin.com) on that very topic. So much easier to say than to do, I am pleased that I accomplished it once, and just once, that morning. I would also return during this trip, in nicer weather and later in the day, to capture to the extent of my capability the feeling of those paddling with loved ones in this same location. A very different feeling from different times at the same place, but just as genuine and meaningful.

In this image, the angular stone wall of the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace of Japan leads my eye on a slightly complex path through the scene. The dark blue-tinted water of the moat brings back the feeling of my wet rain jacket clinging to my body, the effort required to hold my umbrella over my camera and lens as I made the shot. The mixed green and brown of ground cover belie the fact that it was still early spring. And of course, the sakura bursting from the dark, contrasting limbs of the cherry tree made it all a quiet little celebration. All very quiet, very soft tones, yet strong in the combination of primary (RGB) colors.

I can still feel how tired my legs were, as they always are when I go to Tokyo and walk, walk, walk in search of an image that I can feel. My body and mind ached for the excellent coffee that awaited my return to the subway station, my socks squishy wet inside my shoes. I also still feel the time pressure of enjoying this special moment while knowing that I needed to head back to Ginza to begin a day with my family in the land where my wife was born and raised, where my daughter and I have found our own separate yet intimate ways to feel at home. Maybe more so than at our physical home. As I rode the train back toward Ginza, I had no way of knowing which, if any, of the images I’d made that morning would communicate how I felt. I was satisfied that I’d had the experience and that it will always be part of me. It’s ever so much more rewarding to be able to relive it through this image, and perhaps even transmit a little of the feeling to others.

Someone once said that a picture is worth a thousand words. In today’s world, a picture is rarely worth a second of visual attention. It’s not every day that I capture an image that even I think is worth a thousand words. I’ve decided that when I do, I will write at least a thousand words about that picture.

This image made it to the top of my choice queue as soon as I saw it. There are others, but this is the one that’s most obviously worth a thousand words to me.

One camera. One lens. One film stock. One weekend.

In November 2025, I spent a weekend in New York City working with a Leica M6, a Voigtlander 35mm lens, and Kentmere Pan 400. No backups. No alternatives. Just a small set of decisions made repeatedly, in real time.

The goal wasn’t efficiency or coverage. It wasn’t to test equipment or chase a particular look. It was to see what happens when choice is reduced and commitment becomes part of the process—when each frame carries a little more weight.

What follows is an edited record of that weekend. Incomplete by design. Focused less on outcomes than on attention, judgment, and the act of showing up with a single set of tools and seeing it through.

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Pinhole photography changes the way I understand a scene. It doesn’t respond to quick movement the way I do. It pays attention on a slower scale.

If something is only in the frame for a moment — a person walking through, water shifting, a small burst of motion — it may not show up at all. It was there, but not long enough to register. The photograph reflects what stayed, not what passed through.

The pier does.

The pilings do.

The light does.

I’ve started to think of it as a kind of time filter. Not a judgment about what’s important, but a simple measure of what holds its place long enough to leave a mark. In that sense, the camera behaves a little like a tree might: aware of movement, but responding mainly to what endures.

This changes how I look while I’m making the picture. I stop focusing on brief events and start noticing the structure underneath them — the parts of the world that don’t move much, or don’t move at all. When motion does appear, it shows up as a soft trace instead of a crisp detail. It becomes part of the atmosphere rather than the subject.

Pinhole photography reminds me that a scene is made of both kinds of things: what lasts and what doesn’t. The photograph simply shows me which is which.

Volume 3 of the Why Film Project zine series is all about pinhole photography.

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Some photo projects take months to shape. Others just appear.

This one began when I left my digital camera behind and carried only a Rolleicord III and two rolls of Kodak Ektar into the bright, humid afternoon at Hemingway’s home in Key West. One hour, twenty-four frames, and no second chances. The camera was seventy years old, the film slow, the light uneven—but that combination of trust and uncertainty felt right.

Every shot demanded focus, literally. I read the light with a handheld meter, set exposure, and found sharpness through a dim waist-level finder before my feline subjects wandered off. The cats chose the moments; I just tried to keep up. That tension between precision and instinct is what I love most about film.

When I saw the results, they were everything I’d hoped for and come to expect from Kodak Ektar in medium format—rich color, strong light, and a cohesion that comes from working within limits. Each frame feels both deliberate and unpredictable, shaped as much by circumstance as by intent.

Why Film Project, Volume 2 is now available.

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BUT, a project like this deserves to be held in hand, not just seen on a screen. If you like what you see and want to add the real ‘zine to your library,

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keywords:

film photography, analog photography, medium format, Kodak Ektar 100, Rolleicord, Hemingway House, Key West, creative process, photo zine, Why Film Project, artistic discipline, photography projects

Drafted with input from ChatGPT

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You can download a copy onto your machine. Just hit File, then Download. Your can download with or without signing in to Dropbox.

If you like what you see, buy yourself a hard copy, a real ‘zine, here.

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I’m still experimenting with the ‘zine series concept, but already have Volumes 2 and 3 ready to drop. They will be out in 2025, for sure.

I hope you enjoy my work.

Here’s a glimpse of one answer. I won’t start at the beginning in this case – it was Sunday May 4, 2025, the day after Leica Camera’s 100^th Anniversary celebration in New York, NY (NYC). After breakfast (a huge pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese, smoked salmon, red onion, and avocado at Esse Bagel) and before my 11:00 check out time, I was assembling my things to prepare for the bus trip back to Virginia. My view from from 406 of the Heritage Hotel, a not-so-gleaming 2-star hotel on 25^th Street between 5^th and 6^th Avenues afforded just the coolest view of the Empire State Building. I grabbed my 2022 Leica M6 Reissue camera loaded with Ilford HP5 (iso 400) black & white film, 35mm Summicron ASPH lens mounted, and made this shot. I knew it would be one of my favorites from the trip. If I’d made the same shot, even with the same lens mounted on my perfectly nice digital Leica body, it just would not have been the same. I know that about myself. The fact that it took a leap of faith, some wet-hands time in the darkroom to develop the film, and a slow scanning process only added to the value for me.

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I have many great memories from the Leica celebration. I felt that I was part of photographic history just by being there. I met up with several old friends, if only briefly, including Tom Smith of Leica, David Knoble who is the President of Leica Society International (I’m a long-time member), and Dan Tamarkin who is the Leica man in Chicago...

I also met someone I knew of but had not yet met in person – Louis Mendes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mendes). Mr. Mendes is known for walking the streets of NYC with his Graflex 4x5 camera, shooting portraits of and for tourists. Yes, I bought an instant portrait from Louis, which I treasure. And I got to photograph Louis myself with my 1932 Leica II and date-matched 50mm Elmar f/3.5 collapsible lens on Ilford PanF (iso 50) film. That’s also a memorable Leica and film photography experience.

In closing, there was a lot to love about this trip. I go to NYC every chance I get. I love shooting film Leicas in one of street photography’s true original locations. I love getting food that’s impossible to run down at home. I can feel the NYC streets right now as I recount the trip. I hope you get a bit of a feel for it yourself. And I hope my ‘zine will deepen the experience for you just a little more.

Here are a couple of additional shots, both with the Leica M6 and HP5, that bring me back to the NYC streets in my mind.

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2025 marks the 100th year of Leica Camera. I got to celebrate with Leica and my fellow fans in NYC in May, documenting the experience on film with Leica cameras dating from 1932-2022!

Click Here to order your hardcopy (real ‘zine) or pdf. This is the inaugural Volume 1 for the Why Film? project.

Enjoy, and please follow the project to get all the latest editions as they come out.

Drop me an email at whyfilmproject@gmail.com. Let’s chat about analog photography!

The Hardest Post, The First Post

Why this, why now, why film

Film photography just turns me on. Just like Keanu tries to explain to Elon when arguing over AI versus human connection, I find that film photography connects me to the world in a way that digital does not, or at least not very often.

Many times when I’m out with a film camera, people approach me. Anything from “My dad had one of those.” to “Can you still get film?” is on their mind. Every once in a while some insightful person will ask “But Why Film?” That’s when things get interesting. And I don’t always have a good answer. I hope to develop and share answers to that question here. And I hope you’ll join me and help me to better answer it!

The Why Film Community

If you love images, love cameras (of any type), love expressing yourself visually, then please subscribe!

The Plan, Such As It Is

My plan is to shoot, develop, and share a lot of film photography with you. I am just getting started making ‘zines and plan to publish a series of issues that will each answer Why Film? from different perspectives.

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