I don’t recall if it was that article of the man who covered events with his small Leica that I saw in an edition of Vanity Fair magazine that did it. But it was easy to start getting bored with the APS-C sensor, full or medium frame cameras after shooting over 3000 images for 4 years in a row for a secondary school’s yearbook! Some of these things we do allows one to add the suffix ‘photographer’ in introductions.
I have intense bouts of love for things. This causes me to go to the limits till I fully own the object of my desire. At some point it was mobile phones. I read all the ‘To Do’ books on phones on my journeys from Ikeja to Victoria Island to visit the art galleries. (You recall those cheap small booklets that the authors peddled in the yellow buses?)I also ‘upgraded’ to the newer versions of mobile phones as soon as they came into the market. Those were the days when the Nokia phone reigned – from the famous 3300 to the 660, etcetera. The various models that hit the market were differentiated with mysterious ‘x’s, e’s after the number- that got me hooked, thinking something mind-blowing just landed on earth! I fell easy prey to the marketing strategies of those companies.
Later, I returned to my first love with cameras that dated to as far back as when I was in secondary school. My uncle gave me a Canon AE that used film. It served me well into university where it was easy to rub on young girls’ vanity of visualizing self as gorgeous. This I loved. It was akin to the recent love for taking selfies, using filters, Snapchat and Instagram.
For about 6 years, I was the parish photographer at the church in Ajah. I filled 5 terabytes of storage space with images from events, landscapes that spanned as far back as 2005. Photography was easy money for me while I pitched to sell paintings on the streets of Lagos. It was a way of looking intensely, closely at the world. I soon realized that it was not a perfect world. Beauty is affected by distance, by the space between the beautiful one and the viewer.
I made friends with Maigida, an Igbo seller of fairly used cameras and accessories on Lagos Island. It became routine to visit his shop weekly to gush over the latest cameras and lenses. He soon saw my love for photography and cameras, and would introduce me to his customers. I enjoyed sharing photography tips with them, and particularly meeting the old babas that must have been Pa Ojeikere’s contemporaries. They still shot with negative film.
The old ways of taking photographs intrigued me. I imbibed the patience, the comportment of the negative film days. I loved how each pose was well thought-out, each moment quietly recorded. One day, Maigida called to tell me of the new Leica cameras he just got from America. One of them looked a bit funny with a big body lens, but the other had a metallic retro look that I fell in love with. It reminded me of the Vanity Fair photographer. It dangled nicely at the right angle from my waist, and it shot madly crisp-sharp images! From the Elmarit 24mm f/2.8 ASPH lens, to the precise focusing, the pop-up flash, I knew I had found true love in my Leica X2.
It came at a point when I already understood that Photography was not about taking focused, crystal clear images. I had seen enough World Press Photos at exhibitions to convince me. My Leica was featherweight with monster-sized big performance. After carrying many heavy cameras with huge battery grip and flash attached, photography suddenly became a breeze. The idea became the reason for the shot. It wasn’t about the size of the camera any more.
With my Leica, the blades of grass showed up in colors that went near psychedelic. With the coming of age, one definitely needs to lighten the load of life. I capture the moments more frequently in a casual way. Moving around with a massively expensive camera has never been easier- the retro look of my Leica gives it a pass mark for street photography. Those area boys don’t know that my Leica got them covered. People still wonder if it is a film camera. I wonder how the little things in life can make precious memories. The L in my images does not just stand for images taken with my Leica. L is for Love- love of photography.
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