Every photographer has to find their own way of working. For some, it may be a Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fujifilm, OM System, Ricoh, or even a phone. The brand itself is not the most important part. What matters is finding a camera that feels connected to the way you see, move, react, and think.

For me, that camera is the Leica M.

This is not meant as blind praise of one system over another.
There are many excellent cameras today, and most of them can make technically perfect photographs. But technical perfection is not the same as personal connection.
The Leica M has become important to me because it supports the rhythm I want in photography: attention, simplicity, patience, and responsibility.

The real question is not why everyone should use a Leica M. They shouldn’t.

The real question is why finding the right camera — whatever brand it may be — can help you evolve as a photographer.

And for me, the M system remains the camera that keeps pulling me back to the essentials.

With my small-sized camera and lens, I can walk around a city and grab the pictures I find interesting. Leica M9, Summilux 50mm f1.4 ASPH

There are newer cameras. Faster cameras. Cameras with autofocus, more buttons, more features, more everything. The camera industry is very good at convincing us that evolution is found in the next body, the next sensor, the next clever menu item that promises to make photography easier.

And yet, I stay with the Leica M system.

Not because it is perfect. It isn’t.

Not because it is the most practical camera system. It certainly isn’t.

And not because I believe a Leica automatically makes better photographs. That idea is both lazy and wrong.
A camera never replaces seeing. It never replaces patience. It never replaces the sensitivity needed to notice a gesture, a colour, a silence, or the way light rests on a face for half a second before disappearing.

I stay with the Leica M system because it connects with me.

And that connection matters more than specifications.

The Camera That Disappears

The best camera is not always the one that does the most. Sometimes it is the one that gets out of the way.

That is what the Leica M does for me. It is simple, direct, and demanding in just the right way. Aperture on the lens. Shutter speed on the top plate. Focus by hand. Frame lines instead of a screen showing the final image. A rangefinder that asks me to participate rather than simply react.

There is no machine-gun photography in that experience. No spray and pray. No feeling that the camera is doing the work while I am only pressing the button.

With an M camera, I have to be involved.

I have to anticipate. I have to read distance. I have to understand light. I have to accept that photography is not just about capturing what happens, but about being mentally present before it happens.

That process slows me down, but in a productive way. It doesn’t make me passive. It makes me attentive.

And attention is one of the most important tools a photographer can develop.

Why Friction Can Be Useful

Modern cameras often try to remove friction. Autofocus follows the eye. Exposure can be calculated automatically. The viewfinder can show the finished picture before you even take it. These are remarkable tools, and for many kinds of photography they are genuinely helpful.

But friction is not always the enemy.

Sometimes friction teaches you.

Manual focus teaches distance. A fixed frame of view teaches composition. A limited number of controls teaches responsibility. The absence of too many options teaches commitment.

The Leica M is not difficult for the sake of being “difficult.” It forces me to become more aware of the fundamentals. I cannot hide behind technology. I cannot blame the camera if I fail to focus properly or expose the scene with care.

That responsibility is important. It keeps me honest.

When I miss a picture, I usually know why. When I get one, I also know why. That relationship between action and result is clear. Over time, it builds confidence, not because the camera is doing everything for me, but because I learn to understand what I am doing.

That kind of learning is slow. But it lasts.

A System That Shapes the Way I See

Every camera system shapes the photographer using it.

This is something we don’t talk about enough. We often discuss cameras as technical objects, but they are also behavioural objects. They influence how we move, how close we get, how quickly we react, how much we observe, how much we interfere with a situation.

The Leica M system shapes me in a particular way.

It encourages me to work with small lenses. It encourages me to stay light. It encourages me to be quiet, both physically and mentally. It encourages me to see the world slightly outside the frame, because with a rangefinder I can observe what is entering and leaving the picture.

That is a very different experience from looking through a lens and seeing only what the lens sees. With the M, I don’t feel locked inside the photograph before I make it. I feel connected to the scene around it.

For street photography, travel, documentary work, and everyday visual notes, that openness is valuable. It allows me to respond not only to what is in the frame, but to what is about to become the frame.

Photography is often about timing. But timing is not only speed. Timing is awareness.

The M system helps me stay aware.

The Importance of Finding Your Camera

This piece is not about convincing anyone to buy a Leica.
That would be far too simple, and perhaps also far too boring.

The more important point is this: every photographer needs to find a camera that creates a meaningful connection.
It might be a Leica M. It might be a Nikon, Fujifilm, Canon, Sony, Olympus, Ricoh, or an old film camera bought for very little money. It might even be a phone, if that is the tool that keeps you visually awake.

The brand is not the point.

The connection is the point.

A camera should make you want to go out. It should make you curious. It should fit your hands, your rhythm, your way of seeing.
It should invite you to photograph, not overwhelm you with choices. It should become familiar enough that operating it feels less like using a machine and more like speaking a language.

That familiarity is where growth begins.

If you constantly change systems, you may gain new features, but you may also lose continuity. You spend energy adapting to menus, buttons, lenses, colours, files, and handling. Sometimes that is necessary. Sometimes a change opens a new door. But change can also become a distraction disguised as progress.

There is a difference between evolving as a photographer and merely upgrading equipment.

Evolution happens when your seeing becomes deeper. When your timing improves. When your understanding of light becomes more instinctive. When your compositions become less forced. When you begin to recognise what belongs in your pictures and what does not.

For that to happen, it helps to have a tool you trust.

A camera you know well becomes a constant. And because the camera becomes stable, you can change.

The Discipline of Staying

There is also discipline in staying with one system.

In a world where everything invites us to move on, staying can be a creative decision. It says: I will not blame the tool. I will not chase every new possibility. I will go deeper instead of wider.

The Leica M system gives me enough, but not too much. That balance matters.

It gives me quality lenses, beautiful files, a direct physical experience, and a way of photographing that feels natural to me. But it does not give me every modern convenience. It does not try to solve every problem. It leaves something for me to do.

And I like that.

I don’t want photography to become too automated. I don’t want the process to be completely frictionless. I want to feel involved in the making of the image. I want to make decisions. I want to fail sometimes because I misjudged something. I want to learn from that.

That is part of the pleasure.

The camera is not only a tool for producing photographs. It is also a tool for training attention.

The Emotional Part

There is no need to pretend that cameras are purely rational choices.

They are not.

We choose them for practical reasons, but we also choose them because of how they make us feel. The weight, the sound, the viewfinder, the resistance of the focus tab, the simplicity of the controls — all of this becomes part of the experience.

Some photographers dismiss that as sentimental. I don’t.

Emotion is not separate from photography. Emotion is why we photograph in the first place. If a camera makes you feel more connected, more attentive, more willing to walk for hours, more prepared to wait for a picture, then that feeling has value.

A camera that inspires use is useful.

The Leica M does that for me. I pick it up and want to go out. I don’t feel I am carrying equipment. I feel I am carrying a possibility.

That may sound romantic, but photography has always had something romantic in it. Not romantic in the soft-focus sense, but in the belief that the world is worth looking at carefully.

Not the Best Camera — The Right Camera

So why don’t I leave the Leica M system?

Because it is the right camera system for the way I want to photograph.

Not the best for everyone. Not the fastest. Not the most advanced. Not the most reasonable choice on paper.

But the right one for me.

It gives me a working method I trust. It supports the kind of attention I want to develop. It keeps me close to the basics: light, distance, timing, composition, and intuition. It reminds me that photography is not about having every option available, but about making the choices that matter.

And perhaps most importantly, it has become part of my photographic language.

That is what we should all look for in a camera. Not status. Not perfection. Not endless features. But a connection strong enough that the camera becomes an extension of how we see.

When that happens, the camera stops being the subject.

The photographs begin.

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, DOCUMENTARY WORK AND EVERYDAY VISUAL NOTES

This is where the connection to a camera becomes more than a personal preference. It becomes part of the way we work.