During my recent hiatus, I received a number of thoughtful messages.

One reader wrote (in part):

“Peter, to me you are an artist, not a guy that talks about lenses and sensors. Someone who posts, publishes books/images/works of art whenever he has something significant to say, not whenever a blog demands it.”

Another stated (again, in part):

“Don’t wear yourself out trying to give everyone what they want. You will use up everything you’ve got… and that would be a misuse of talent, time, spirit, and life…”

–

Not all of the comments were supportive.  One person wrote:

Isn’t this why you run the site? For the sycophants who drool over poor photographs taken with Leica cameras?

And another had this to say:

I think you have done the right thing to shut the site down. You work is not good enough… They are just family snaps that in the pre-internet age would have stayed in a family photo album, albeit taken with very expensive cameras!!

–

Well thanks for the input everybody.

The upshot of all of this?

I gave considerable thought to what I really wanted to do.

And now I’m going to do it.

One thing I’ve already done is sell my Leica Monochrom.  I enjoyed using it much more this time vs. my first go-around, but something – for me – in the experience and output was lacking.

Another thing I did was buy a Leica M3, some Kodak Tri-X, and a Plustek 8200i scanner.

Yes indeed, I’m going back to shooting, developing, and scanning film myself.  In fact, I tried developing a test roll today, but mangled up the film as I loaded it onto the reel.

What can I say?  I’m out of practice.  I lost 1/3 of the strip and most of the remaining frames are damaged.

(My friend Mark gave me a tip about how to possibly avoid that next time.  Thanks Mark.)

Right now, I’m scanning some of the frames from my mangled test strip.

I’ll post a few images if any of them are worth posting.

(Warning:  They are just family “snaps”!)

And in case you’re wondering:

I’m happy.

—Peter.

(By the way, I’ll have more to say about my Leica M3 in a future post.  And I still have the M9P.)

–

Matteo*

Karen*

Andreas*

Thrustur*

Henry*

Gregory*

Cam*

Andrew*

George*

Harsha*

Michael*

Katharine*

張*

Steven*

Laurent*

Fin*

Warren*

Jens*

James*

Rino*

GH*

[Addendum July 14, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Patrick*

Manus*

Roel*

John*

Aaron*

Ali*

Dirk*

Ta-Chen*

Karim*

[Addendum July 15, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Ashwin*

Aivaras*

Lemuel*

Dalal*

Peter*

Gage*

[Addendum July 16, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Dhananjay*

Luis*

Morten*

Mikael*

[Addendum July 17, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

George*

Laurent*

David*

Alexandra*

[Addendum July 18, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Gavin*

Alberto*

Arize*

[Addendum July 19, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Guillermo*

Laurent*

David*

Kenneth*

[Addendum July 20, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Cuong*

Israel*

Larry*

[Addendum July 21, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Steve*

[Addendum July 22, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Jason*

Devereaux*

[Addendum July 23, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Mika*

[Addendum July 24, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Amnon*

Lucy*

Mariusz*

[Addendum July 25, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Reingard*

[Addendum July 26, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Bijan*

Sean*

Paul*

Jesse*

Kevin*

[Addendum July 27, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Paul*

[Addendum July 29, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Joseph*

[Addendum August 8, 2015 — Additional Donators:]

Nick

Alexis

Jordan

Shawn

–

I’m sincerely touched.

A few of you were quite generous, and a few others have also contributed in the past.  You’ve basically subsidized the site for the thousands who view it daily.  It doesn’t seem quite fair does it?

I therefore want to thank you in this additional way:

I will reveal the identity of the “undisclosed” 55-yr-old lens that I’ve been shooting with recently, so that if you’re interested in finding one, you have a good chance of getting a great copy at a very reasonable price (it currently can be found for less than the price of a Leica lens hood).

I know once I reveal the identify of the lens on this site the price will shoot up, so you have a head-start.

Starting this week, I will send a personal email to one [EDIT: several] of you, each day — in the order listed above.  Matteo will find out first.

Sincerely,

—Peter.

* = donators who have been informed of the identify of my undisclosed lens.