The Leica M11 and the Practice of Attention
I’ve been circling Leica for years. Admiring from a distance, following the brand like one follows a particular architect or designer, not because I could afford their work, but because their balance of design and engineering spoke to me on a deeper level. Leica was always there, shimmering in the periphery of my attention, as something both timeless and unattainable.
Capturing cherry blossom in Japan with the Leica T.
My first real step into Leica territory was not the legendary M, but the Leica T. We bought it before our first trip to Japan, and even now I believe it remains one of the purest digital cameras I’ve ever used capable of producing images that felt finished straight out of the camera. With a few settings copied from Andrew Kim, I was able to use the JPGs straight from the camera without any editing. All Leicas are low profile, easy to use without drawing attention, but the T’s single-block aluminum design made it even sleeker. The only real downside was resolution. At launch it was acceptable, but within a few years it simply couldn’t keep up.
Later came a Q2, purchased for a journey to Canada. With both cameras the ritual was the same: a big trip, a new Leica, and the hope that the pairing of place and machine would yield something lasting. The Q2, though, never won me over. Where the effortlessness of the T always felt like a reward for taking the camera out, the Q2 never gave me that satisfaction. Shots rarely felt right. I never figured out if it was the color profile, the lens, or simply a mix of everything. I would even go so far as to say that the Q2 pushed me away from Leica for a while.
The daily life in Norway
The M11 arrived much later. Just two years ago, after I had sold my company and was preparing to move to Norway with my wife and our cats. I wanted a new challenge, a hobby that would require patience and commitment. The Leica M11 became that challenge. It entered my life half a year before the move, a companion not just for travel but for transition.
I had lost my love for photography during a period when I slowly watched my dearest friend die. My greatest regret from that time is that I didn’t take more photographs. On his condolence card we used a picture I had taken on my phone. It captured him as he was, but I wish I had pushed myself to make more Platon-inspired portraits, something deliberate, something worthy. That loss was a reminder: I wanted to shoot more.
Holding the M11 for the first time in Leica’s Amsterdam store, I remember the weight of the decision as much as the weight of the camera itself. Twenty thousand euros slung over my shoulder, a price point that made me cautious in a way no watch or piece of jewelry ever has. My first photo, at an exhibition by Casper Braat, was a failure, blurred and hesitant, exactly as I expected. But in that failure was a revelation: here was a camera that demanded attention, respect, and effort. Unlike a phone, which encourages disposable images of notes and signs, the M11 refused to let me take a photograph without intention. And even with intention, the result was not always what I wanted.
The second picture I made with my Leica M11. The first picture will never be published out of shame.
The Leica M11 is not beautiful in the way the Q or even the old T were. It is austere, blocky, closer to a tool than jewel. I never fell in love with its design as I did with the T. Where the T was a sleek Porsche 911, the M11 is a Model T with the drivetrain of a Mach-E. What drew me in was not aesthetics, but history. Those grainy Vietnam War photographs, the battlefields where young men carried M cameras into chaos, that legacy is etched into the silhouette. To own an M11 is to hold a thread of photographic history in your hands. You join a select group of people who choose to grasp history in order to capture the moment.
Street shots in Oslo
And yet, what the M11 gives me is less about nostalgia and more about practice. It is, above all, a hobby. A conversation starter. In a café in Oslo, the mere presence of the M11 around my neck has sparked exchanges with strangers. A quick stop at Tim Wendelboe turned into an hour-long conversation with the creative director of a major advertising agency. In Tokyo, it led me into tucked-away shops, where I picked up unusual old lenses that carried their own stories. In London, ducking into the Leica Gallery to escape the rain, I watched a usually hyperactive friend fall silent in front of the pictures.
Using the M11 is like sailing. Motorboats exist, sleek and efficient, and most people would be wise to use them. But there is something intoxicating about pulling wind into canvas, trimming lines, feeling the blisters form on your hands. The Leica M11 demands the same kind of trade: slower, wetter, less forgiving. You won’t arrive first, but you’ll arrive changed.
The rangefinder system shapes everything. With the SL3, or a Sony A7, I can rattle off thirty shots in the time it takes to line up one frame with the M. Autofocus carries the burden of decision; the M places it entirely in my hands. It feels like shooting film, each exposure weighted, deliberate. And while I know I could be less precise, I often obsess over aligning the split-image perfectly. More often than not, I end up with technically sharp photographs that miss the moment, instead of messy frames that catch the spark. That tension has become part of the joy: to struggle, to miss, to keep trying.
Morning stroll through Warsaw
The so-called limitations of the M11 aren’t really limitations at all. They are prompts. They force me to walk differently through cities, to leave the house with purpose, to look for light instead of waiting for it. Without the camera, I might have spent mornings in Warsaw sleeping in; with it, I walked twenty kilometers before lunch, stumbling across boxers training under a bridge, club kids staggering home at dawn, lovers pausing mid-crosswalk to kiss. The camera didn’t just capture those moments, it pulled me into them.
Sharp image, missed the moment.
What the M11 has given me is not single photographs, but series. In Norway, where my wife and I lived for several months, I carried the camera almost every day. It became an anchor, a reason to step outside, to walk a little further, to search for something worth framing. Looking back now, I see not just images but the rhythm of days: supermarket runs, quiet streets, the soft winter light falling on our kitchen table. Ordinary things, elevated through attention.
This is, I think, the real gift of the M. My father has only one or two photographs of the street he grew up on, snapshots that today feel priceless, full of old cars, children on bikes, clothing that would otherwise be forgotten. We live in an age of endless images, an archive as deep as the ocean. But in that abundance, we lose presence. We stop noticing. The M resists that drift. It insists that even the banal deserves a second look.
In daily use, the M11 feels just right. Where the SL3 is heavy and overbuilt, and the little Leica D-Lux too light and forgettable, the M11 balances in the middle. It is substantial enough to rest on a table without embarrassment, but not so large that it dominates a room. I protect it with a leather case and a hood on the lens but the fear of damage has faded. My MV Agusta Superveloce, a handmade Italian motorcycle worth about the same as the M, would break my heart if it fell. The M11? I sling it over my shoulder, bump it against a wall and I keep walking. It has become less an object of value than a part of my body, an extension of how I move through the day.
I don’t think buying the M was a rational decision. On any value-for-money chart, the Q3 or even my old Q2 makes far more sense. They are easier to use, more versatile on trips, better suited to how most people, myself included, actually make photographs. But rationality was never the point.
The image quality of the M11 is like no other
The M offers something else: a hobby, a practice, a way of looking. At a drift event, for example, the camera was nearly useless for tracking the cars; no zoom, no autofocus, no speed. And yet, it was perfect for everything around the race: the atmosphere, the crowd, the way the city itself seemed to shift for the event. Where others came home with sharp images of machines in motion, I came home with a different story.
And when the relationship cools, when the M11 feels heavy or frustrating, there is always the simple act of changing a lens. A Noctilux, with its swirling bokeh and old-world rendering, turns the camera into something else entirely. Swap glass, and you rediscover the machine. The M11 reinvents itself through its lenses, reminding you that even in frustration, there is room for curiosity.
That, I think, is what the M gives you. It fuses with you. It makes you complicit in the act of seeing. Anyone can buy a capable camera or pull a phone from their pocket. But the M is something else, a piece of metal that requires intention, that demands your presence, that refuses to let you drift.
I’ve never regretted owning it. Not once. Because every time I lift it to my eye, I feel the same reminder: life is ordinary, fleeting, easy to miss. The Leica M11 insists we pay attention.