THE STORY

It all started when my late mentor/hero put his Leica M4 in my hand when I was 4. It was the first time I had ever held a camera. Of course, name brands and functionality meant nothing to me back then, but it was so mechanical and cool. He showed me how to use the advance lever and how to squeeze the release. He even let me take a photo! I was hooked instantly. Throughout my childhood and into my teens, I always loved photography. In high school, I got into cinema and ended up in film school. When I graduated with a passion for both? I made a career out of it. However, in my own time, black-and-white photography seduced me. It’s all about light, shadow and composition. You either nail it or you don’t. I think it was due to my role model, Peter, and his love for the medium. He had a completely different style, but the underlying passion is from the same ideal.

I never knew what he did with that roll, or if he even developed it back then, and I probably never will. He was a true Renaissance man. He raced motorcycles in his 20s, was an accomplished chef and baker, spoke French and Italian conversationally, was an outstanding graphic designer and an incredible photographer. He would bake Italian Panatone and Pandoro for Christmas each year, could make croissants that Cédric Grolet would lust over, and carbonara so perfect that I don’t order it out to dinner because I know it won’t live up to his. He was a graphic designer professionally for clients and had his art photos in galleries from Chicago to New York and Paris. Every year at Christmas, since I can remember, he would print these beautiful B&W prints of photos he had shot in the past year and give them as gifts to loved ones.

He was hit by a taxi in downtown Chicago while riding his bike in the summer in the late 2000s. While he survived, post-accident recovery was tough and due to brain damage sustained, he started having seizures. In short order, he had them under control with medication and got back to his usual life for a long time. Just not forever.

Sadly, he suffered a seizure in January 2021 and passed away. My godparents were his best friends and my godmother was the executor of his estate. She called me in late 2021 and had news - he had left me his cherished and annotated Italian cookbook, his Pandoro pans and his Leica Monochrom. Starting at Christmas 2021 I began making Pandoro in his memory, but it wasn’t until mid-2023 that I could pick up the camera - his camera.

I have another Leica rangefinder and I love the way they make you slow down and compose a shot. A heady juxtaposition to the modern-day cameras we all use professionally - there’s no autofocus, auto white balance, or LiveShot. It’s all manual and mechanical and for shots you only get one go at, you have to be precise.

Shooting with his Leica Monochrom, the first digital Black-and-White-only Leica and the last Leica with a digital CCD sensor (developed with Kodak), helped me finally make peace with his passing. The way the CCD sensor mimics film is unmatched and wholly different from how today’s CMOS sensors reproduce images. The best part? Not having to carry around rolls and rolls of film, yet still being able to capture the grain and imperfections of film when shooting with it.

I’ve been shooting with his camera for a little over a year now. After a 3 season Hiatus, I’m picking up where he left off. His tradition of gifting B&W prints to family and friends - our family and friends - is coming back this Holiday Season. Every time I frame up with his Leica and can capture in a medium I already had fallen in love with, that he was in love with, I feel like he’s with me. Being able to share my work - shot with his camera - with our family and friends, I hope it provides them the same cathartic release that shooting with his camera gives me.