Leica X1 - a small package with big promises

I was lucky to have the chance to play a bit with a lovely little camera for several days - Leica X1. It is a camera that has been introduced back in 2009 along side the M9 and the S2. It was the camera that no one expected and that came as a surprise. Looking at the current second-hand market, it must have been popular enough. In the past 3 years there must have been a number of them sold (I wonder if there are estimates) and they are now coming around to the second-hand market. And they are quite well-priced still performing lovely and available often at 50% off the original retail price, they are quite attractive entry into the 35 mm photography. There are a number of great reviews on this little camera (DP Review, Luminous Landscapes, and others) and I wouldn't venture into writing another one.

The few observations I have about the camera refer to the ever-so-discussed auto focus and the potential function as a street photography camera. I haven't dealt with auto-focus for some time and it was strange coming back to it - the feeling of lost control was almost overbearing and I often felt the pulls of my muscle memory to rotate the ring around the lens. The way I shoot the M9 allows me to oscillate between focusing and composing, multitasking between the two until I press the shutter. With the autofocus one can also do it. But in my tests, I felt that it requires some mental and muscle adjustments. I think I didn't spend enough time with the camera to manage this myself (I did get the X2 recently and will write about it as well) but I imagine that it will make for a lovely back-up camera (and if you are one of the owners of the new black-and-white Monochrom, the X1 or X2 would be a suitable colour back-up). 

Schützenfest in Hannover, 2012

The sun shines over the laighter (and the screams). People wear colours (they are colours with strange body paint and weekend chinos). They always choose the less scary roller coaster first. First, they go on the Ferris wheel - to get used to the height. Then they move on - to the next stand where they are turned upside down (and you rush to collect the coins falling off their pockets). There is food on every second stand: chinese, german, sweets, chinese, german, sweets, chinese, german, sweets ... And you feel full from the thick smell alone; your hands get sticky from the sweet sugar vapours.

I walk through the crowds - no one else has their headphones on, no one else walks alone, no one else is there to observe the people, no one else is there to photograph the people, no one is there looking for the questions (nor for the anwers). They are there for the adrenaline rush - the one that tilts the scales towards "yes" when one doubts one's emotional state. They are there for the glucose rush - the one that makes them alert to nothing but their senses to perceive the colours of the festival through an ever more acid curtain. They are there for the plain human need - to love and to belong (because their other Maslowian needs have been covered already on the stand before).

The Peace of a Déjà-Vu

I am sitting in the car and watching her talk to her sister. And my heart skips a beat - not because of the topic or because of the approaching train that I need to take. But because I get that feeling of familiarity, the feeling of knowing what's coming, the feeling of verbal recognition - the déjà-vu. Because I've been there before - in that car, with those people, and in that conversation - but not in reality (or at least not in the conscious reality). 

I arrived late after train-station hopping with a suitcase and a camera in hand. Checking at the arrival schedule, I wonder how long it takes to get out of the gate with a suitcase that she can't carry (and I wonder - what if there is no one to help with it). Of course, the idea is ridiculous (although the guys at customs might be more helpful than they should with other motivations). And she is there and she sees me first - and I am a tad confused (seems to be the norm of late) and we walk through the airport to the train station in a daze - perhaps it is the image of the bandade and the scar below, or the image of the flying byke (and worse - the flying E.). In the train, I rest my shoulder on hers and I feel her strength - way beyond my own - but that's again the titanium bone-support.

We walk to the hotel - and it is charming - with stairs shaped like a heart, escalator with a carpet on the wall, and a welcoming receptionist like in a movie - he explains how to get around the city, and so we do, leaving behind our baggage (and the metaphorical) and enjoying our conversation (in the midst of the football game - how dare we?!). And who would have known that she has hatched a cunning plan - and I would be her partner in crime (then again, when one brings a smile and tears and a smile again, one feels no remorse). 

Day 2 starts with rain - as it should always do - because rain keeps the streets envigorated - people rushing to get away from the rain, people opening colourful umbrellas hoping for protection, people cuddling closer together under the same umbrella. And then there are the people like us who couldn't care less for an umbrella. And we walk looking for old books, new fashion cuts, and discourses on life (we are such cliches!). But then comes our chance to hatch the plan - to surprise our hosts with an arrival - and surprise we do - as they have just relaxed on the massage table, we barge in to their amazement - and they don't know if the massage oil fumes have not messed up with their eyes. 

And that's when I see the tears, mixed with joy, and smiles - when salt becomes elixir that heals wounds and scars.

Le Londres

It started beautifully. A saturday with a wonderfully refreshing weather in Brussels (waking up at 5 in the morning on Saturday to catch my flight). Arriving in London city centre before 9 was a gorgeous experience - don't you just love the city (any city) in the early mornings on the weekend before it has fully woken up? When people in the streets are still collecting themselves - their trash, their stories, their pride. First stop: a very charming neighborhood in East Putney (and with that name, it already felt as British as it gets). I kept repeating to myself "right, left, right, left" (when crossing the roads). Of course arriving that early meant, I actually woke my hosts up. But they were fine with that - admiring my fresh looks, my london hipster style (or so they said about my white shirt, my blue flannel trousers, and my vellum safari green leather jacket (enough self-shoulder tapping)). I told them we don't have time to linger - London was waiting to be explored. And so they dressed up quickly and we went out - to, of all places, first Notting Hill. But I was for the first time to see that London as charming as it was, has nothing of the solidity, stability, or millennia-propensity for aging as Rome did. Apparently the Brits are fond of bricks but the type of bricks that do not last for centuries but for A century, piping that is better left outside just in case something happened, and rooftops that better leak inside, than to delegate the water-allocation to the street canals. But it is perhaps one of those cities, like Paris and Venice, where a person should live once in their lifetime for several years. And then move on. Will see when my time for this might come.

I continued walking the afternoon (mostly in the area of king's cross station - beautiful area). The sun was shining, the birds were singing, people were jogging, others were smoking (after all it was the hipster area), and I was just absorbing trying not to behave like a foreigner (although, to an extent, in London everyone is a foreigner). I walked and walked and then went to the old city walking along the Thames, enjoying the tourists making fools of themselves, taking pictures (to document attendance) and enjoying the odd buildings (like the infamous "pe#is building" [censored for the kids]).

In the evening I went to a housewarming party of a friend bringing cornflakes (so that she never goes hungry), a beer (so that the house is always spirited), and garlic (to keep the evil spirits away). It quickly turned into a full-house party but I also needed to get to the other end of London for a commemorative anniversary celebration. We celebrated with a floating cheese cake (they say they didn't have enough time to freeze it properly). I had the strawberries that select over from the decoration, we all had a glass of red wine and went to bed early.

Day 2: Weather had turned Londoner but it was necessary - a whole weekend of sunshine would not have showed London in its true colors. I took the underground, observing people, guessing who came from where and who was doing their walk of shame, laughing at the tourists with their funny umbrellas (true Londoners aren't afraid of the drizzle), figuring out the physics of double-deckers. and picturing Dickensian characters. And that's when I felt like a character from a book myself. Isn't this the point of tourism - to lose yourself in the city, to become someone else for a while, to see the people around through a new pair of glasses, to drink that love potion that gets you high. And that's how I felt walking along a friend - high.

Museums, paintings, and art history

I woke up in the morning relaxed - Saturdays are lovely when one has nothing else planned (which hasn't happened to me in a while). I put my tie on (with all the small details like cuff-link buttons), my tweed jacket, my casquette, and my gloves. Coquettely, I made my way along the old streets - the old streets and old buildings predispose one to feel of a different age, of a different culture, of a different time, and of a different interest. And so, I became an art historian for a day - with the tweed jacket, without the elbow patches.

I walked in the museum of art in Brussels today and looked at the classic paintings exhibition. If you were to conjecture that the paintings should reflect the true state of mind of the time, the interest of people, their culture, their thoughts an their fears, their emotions and worries, and their joys, I think you'd have to conclude that spirituality (and by an extension religion) was the topic of the day. The old masters focused on depicting the familiar religious stories - familiar to anyone who has read the Bible (which was, at the time, the book, the story, the history - and yes, not everyone had read it because people couldn't read - but yes, they knew the stories). Or they would weave religious elements with angels, wings, bishops, the Holy Trinity, and ritualistic elements. If you knew the Bible, you knew the stories; if you knew the stories, you knew the paintings. And if you don't, you look with today's eyes: try to make sense of the people and the stories - their search to the eternal answer (what is the meaning of life - there, I've said it). And back then, religion gave them that answer. 

There is another topic that often comes up in the classic artists I see in the museum - lust and seduction. For time immemorial (again, see Bible, chapter 1 - creation), relationships between people (particularly romantic relationships) were of a curious topic for artists. In fact, it probably isn't an exaggeration to say that art exists because of love. And then came the renaissance, and the question of religion took second stage. But the arts didn't die - their expression just changed. It now depicts beauty, liberty, war, love (or lust, for the sceptic) itself. Religious expressions in paintings in the 17th and 18th century were no longer flat, no longer idealizing, no longer static. In Rubens' paintings each muscle is textural, each drop of sweat reflects light, each facial expression feels authentic and tangible. 

Art came about because people wanted to share their expressions and feelings toward another person or people in a tangible way. A way that speaks not only to the subjects or objects but to the entire world. Would there have been art, were there no love? And here you ask what about the commissioned art - was it also out of love? It was and it wasn't. It gave the commissioner the object he needed that they couldn't do themselves. And it is their love that drives the painter. Could the painter be just a tool as is the brush? Isn't he just the craftsman? Is he the mind that control the hand, while the patron is the heart?