My behind the scenes probably looks fairly boring—I don’t use lights and rarely work with assistants. It’s usually just me and a camera. Or three. I always have a few, I love them. The one that always wins out though is a Leica M, which lives around my neck.
I always wanted one since I got into photography and saw pictures of Robert Frank, Bresson and Winogrand using it. I bought it with the entire budget from a commercial job. Apart from being a beautifully designed object, people react wonderfully to it. It’s not a big, in-your-face camera, it’s small, neat and unobtrusive.
If someone is a little nervous of being photographed it’s perfect. I can carry on as normal, chat away, have a cup of tea and when something happens I can raise it, click and carry on. It’s great as there’s nothing to hide behind, no fancy tricks, it’s just a simple box with shutter speeds and apertures. One of my favourite things anyone ever told me about being photographed by me was that they forgot I was doing it; that’s what this camera lets me do.
