Over time, this minor weblog has evolved from being a Leica snapshot blog into one about visual poetics in photography. Based on using a 1980s film Leica rangefinder camera this approach stands in contrast to the Leica being associated with, and traditionally used for, photojournalism and urban street photography in the 20th century. Recall black-and-white and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank or Lee Friedlander.
My equipment is simple: a hand held Leica M4-P camera, a standard Leica 50mm Summicron lens, a basic handheld lightmeter, and Kodak Portra 400 ASA film with the negatives processed in C41 by a commercial lab and then scanned by me using a little Plustek Opticfilm 8100 scanner. The post processing, which is done in Adobe Lightroom 6, is minimal. It is basic technology with the construction of the image is done in camera.
This image of the Balcanoona shearing shed in the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park in South Australia when I was there in the winter of 2021, is an example of my approach.
Though I struggle to make poetic images I often wondered what poetic photography means, or refers to. People usually say that poetics is the opposite of documentary and that it is a form of art photography and so distinct from photojournalism. That doesn't get us very far since it just identifies a genre of photography that is deemed to be experimental and outside the constrictions and the traditional structures of photography.