Life, Land, & Legacy
A couple of months ago I was standing off a quiet highway in the Northern Plains, looking across a field at a… dinosaur. Except this dinosaur wasn’t millions of years old, only nearly a hundred. In 1933, this roadside attraction was thought to entice road weary spectators to stop for a soda at the nearby General Store. Today, it’s just me and a couple of Leica cameras. And of course, a warning to the only people who venture out here anymore - hunters - to stay out of the pen that this ancient concrete Sauropod calls home.
While I should hope for a variety of sounds in this moment - the sound of the wind, and maybe the sound of a dinosaur roar or the earth rumbling at its footsteps - the sound I’m actually experiencing is the precision snap of the shutter on my Leica M6. After composing the first shot, my M6 returns back to my left side and my M11 raises up from my right. Composing the same yet slightly wider, I once again hear the mechanical slap of the shutter. Now there are two photos of our dinosaur friend - one fossilized by silver halide crystals, and one preserved in zeros-and-ones.
After standing there for a moment trying to imagine the hopes and dreams of the men and women who created this roadside wonder of the Northern Plains, I hopped back into the car and continued on my journey. I’m exploring what was left behind in this increasingly sparse part of the country. Towns across the northern plains are like a faucet left just loose enough to slowly drip generation after generation, depleting the reservoir of citizens year after year.
These ghost towns aren’t odes to the glorious wild west, but markers of left behind ambition and opportunity. There are homes that haven’t seen a family in three or more generations. There are service stations that haven’t seen an automobile since the introduction of alternators. There are cafes that last served a customer eggs, bacon, and coffee for under a dollar. There are schools who had their last class during WWII. And there are people who have weathered time and aged as these buildings, like the only remaining citizen of Lost Springs, Wyoming - Mayor Arthur.
I’ve been coming up to the Northern Plains to tell its story for quite some time. My Leica cameras always come with me, as well as two lenses: one for each camera. I try not to overthink or concern myself with a big kit, as I would have prior to picking up my first M. Today, it’s simply the M6 and M11 with a 50 Summilux and 35 Summilux, respectively. The Summilux lenses have an iconic character that I absolutely love. I choose this approach because I think for the kind of documentary work I do, 50mm is nearly perfect. We see the world as a 50mm does in terms of depth and distance, and I feel that 50mm is the most human of focal lengths.
So why not a 50mm on both the M6 and M11? The answer is quite simple. I use a 35 Summilux on the M11 because of the massive amount of resolution the M11 has. I prefer to shoot digital a bit wider than film. When working on a project, this allows me to have a digital version that I can recompose, crop, or change when I begin editing or sequencing my work. Prior to the M11, this wasn’t as possible as it is now. The M11 has made the work I do - combining film and digital photography - as seamless as I’ve ever had it.
When I think of this kind of work, I’m inspired by the greats like Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld, who captured everyday scenes of life and legacy as if they were spoken word poets - each photograph with the symmetric rhyming of horizontal and vertical lines, color hooks, and a timeless commentary all expressed in one-five-hundredths of a second. Their intentionality and attention to detail in their compositions is something that inspires me to work as meticulously as I possibly can.
This is why I choose the Leica M. If I am to be driven to create my best work possible - work that is precise, perceptive, and true - I need a camera and lenses that are crafted to the same level of precision. A camera that inspires me to make photographs. There is truly nothing like the Leica M system. It is a camera for life and legacy.
Dave Herring is a photographer and cultural philosopher with a background in nonprofit management and creative direction. Dave grew up on the east coast but eventually moved to Germany as a young man. It was there he fell in love photographing landscapes. After moving back to the US, his work in nonprofit shaped him as a photographer, filmmaker, storyteller, speaker, and author, bringing human-centric stories and experiences to light.
Today he lives in the Bay Area, and continues to document life, land, and legacy with his Leica M6 & M11, often making indistinguishable work between the two cameras. The flexibility of the M11 files has enabled him to present uniform galleries between his film and digital work, seamlessly transitioning series of photographs with unparalleled uniformity.