Another week, another trip to New York. This time I spent my free time walking around in Manhattan south of Central Park. One day along the High Line, another day along Broadway up to Central Park, which had a lot of police presence because of the New York Marathon.

In the morning, just after arriving at the office, I had a rather unusual sight out of the window. Unusual at least for me, as I am only a visitor to the big apple. The clouds hung low over downtown Manhattan, with skyscrapers disappearing into fluffy white cotton candy. I had to take a picture of that.

I had the Leica M4-P with me, with the Voigtländer 35mm (the one with the ridiculously long name) bolted on. Another thing in my pocket was the ColorChecker Passport Photo from x-rite (first generation). My thought was: All my scanned negatives look off colourwise. If I have a reference for white balance at the beginning of each series of pictures, I may be able to colour correct properly. (Note: The images in this post have been re-scanned, based on my recent insight into ”scanning film the right way”.)

In the end, taking pictures of the ColorChecker did not improve the situation at all. I still ended up with a nasty colour cast in my scans. Not knowing about this outcome at the time of shooting, I now have a couple of frames with my little ColorChecker in various situations around New York.

Funnily enough: Even though I can’t state enough that I have barely an idea about what I am doing when I run around with a camera, I still was asked by strangers to help them take their picture because I looked like I know what I am doing. That is the “Leica effect” at work. If you want to become a good photographer, buy a Leica. At least in your mind, and apparently in other peoples minds, you will have your goal achieved automatically.