how I bought my Leica Q2

by letting go of a life I thought I should be living

Pentax 67 with all the accoutrements

When you are deep into comparing yourself and your work to others, you inevitably come across something that you feel is the missing key. Think about it long enough, and you start to create a story that convinces you that you need that thing at all costs.

For me, when I was feeling dry with photography and anxious about my business, that something became film photography. It felt like everyone was only shooting film cameras and gushing over how great they were. And when they all said “film isn’t dead”, I became convinced it was the best way to pump life back into my work.

So I got the Pentax 67, Pentax 645, Nikon 35ti, and other random point and shoots just to cover all the bases and make sure I had filled in all the missing pieces.

Over the next few years, I did take some photos during some shoots and brought them along when I traveled, but the truth is 80% of the time they just sat on my shelf collecting dust.

It took too long for me to admit to myself I just don’t like film. After all it was the missing piece wasn’t it? But in reality I wasn’t going to go through the trouble of sending out the film to get it developed, wait weeks for it to come, then spend half a day scanning them in, archiving them, and putting together notes on what I photographed. My friend/client Wesley is a beautiful film photographer who takes copious notes on the metadata of all his film rolls.

Nope, not for me.

So late last year, I decided to sell them along with other pieces of equipment I had bought but never used because I convinced myself of some other bullshit years before.

In the 8 years since I bought the camera, it seemed like there were many other people out there who wanted to keep film alive, and the cameras appreciated in value. Luckily for the buyers, I hardly used them and so I was able to sell them confidently as mint condition cameras.

I ended up selling them to fellow photographers whom I know love film, and the rest to B&H’s trade-in department. All in all there was $5,000 of equipment lying around my office, just sitting there wishing for a better more honest owner to make use of them. I imagine them coming alive when I’m not there like Woody, Buzz, and their friends wondering why their owner hated them and ignored them so much.

But today I’m happy knowing they are in a better home, with a better owner and only having spent the price of a Fuji X100 to buy my Leica Q2.

That’s the story of how I came to own a camera I couldn’t have afforded otherwise.

All it took was some resourcefulness and letting go of a life that I never wanted to live but thought I should go after.