None of these came off the Leica. They came off my phone, the same thing everybody else in these rooms had in their hand, and for these six frames around Toronto and the GTA it was enough. There is an old line that the best camera is the one you have with you. People say it so often it has stopped meaning anything, but it is true, and these six are the proof of it. Nothing planned, no bag, no lens to think about. Just the phone.
The Best Camera Is the One You Have on You
Lift a camera in a coffee shop, even a small one like the Q3, and somebody notices. Lift a phone and you are just another person checking a message. Nobody looks twice, because every second person in the room is doing the same thing. That is the whole advantage, and it is a big one for the kind of picture I am after.
The low frame is the one that shows it best. I had the phone down at the edge of the table, at the height of the cups. Two men leaning in over a conversation, the younger one with his hands folded against his mouth, the older one with his cheek in his hand. Beside them a woman on an orange phone, not part of it at all. Behind them a man with his eyes closed. Four people at two tables and only two of them in the same conversation, and none of them gave me a second look.
Everybody Brought Something to Work On
Two men studying a laptop together, one in a cap and a black vest, the other with his hands clasped in front of him like he is waiting to be told the answer. A young woman with a laptop on her knee pointing at a page of math for the student beside her, an iced coffee and a matcha on the table, a picture of kayaks on the wall over their heads. Who is teaching who? From where I sat it looked like she was, and he was letting her.
The window table I took through the glass. Two women talking, one in the middle of a sentence, the other in the middle of a bite, a man behind them with his head in his hand, and the plaza parking lot and a grey sky out the far window. The glass puts a layer between you and them, and that layer is a lot of the picture.
No Smoking, No Vaping
Outside a plaza store a woman in a green hoodie sat on a bench with her hood up, both hands cupped around a lighter. The sign on the door behind her says No Smoking, No Vaping, and she is outside the door, which is exactly where the sign sends you. Next door a poster for 31 percent off ice cream. I was across the sidewalk with the phone. If I had been holding the Leica up to my eye she would have stopped, and so would the picture.
The Man by the Window
The last one is a bearded man in a plaid shirt, sitting sideways on a wooden chair by a restaurant window, one leg straight out, an arm resting on the table. Out the window two students walk past, and a mail truck and a white van sit in the lot. He is the only person in the set looking straight at me. He did not seem to mind, he just kept sitting, and that look is why the picture works.
I still carry the Leica Q3 when I go out to shoot and it is still my camera. But it is not always with me, and the phone always is. Available light, no flash, and no one paying attention to a man with a phone. Earlier this month I did a whole set on people on their phones, and this time the phone was mine. The best camera is the one you have, and most days that is the one in your pocket. The rest of the work is in my street photography projects.
Thanks for looking!
