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With the partial solar eclipse only a couple of hours away, my friend Jaap and I cycled down to the Copernicus Science Centre on the Boulevard of the Wisła River. The idea, of course, was to make some photographs of Varsovians enjoying the once-in-a-generation celestial moment.

We arrived to find a queue to the rooftop snaking all the way along past the centre and down the road. The ol’ press card got us to the front, and as we waited, Jaap noticed something odd. There were more than a few Secret Service agents setting up security pat-down tables. Things just got interesting. Who’s coming along to this, then?

Through security, we discovered that the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland, Donald Tusk, would be joining observers on the roof to enjoy the solar eclipse. An added bonus for our respective photo stories.

On the roof, the Science Centre had provided telescopes, filters, and everything folk might need to enjoy the solar eclipse.

Editing Music

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A Tom Holland Double Bill

Despite the many well-publicised and much-debated issues with the film, I thought the Odyssey was a fantastic spectacle. Sitting 3 rows from the front in Warsaw’s IMAX cinema, I felt like I was inside the movie and my tiny wee mind was blown throughout. It was quite a journey. (Sorry). I don’t disagree with some of the criticism, though throughout I’ve found some of those online classicists to be so conservatively joyless in their appraisals. Somebody get these purists out of here.

The very next day, I enjoyed the second film of my Tom Holland, John Bernthal, and Zendaya double bill at the pre-premiere of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It’s so Spidey. I loved it. Again, it’s not perfect but my goodness it’s so much fun. Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle was a particular highlight, as was Sadie Sink’s debut as [redacted]. With choreography heavily based on the Insomniac Spider-Man games, on Day 3 of my holiday, I found myself back at the PlayStation and proceeded to lose several hours swinging around being the most carefree bastard in New York City.

Superstars and the broken Meta

A little earlier in July, British glam indie icons Suede visited Progresja in Warsaw, and I was in the photo pit for what were an incredible first three songs: Disintegrate, Trash, and Animal Nitrate. What a show it was too. Brett Anderson is a proper superstar. The 15mm on the Leica came in more than handy when he jumped down into the pit to be grabbed and pawed by the adoring fans. It was a real moment.

Holiday or not, I still have my 2026 365 project going on, so I’ve been snapping some work whenever I’m out and about, and when I’m not, I’ve been sharing stuff from earlier in the year. At the end of July, I chose to stop sharing each photo on Instagram. As someone with several thousand followers over there, not breaking into triple-digit views each day rendered the whole exercise pointless. Instead, the photos are shared on my website. A wee bit more about the website in the digest below.

Anyway, enough of all that. Welcome to the first issue of f/Stops, the newsy bit of The Contact Sheet newsletter. If you’ve been here for a while, you may remember the Dispatches series on Substack, where I shared some posts I had read, some news from the world of photography, and some other stuff I was enjoying. In this newsletter, Dispatches has become f/stops, and is much the same, sans the Substack of it all.

Let’s get on with it.

F/Stops

^f/2.8 The British Journal of Photography discovers photographers_struggle_memes.

^f/4 Despite the allusions to the Gen Alpha meme, the Pentax 67 is having a moment and had a key role in the making of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

^f/5.6 Aperture has compiled a list of 25 books that define America.

^f/8 Tish Murtha’s new book, Vandalism on a Grand Scale, is now available, and while mine still waits for me in a box under the stairs in my parents’ house, having seen some of the photos, I highly recommend it. It’s a limited run, so snap it up quickly.

^f/11 Several European countries are considering bans for Meta’s Smart Glasses, something, as a long-time Ray-Bans wearer, I fully support.

^f/16 Stepping away from photography for a moment, the algorithm served me this performance by Molly Walker of her poem Alkaline Reactor. Tremendous.

Digest

To end every issue of f/Stops, I’ll close with a digest of anything I’ve published on neilmilton.scot over the last month.

The Tinnitus Diaries

The Tinnitus Diaries, found at music.neilmilton.scot, is an incomplete and ongoing journal of gigs that I’ve shot since returning to photography during the pandemic. Part diary, part publication, The Tinnitus Diaries finally gives me a place to be excited in sharing my music photography. Initially I toyed with only adding a gallery on neilmilton.scot, however, it felt out of place among all the street photography. What I needed was a site with its own (admittedly similar) look, its own identity, and its own subdomain. I’m really happy with the way it turned out, and over the next few months, there’ll be a lot going on over there.

Too Many Fireworks. An Oral History

Before photography, I was an indie-label underachiever. From 2002 until 2019, I owned and managed the Glasgow and Warsaw indie record label, Too Many Fireworks. On January 21st 2027, Too Many Fireworks will turn 25 years old. To celebrate, I am writing about each catalogue number, the club nights, and the other bits and pieces. Speaking to bands, DJs and fans, I am building a small oral history of the label.

And finally…

If you’ve enjoyed this issue, I’d be very grateful if you could recommend it to any photography-loving friends.

This newsletter is free to read, however, as a freelancer in the creative arts, every penny counts. If you like what I do, please consider buying me a roll of film. You can do so by clicking here, or by aiming your camera at the QR code below. Your donations help me keep making photographs and writing.

All labour required to publish The Contact Sheet is undertaken by me alone. As I try to be a better socialist, I donate 10% of all income to anti-capitalist, leftist, or progressive causes or organisations that help make the world a better place. Thank you!

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2013 was a notable year in the history of Too Many Fireworks. In March of that year, the imprint returned from several years in the net-label wilderness to concentrate again on physical releases. After the success of the Variations of Chopin record released in May, the summer saw our first Polish release from Plug&Play.

Plug&Play

Fronted by founder Kuba Majsiej, the Lublin band had recently made several line-up changes and moved from post-punk to a more polished pop sound. As Kuba told me, the transformation from a raw, dark band into something more danceable and pop-oriented was led by his desire for bright clean sounds and that prior to this they hadn’t necessarily had the technical and financial means to play music that broke free from the shell of raw post-punk. To my ears, the music reminded me of a less frantic incarnation of The Matchsticks (post-Too-Many-Fireworks Flying Matchstick Men), so the e.p., Reisefieber, felt like a suitable first dip of the toes into the Polish music scene for the label.

I must confess that I don’t remember exactly how or where Kuba and I met, but I have to imagine it was through one of the myriad record fairs that I was visiting with Too Many Fireworks at the time. It may even have been through their manager of the time, Monika Mazurek – now a Michelin-recognised chef and co-owner of Peaches Gastro Girls, in Warsaw.

Plug&Play became our first Polish artists and the relationship benefited us both. I was looking for Polish music, specifically, and though I showed interest in several bands at the time, a couple of whom found their way onto our compilation record, in the end we didn’t continue the relationship thereafter, choosing to work with Plug&Play. The band, on the other hand, had recently seen the bankruptcy of their previous label, where, to this day, they never managed a physical release of their debut album, Why So Close? Too Many Fireworks, then, came along just at the right time.

Reisefieber

Beautiful, soft, pastel-coloured artwork wrapped the EP (four tracks and two radio edits) and signalled to the band’s audience that this record might not be quite what they were expecting. The songwriting was, to me, exceptional. The inclusion of Wojtek, a reggae-influenced bass player, and the voices of two women backing Kuba in Luiza Orpik (guitar and percussion) and Agnieszka Ozon (keys) brought out a more mature side to the composition.

Looking for ways to freshen up the band’s sound, they featured a guest saxophone (Sahara Beach and Brand New Day) and added spoken-word passages in German (Like Analog Tapes), something Kuba said they would have considered heresy just a few years earlier. All being said, the record has faint allusions to the bands they were listening to at the time, Foals, Alt-J, and Metronomy, to name a few. On Reisefieber, the band swims in catchy, melodic indie pop, while the darker post-punk/new wave sound remains an undertow ready to pull the listener deeper down toward it.

Bright Moments

I’m far too shy to include the kind things that Kuba wrote in our messages back and forth, reminiscing about the cooperation with the label and me; however, I do remember feeling the excitement shared by the band and me as we prepared for the release of the e.p. – an event that coincided with Kuba’s wedding. All in all, everyone involved shares warm feelings. Searching for a photo of the band to accompany this post reminded me that Plug&Play shared the stage at Palladium in Warsaw with my band, The Frozen North. That was some night. Another memory that sticks out was my trip down to Lublin for a record fair to promote the record and to hang out with the band during rehearsal. Those, more than many of the more official functions of being a record label, are often the most fun.

I’ll leave the penultimate words to Kuba, who, when looking back on the record, sees it as one of those bright moments in the band’s history that gave us the confidence that it was good we existed. For Too Many Fireworks, Reisefieber was a diving board into a deeper pool of Polish music that we may not have waded in were it not for Plug&Play.

Reisefieber was released on CD and digital download on July 15th, 2013, and we gave it the catalogue number 2mf014. You can listen to the single here

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It’s fair to say I’d been a fan of Adam Smith’s shambling indie pop band, the Hector Collectors, for some time. A perfect example of a live band that skirts the line between brilliance and it all falling apart. Oddly enough, the first mention of Adam in my diary of the time is that he and Lisa of Glasgow band My Legendary Girlfriend got a bunch of us invited to the Yummy Fur’s John McKeown’s wedding party after a Macrocosmica gig. I mean, if you had told me right now that this had happened, I’d have laughed you out of the room. Am I glad that I saved my LiveJournal before deleting my account, or what?! Anyway, Adam’s brilliant – as is his band.

Like Mateusz Franczak in Poland, there are artists in Scotland who were pivotal to the direction that Too Many Fireworks was to take over the 20-odd years we were releasing records. One of those was Graham Fucking Peel of Flying Matchstick Men. Andy Bonar introduced me to Peel as a possible keyboard player for our band, Troika – though that seems bananas in retrospect. I didn’t know Graham’s band at the time, but after our meeting in a busy Nice N Sleazy, I was excited to hear them. Peel talks a good game.

Dialogues

In September 2002, I had been sitting in a hotel garden in Manchester and decided that Too Many Fireworks would start a split 7″ singles club called Dialogues — more of that madness when I write about the first one. The second, however, Dialogue Two, was a serendipitous encounter of Flying Matchstick Men and the Hector Collectors; two chaotic bands meeting at the perfect time and place.

The Hector Collectors

The Hector Collectors, named after Glasgow slang for someone who gathers glass bottles for the deposit, opened the single on the A side with the fabulous Celebrity World War. Gavin Dunbar of Camera Obscura produced the track and also provided keyboards for the record. Speaking to Adam, it’s safe to say he feels Gav was the unsung hero of the record both for his expertise and his support. After we finished recording, echoing The Beatles’ producer George Martin, Gav quipped, Congratulations, gentlemen, you’ve just made your first No. 1 record.

When I started Too Many Fireworks, I think it would have been a stretch to imagine one of our first records opening with a wonderfully witty, Half Man Half Biscuit-esque depiction of an international conflict carried out by many, very turn-of-the-millennium celebrities. I mean… Danny from Hearsay, for goodness sake. When I asked what he was listening to around the recording of the single, his list was very suitably Adam, containing as it does The Cheerful Insanity Of Giles Giles and Fripp, Neutral Milk Hotel, and The United States of America, though as he says, not that they had much of any influence on this record whatsoever!

Flying Matchstick Men

Flying Matchstick Men took the flipside of the record with their song, Kids! Revolution! A raucous, sorta-anticapitalist, sorta-teenageriot blast with an almost soviet refrain and a lot of Heys! The song was produced by the Neqtunes – Joe Howe (Germlin) and Gavin Thomson (GRNR), the latter of whom would join the band on bass and production not long after collaborating with the band on their first album, also released on Too Many Fireworks. I remember the overwhelming excitement I felt the first time I listened to these songs back-to-back. My diary describes it best. Jesus. Christ! On release, we packaged the 7″ vinyl with a download code where listeners could find some exclusive remixes of Kids! Revolution! made by Gav and Joe.

Writing with Adam about that time, the time of release, something he said chimed with me more than I imagined it would. I asked what he misses most from that time, and he replied that he misses the open frontier/finiteness (paradox but it’s true) of Web 1.0 and that nascent excitement of the 02- 06-ish Glasgow music scene when everything seemed more exciting. It was truly a great time, particularly when Flying Matchstick Men appeared.

I was in awe of their rizz and their fearless stripe of eccentricity, says Adam. I don’t think either of these songs is our best, but theirs has much more presence and excitement, and the pairing made sense. One of Adam’s best gig memories of this time is seeing the Matchsticks, for the second time, at the 13th Note in January 2003. They opened with this loose, crazy version of The B-52s’ Love Shack. It was the definition of lightning in a bottle, youthful FUN.

Careless Talk

One thing Adam reminded me of, which I’m astonished I’d forgotten, was that Everett True reviewed the single in one of the only 12 issues of Careless Talk Costs Lives he ever published. Slampt kids at the indie disco was the line remembered, much praise in True’s book, I think. My diary, I’m glad to say, also reminds me that Everett True featured both the Hector Collectors and Flying Matchstick Men (and my own band, Troika from Dialogue One) on his Careless Talks radio show on the TotallyRadio website.

The artwork for the record was a crude photo of the inside of a rehearsal room, from yours-truly long before I had any idea of what I was doing. I believe I made it on a disposable camera, too. Much more impressive was the lyrics sheet for Celebrity World War that Adam drew and asked us to include with the record. I’d forgotten it was in there. I love it!

Peel never did join Troika on keyboards, but in a strange quirk of fate, Gav Thomson joined us a couple of years later when Iain, our bass player, left the band. Funny how things like that happen.

Dialogue Two was released on 7″ vinyl and digital download on March 19th, 2003, and we gave it the catalogue number 2mf003. You can listen to the single here

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Lifting it from the floor, time slowed, and I felt a figurative, if expensive, bullet graze my shoulder. The mangled plastic rewind mechanism pointed towards the long repair that lay ahead of us.

I had no immediate plan to buy a second Leica M body, though I was saving for one. The temporary loss of the M6, combined with the fortunate proximity to my birthday, provided a gossamer-thin layer of cover needed to justify the exciting purchase of my now precious Leica M3.

The History of the Leica M3

Launched in 1954, the Leica M3 sold over 226,000 units before it was discontinued and replaced by the M4 in 1967.

Despite its name, the M3 was the first Leica M series camera to be introduced following a redesign of Oskar Barnack’s popular screw-mount Leica cameras. Taking its letter designation from the word Messsucher – the German for Rangefinder – the Leica M3 was so named for the rangefinder focusing mechanism, and a choice of three sets of frame lines was viewed through its single bright viewfinder window.

Additional innovations further set the new Leica M3 apart from its predecessors. For convenience, the wind-on dial was replaced with a thumb lever advance, and the solid shell of the screw-mount models was replaced with a hinged back, which eased and quickened the changing of film.

The camera remained entirely mechanical, although technology permitted minor automatic and electronic action within the new design.

Convenience

The most convenient redesign, however, was the top plate. Unlike the Barnack models, the shutter speed could now be chosen from a single dial. All controls on the new M were found across the top plate and could be read at ease from above.

Building on this novel convenience, the operation was significantly improved. Across all areas of the model, from shutter release to film advance and film rewind, the camera is oh-so quiet.

Though in this review lenses will be set aside, as one would expect from a Leica, the optics of the Summicron 50mm f2, with which it shipped, are perfect. Replacing the M39 Screw Mount for swift and nimble lens replacement, the M3 has a bayonet system appropriately dubbed the M Mount.

That this revolutionary design has remained consistent, with few changes or additions, for almost 70 years, is a testament to the timeless excellence of the original Leica M.

Leica M3 Build Quality

To some extent, build quality is a subjective matter of opinion. One person’s robust, solid camera body is another’s leaden paperweight. For me, build quality is directly proportional to the camera’s life expectancy, and, as is obvious from my camera being only a few years younger than my parents, the Leica M3 lasts, partly due to its sturdy construction and precise operation.

Used every day, an M3 should last a decade without the need for cleaning, lubricating, and adjusting (CLA), and, if kept well, will still look just as good as it did new.

What makes the Leica M3 a tough, robust camera is that its metal body, specifically brass, is strong and resistant to corrosion. The top and bottom plates are brass-plated in chrome for a clean, bright, and distinctive sheen. The covering stretched around the camera is vulcanite, and though intended for grip, it has given the camera a now-classic aesthetic.

Light Enough For a Day on the Street

In comparison to most professional SLR cameras, the Leica M3 can’t be described as a heavy camera, however, it does have some heft to it. Place it in the hands of someone unsuspecting, and there will be a surprise at its weight.

Of course, were it too heavy, it would not have become the acclaimed and sought-after camera it did. It is light enough to carry all day and not get tired. Containing a roll of Kodak Tri-X, my M3 weighs 622g, and with the Summicron 50mm f2 lens attached, it is not much less than a kilogram, weighing 844g.

Light enough for a companion all day out on the street, and heavy enough that it will be missed if left behind, or worse.

The Leica M3, while in its 69th year, has not yet been bettered for simplicity or reliability. The internal workings of the camera are mechanical. With the exception of the gold sync contacts for flash bulbs and electronic flash, there are no electronics on board, and there is no battery required.

A conversation with an acquaintance at Leica in London described the shutter speed timing mechanism within the M3 as akin to a Swiss clock. Exacting pinpoint precision at all costs. It is a light-tight box with a timed shutter, and yet, it is so much more.

Let’s take a closer look.

The Top of the Leica M3

Like that of the Leica M4 that succeeded it, the chrome-plated brass top plate of the Leica M3 is iconic.

The beautiful, precise engraving of the Leica script sits above the Ernst Leitz Wetzlar imprint. Simple, unassuming, and yet elegant and timeless.

Though one may argue it is not as instantly recognisable as the famed red dot, with its top-plate branding, the Leica M3 is less likely to distract or catch a subject’s eye while shooting in the street.

To the right of the Leica script, placed just above the hot shoe, is engraved both the model and the serial number.

Shutter Dial and Shutter Release

Unlike the screw-mount cameras that came before, the Leica M3 combines both long and short shutter speeds onto the same dial for a single, unified, and quicker selection. The shutter speed dial is a robust, solid circular piece of metal that is difficult to nudge accidentally and would take Peter Gabriel’s titular sledgehammer to break.

The ridges cut into the dial mechanism both catch the dial, firm in each setting, and give haptic reassurance to the photographer with its ever-so-satisfying click into place.

There is a small, oblong channel cut into the top of the dial between the 1/2s and 1/4s settings. That this had some purpose was only made clear when I bought a Leica MR light meter, which attaches to the top of the camera.

From the bottom of the meter, a pin slides into the channel, and, as the shutter speed is selected on the meter’s control, the pin controls the dial on the camera.

A more modest Range

Though modern digital Leicas have a range of electronically-assisted shutter speeds from an hour through to 1/4000th of a second, the mechanical M3 has a more modest range from 1s to 1/1000s.

There is a Flash-sync setting set at 1/50th of a second, and, should you need a longer shutter speed than 1 second, there is a Bulb setting for manual control.

All speeds are marked in black against the chrome metal of the dial and, when not in darkness, can be seen with ease – even with eyesight as poor as mine.

From the shutter speed, one only needs a short 2 cm journey to the right to find the shutter release set within a ring that sits above the advance lever.

As with all but the limited flash function, the shutter release is mechanical and has no electronic support. There is no half-press for focus or to activate a light meter, only a simple, smooth, steady depression of the button to hear the pleasing ssnnk of the horizontal, cloth shutter curtain travel across the frame.

Film Winder and Counter

On the older Barnack models, when the photograph had been made, there was an arduous dial to turn and wind the film on. All manner of contortions were needed to quickly set the camera for another frame. Replacing this is a thumb-controlled advance lever.

In earlier models like mine, the advance used a double-stroke mechanism. The first to cock the shutter, and the second to advance the film.

In later models, this was replaced with a single-stroke action with both functions occurring across a single draw of the thumb.

As the film advances, look across to the left at the rewind knob. It’s comforting to see the film is advancing inside the camera by observing the small pair of dots that revolve as the lever is pushed.

Double-Stroke

Many Leica M3 users advocate a double-stroke lever; others a single-stroke. From all the information I could find, it seems to be a subjective preference. I have it on good authority, though, that if a double-stroke mechanism requires repair, Leica will instead replace it with a single-stroke advance, so if you like the DS, don’t break it.

Single or double stroke, the wind of an M3 advance is smooth, and, as it is made of solid metal rather than the plastic-tipped controls of later cameras, there’s little chance of breaking the lever.

As the film is wound on, the inexorable frame counter ticks forward. Found on the farthest right of the top of the camera, the counter is housed in a subtle dome of glass.

Though there are 44 frames marked on the counter, the mechanism stops turning at 40; two of the additional four are cosmetic and complete the circle back to 0.

Unlike earlier Leicas, the camera effects an automatic reset when the take-up spool is removed, flipping the counter back to -2, to allow for two wind-on shots before the counter returns to 0.

Rewind Knob

On the opposite flank of the top plate rests the rewind knob. If there is one criticism a modern photographer may levy at the Leica M3, it is that rewinding the film takes an interminable time – especially when compared to the speed of winding back an M6.

To rewind the film on an M3, one flips the lever on the front of the camera towards the letter R, lifts the knob out from the central advance indicator, and twists. Relentlessly. Twist until the knob resists and the film is pulled off the take-up spool.

Between 20 and 30 seconds can be spent twisting and turning the knob before even beginning to load a new roll.

While I’ve heard tales of a Leica-produced crank tool that can be fitted around the knob to make rewinding quicker, I’ve never seen one or known anyone to use one.

Leica M3 Rangefinder mechanism

The Leica M3 is, of course, a rangefinder camera, and, thus, focus is found via the rangefinder mechanism built into the body.

For the unfamiliar, to focus using a rangefinder, the photographer looks through a viewfinder in the middle of which is a second small, illuminated rectangle. As the focus ring is turned, the picture in the smaller rectangle moves left or right. The goal is to match that of the diminutive rectangle with the image in the larger window. As the lines superimpose, the focal plane has been found.

Earlier Barnack Leicas separated the viewfinder and the rangefinder. The photographer peered through one window to focus using the rangefinder system and then moved their eye to the window beside it to compose the frame.

On the Leica M3, the separated windows have been combined for the convenience of the photographer. It makes all the difference.

On the front of the camera can be seen the three rangefinder windows. When facing the camera, on the right, there is the unified viewfinder. To its left, there is the bright line illumination window. This gathers the ambient light to illuminate the frame lines within the viewfinder. Further to the left is the rangefinder window, which provides the image in the small, central rectangle used to focus.

Effective Base Length

The accuracy of the focusing system within a rangefinder is dependent on what is known as the Effective Base Length (EBL). The higher the EBL, the more accurate the focusing. The lower, the less accurate.

The EBL is calculated by multiplying the base length of the rangefinder by the magnification of the viewfinder. The base length is the distance between the viewfinder and the rangefinder window.

Leica M3s have the same base length as other Leica M series cameras; however, as the magnification of the viewfinder is higher, the effective base length is more accurate.

The Leica M3 has a viewfinder magnification of 0.91x, which is close to a 1:1 ratio of magnification. For comparison, the Leica M6 viewfinder has a magnification of 0.72x.

The base length of the M6 is 69.25mm x 0.72 magnification, which gives an EBL of 50mm. The base length of the M3 is 69.25mm x 0.91 magnification, which gives an EBL of 63mm.

While such things are marginal, the larger EBL on the Leica M3 makes the camera more reliable to focus, particularly when using longer lenses wide open, where every millimeter counts.

Though one can cheat closer in various inventive ways, the M3 is rated to focus from as close as one meter, all the way out to infinity. While the camera does have automatic parallax correction, it is wise to keep it in mind when shooting near the subject.

Frame lines

Setting the rangefinder mechanism aside, then, let’s look through the viewfinder itself and those bright, beautiful, welcoming frame lines.

One of the big attractions of a rangefinder camera, particularly the older Leicas, is the lack of distraction in the viewfinder. There are no flashing lights, nor levels, grids, or gauges. There is a single set of frame lines and the rangefinder rectangle. That’s it.

The frame lines available are limited. Newer Leicas have a selection of six. The M3 provides only three. The 50mm lines are always on, and either the 90mm or 135mm lines will appear if an appropriate lens is attached.

The frame lines can be previewed without changing the lens by using the lever on the front of the camera.

With such viewfinder magnification, there’s no latitude to provide frame lines for 35mm or wider focal lengths. Should one need these, an external viewfinder is required. Mind you, if an external viewfinder was good enough for Winogrand on his trusty M4, it’s good enough for any of us.

Leica M3’s Baseplate and Tripod Mount

Unlike the majority of film cameras, the Leica M3 opens with a hinged backplate that swings vertically. The backplate is held in place with a brass baseplate that attaches to the body via a small jut on the right-hand side and is locked by a circular latch on the bottom.

There is little to the bottom of the camera until the baseplate is removed, save for the tripod mount. On Leica M3s sold in America, the thread of the tripod mount is measured at 1/8″, while those sold in Europe have a 3/8″ thread.

However, the most confounding thing for new M photographers is that the mount is not centred, sitting instead on the right-hand side of the camera. This can look and feel odd when used, but photographers have been mounting their M3s on tripods for almost 70 years now with little to complain about. It only takes a little getting used to.

Loading the Leica M3

Once the baseplate is removed, the hinged back can be swung up to view the film path in front of the shutter curtain, and it is in the absence of the baseplate that the bottom of the camera becomes somewhat more illustrative.

On the left, there is the cavity for the film roll, and on the right, there is the removable take-up spool.

In comparison with modern analogue Leica M cameras, the M3 is more time-consuming to load. One needs to remove the take-up spool, find the small clip to slide the film underneath, and then load the roll and take-up spool into the camera, ensuring the film is seated correctly in the transport path and on the wind-on cogs.

Much easier than the Leica III series to be sure, but requires some concentration, particularly when loading in the dark or on the move.

With time comes practice and with practice comes ease – especially if using the Winogrand flip. When changing rolls on his Leica M4, hung around his neck, Garry Winogrand would flip the camera upside down, so the bottom was facing him as he looked down onto it, and the lens rested against his body, making removal of the rewound film and replacing it with a new roll a little easier.

Mind you, Winogrand would temporarily put the bottom plate in his shirt pocket. I take my cue from our dog, and mine ends up in my mouth.

On the Back of the Leica M3

In keeping with the sleek, minimal aesthetic of the Leica M3, the hinged backplate is home to only the ISO and film-type reminder, a small spring-loaded dial to be turned to indicate when using either a black and white, tungsten, or daylight film – and the corresponding ISO.

Above the backplate, set into the chrome-plated brass of the body are two small plugs – the rear flash sync terminals, two plugs I’ve never had cause nor facility to use. Both terminals require an outmoded, proprietary Leica-devised connection to fit, and while there is a combination of different adapters that will get it there, your flash also needs to have the PC connector at the other end.

For a flash with a sync speed of 1/50s, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort, but it’s there should it be necessary.

The terminal with the symbol of the bulb is for the old ignitable glass flash bulbs. The terminal with the lightning bolt symbol is for xenon electronic flashes, so any semi-modern flash you may want to use. The difference between them is timing. The former is triggered a fraction earlier than the shutter, as the old glass bulbs were slow to ignite.

A Lifetime Investment

Advertised by Leica as a lifetime investment in perfect photography, the Leica M3 became as famous as its photographers, who, in their number, included Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Frank, Erwitt, Winogrand, and far too many others to mention.

It is a camera prized for its precision engineering, robust build, and beautiful design. It is by far and away the most enjoyable film camera I have used, and I expect to use it for many years to come.

This slightly-edited article was originally published on Shoot It With Film on January 12th, 2024.

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Having spent an adulthood of anti-zionism and pro-Palestinian advocacy, and a couple of years watching a genocide committed by the far-right settler-colonialist government of Israel, from the point of view of a smartphone screen, I am sick. I am exhausted. I am profoundly sad. And I am angry. I am rageful. The words, From the river to the sea pass through my mind every few minutes, it seems.

From the River To the Sea

As I sit here warm, comfortable, and safe at home in Warsaw, I can’t begin to imagine myself in the place of the civilians in Gaza who have suffered this disgusting collective punishment. This genocide has wiped out whole bloodlines. Israeli forces have forcibly displaced people. Infants shot in the head. I can, however, pay tribute to the Palestinian journalists and citizen journalists who have shown the world the truth of what has been happening in Gaza. Many of those have been killed; in fact, [when I originally wrote this], the CPJ has announced this to be the deadliest time for journalists in modern warfare.

Since the inevitable mowing of the lawn began in Gaza on October 7th and the brutal genocide that came after, I have been following the Polish-Palestinian protest movement. From marches to the Polish parliament, demonstrations outside the American and Israeli embassies, and student encampments, to the visit of anti-Zionist Jewish speaker and author Gabor Maté and cultural events such as Palestine Solidarity Days, I have spent time with fellow pro-Palestinian supporters and activists, documenting as I go.

Free Palestine!

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Every few years I find myself answering the Proust Questionnaire to see how my answers change over time. The famed questionnaire itself came from a French parlour game and, though not devised by Marcel Proust, he certainly popularised it with his belief that in answering these questions a correspondent reveals their true nature. As I’ve done on previous blogs, Facebook, and LiveJournal before it, I’ve answered all 35 but have chosen, here, 15 to post.

What is your current state of mind?
We are hope despite the times

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Driving through Glencoe, with my partner Marta. Mogwai was on in the car. I think it was Helicon 1. Bliss.

What is your greatest fear?
That we’re not going to make it.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
The unrelenting impostor syndrome that is the devil on my shoulder when it rears its head.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
An unearned sense of entitlement drives me bananas.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
The aesthetic.

Which talent would you most like to have?
Simple arithmetic wouldn’t go amiss.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Getting this far.

What is your greatest regret?
The decade-long break from photography was probably a mistake.

Where would you most like to live?
I belong to Glasgow, dear old Glasgow town.

What is your most treasured possession?
A Kermit the Frog I’ve had since I was a baby.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
The genocide of the Palestinians. Free Palestine!

What is your most marked characteristic?
Despite my shyness, probably because of it, I talk. A lot. Often loudly. I imagine it’s annoying.

Who are your favourite writers?
Alasdair Gray, Iain Banks, and, recently, Brian K. Vaughan.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Rosencrantz or Guildenstern.

What are your favourite names?
First and middle.

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Electroral Rage

In 2010, Britain’s centre and centre-left sent a clear message to Gordon Brown’s Labour by voting for Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats in their droves. That electorate certainly didn’t want David Cameron’s Conservatives, and the expectation was that Clegg would enter into a coalition with Labour, in the public’s eyes, setting the country on a moderate path. Clegg, of course, knifed his voters in the back and joined a coalition with the Conservatives, and he is partly responsible for everything that came after, Brexit included.

In the 5 years the Tories shared a coalition with the Lib-Dems, those forced by circumstance of ideologically driven cuts to services and welfare had to turn to food banks to feed their families, and in fact, in 2015, the year of the next general election, over 1 million families were being fed through the food-bank charities. Newspapers told stories of people dying after the government took away their disability benefits, leaving them unable to feed themselves or heat their homes. A disgrace.

On 7th May 2015, Scotland voted overwhelmingly for the welfare-protecting, migrant-welcoming, NHS-defending, Trident-abandoning Scottish National Party. The majority of the UK, however, voted for another 5 years of Conservative Party austerity – a sickener for Scots already heartbroken at 2014’s Independence referendum. With Clegg out of the way, Cameron, now with no guard rails (such as they were), announced plans for an in/out referendum on the European Union—and we know how that turned out.

For the next term, Chancellor George Osborne laid out plans for another £8 billion in welfare cuts, and the Tories clearly had no plans to curtail austerity, even while the richest got richer, and people in dire need of support and care were left without it.

How on earth does this relate to Too Many Fireworks, or this release?

At the time, I was playing guitar in the prog-post-rock band, The Frozen North. I had collected an embarrassing array of effects pedals, and in my Mogwai, Godspeed, MBV obsessions, I loved nothing more than spending some time in our rehearsal room alone just making noise.

The evening following the election, I stayed late after rehearsal and expressed my sheer frustration, disappointment, and anxiety with noise, feedback and effects while recording some of the improvising. From the 37-minute session, I cut the best 13 minutes, called it Shark, and released it as a single on the label to raise money for the food bank in my home town of Airdrie.

While of course attractive to only a very niche audience, I nevertheless felt strongly about doing something, anything, that I could do, and so Shark was part of that. In the end, we raised £143 from the single across its various releases and gave it to the food bank. Given the abstract noise of the track, I imagine some of that was donation.

Still, I’m quite proud of it. It feels like a different life, when I had 2 huge cases of pedals and some other bits and pieces, and a room in which to destroy my hearing. In the “liner notes” on the label’s website, the single credit read: rage, anger, disappointment, disillusionment, hope, optimism, belief and guitars: Neil Milton

Trussell continues to raise money for food banks in the United Kingdom.

Shark was released on digital download on May 15th, 2015, and we gave it the catalogue number 2mf019. You can listen to the single here

The post TOO MANY FIREWORKS. AN ORAL HISTORY, MOSTLY. 2MF019 appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

It’s summer! Half a year has shot past since I last wrote to you. Back then, I was looking at the year behind us and sharing some wee stories. Now, I’m choosing to press the reset button, and I wanted to tell you why.

Photos, mostly

I began writing on Substack in late 2022 after being worn down by the endless algorithmic treadmill of social media. Facebook and Instagram were soul-destroying. Reddit held no attraction. Mastodon was a ghost town. Don’t even get me started on LinkedIn. What had been my favourite platform for many years, Twitter, was largely dead to me, later to become dead to most right-thinking folk – so many who lost huge follower counts.

In another life, I was the owner of a small independent record label called Too Many Fireworks. Something I learned, forgot, and learned again was that owning your own audience is crucial. It’s essential to have followers that can’t be taken from you should a platform close, merge, or become the personal plaything of a fascist ex-trillionaire.

Substack seemed attractive as the founders sold themselves as being an alternative to social media. Algorithm? What algorithm? Exactly what I needed, I thought. Over time, I grew Photos, mostly to a couple of thousand subscribers and wrote some in-depth and popular essays. Through Photos, mostly I met some lovely folk and found some excellent work. I created the now defunct Photostack list that’s been superseded since by other excellent indexes. Shame on Substack for still not having a Photography category!

So what’s the problem, pal?

The algorithmic changes Substack introduced over the last few years, from Recommendations to Notes, diluted the platform’s allure and my reason for choosing it. These features certainly had their positives. Would you have discovered Photos, mostly had it not been for them? Still, the walled garden I was promised was turning into a country park, everyone shouting at each other, and far too many happily hurling slurs.

The one frantically fluttering red flag I couldn’t live with was Substack’s lack of any moderation of substance for far-right-wing cranks. Transphobes, Holocaust denial, neo-nazi content all earning from, and making money for, Substack. The platform’s refusal to draw any rhetorical red lines began to seem less neutrality and more political choice. As Israel has conducted its horrifying genocide in Gaza, Substack has supported publications like The Free Press in pushing the flagrantly dishonest Zionist line. My own line had to be drawn, and I decided to stop posting to the platform last year. When human-trafficking tortoise, the manosphere’s own chinless wonder, Andrew Tate joined Substack, my decision seemed vindicated.

For what it’s worth, if anyone else is considering leaving Substack, there’s an excellent website with some history, articles, and options of where to go: leavesubstack.com

Gone, but not forgotten.

In my absence, though, the recommendation engine has continued to do its work. Some readers have fallen away, but others stumbled upon me and subscribed – welcome to you!

I have always planned to come back to the newsletter, though I couldn’t decide where and when. That was, until this week. In the midst of some long-needed website renovation, I had a reservoir of curiosity enough to click on Jetpack’s Newsletter option. Turns out, I didn’t need to find a Substack alternative; I had one right at home all along.

With a little time, patience, and tedious use of Cmd+C and Cmd+V, I’ve brought over the Photos, mostly archive to this website, resurrecting the newsletter along with it.

As with most creative decisions in my life, the name of this reborn newsletter was settled upon after excessive indecision and inner conflict, almost as if my life depended on it. Ridiculous. As a title, Photos, mostly worked on Substack as it somewhat unsubtly described the content of the newsletter in an ecosystem of writing that spanned from memoirists laying their life bare to independent journalists breaking stories of the corruption of governments.

The name was much less descriptive when found, as it now is, on the website of your friendly neighbourhood street photographer. A new name was required, and as I was nearing the end of my rope, I settled on The Contact Sheet. See what I did there?

The Contact Sheet

On The Contact Sheet, you’ll find the occasional essay on the philosophy and practice of street photography, highlights from what I’ve been photographing, works-in-progress, some photos, links to some stuff I’ve written on the website, some exclusive print offers, and in the future, maybe a return to the short-lived Conversations, mostly series.

As I’ve stolen the name Dispatches for elsewhere on the website, the monthly round-up of photography news and other bits and pieces also has a shiny new title, along with a simpler format, and it will appear, when I get it started, as f/stops.

You can revisit all the Photos, mostly posts that have recently moved over to the website, including the State of Street Photography 2023, now updated for 2026.

Even with the change of name and a simpler format, the newsletter will stay, mostly, the same. Like when Marathon became Snickers in the ’90s.

Still, I know this move away from Substack may lead some more casual readers to unsubscribe. I completely understand, and no hard feelings. Thanks for sticking with me during the Substack years. Good times!

If you decide to stick around, thank you. Truly. This move from Substack takes me away from the recommendation engine and the safety of the wider platform, setting me out on my own. So if you like what you read, please recommend The Contact Sheet to a friend or two. It’ll really help.

What’s next?

Much like Photos, mostly; both newsletters will appear monthly, each more or less on a biweekly schedule. Regular posts should start in August, so until then, have a great summer!

Cheers!

And finally…

If you’ve enjoyed this issue, I’d be very grateful if you could recommend it to any photography-loving friends.

This newsletter is free to read, however, as a freelancer in the creative arts, every penny counts. If you like what I do, please consider buying me a roll of film. You can do so by clicking here, or by aiming your camera at the QR code below. Your donations help me keep making photographs and writing.

All labour required to publish The Contact Sheet is undertaken by me alone. As I try to be a better socialist, I donate 10% of all income to anti-capitalist, leftist, or progressive causes or organisations that help make the world a better place. Thank you!

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