Earlier this year, around February 2021, I finally just bit the bullet and ordered a Leica M10 Monochrom from the Leica store in San Francisco. This was the first brand new Leica that I’d ever purchased. I’m not ashamed to admit that I had tears in my eyes as I opened the package. I don’t know what it is about the Leica bug, but I have it big time. Opening a Leica camera is akin to buying a new iPhone or computer from Apple. Each company puts in a lot of effort into their packaging and it just adds to the mystique of their products.

I woke up Sunday morning to an email congratulating me on one of my photographs receiving an honorable mention. It was from the ND Awards, a photography contest that I had entered earlier in the year.