Not Another Leica M6 Review!

I love my gear, I enjoy spending time on YouTube to see what creative photographers are doing but we need to stop.  We need to stop with the countless reviews of gear that has already been done a thousand times. How many different ways do you want to look at the Leica M6? I like this camera, but does it deserve three thousand reviews, years after it was pulled from production?

Film and the cameras that consume it, is becoming more popular, but do we need to continue speaking of the soul that photography has and how the Leica taps into that?  I get it, it is a nice camera and sexy to film. I appreciate that making a video on film photography is easiest to do when filming the gear involved.  

But we need to demand more from people who are making videos. We need them to show us something new, even if it is new to them as well. How to videos should not be about how to load film, zone focus or about verbalizing love of gear. We need YouTube creators to bring something more to the table, to advance film photography beyond gear.

I appreciate those that try to teach darkroom skills, film development techniques and the like. These videos have not been overdone, and each person brings their own methodology and insight into it. This demands that the YouTube creator actually go out and try something new, learn a skill and come back to discuss it. Hard work.

I would love to see more videos on photography.  Let me explain, photography is about the photograph. It would be great to see creative minds study a photograph and walk us through what they are seeing.  Discuss the composition that makes it work, the photographers selection of the scene and why it works so well. Ted Forbes used to do this (below are some links to his older videos that I love) but soon stopped. 

Why do we not see more of that?  Because it is work.  Going into a darkroom and filming, editing and posting a video is hard work.  Doing the background research on a photograph is again, hard work.  Making a video about a camera that has been done before is easy.  Look through a few videos to get some ideas, set up a digital camera to record you and talk into the camera.  You can even preface it by saying that this is just your "opinion" and you are not an "expert" this way no one will hold it against you is you say something that is incorrect. 

I do not troll people's videos and I do not leave negative comments because I appreciate that the creator may be on their own creative journey.  But we should support the creators who actually go out of their way to do something innovative.  The ones that put in the hard work and try to teach others.  We need to stop watching countless gear videos.  

Take a look at a few of these positive examples.
Shoot Film Like a Boss
Ted Forbes The Old Stuff
​The Master Class