There were days Leon would return from his long photographic expeditions, wet with heaven sent rain. He'd be wearing the greatest smile a person ever wore, radiating with that joy inner passions bring. Then after some chatter he'd be enveloped by his processing room, taking all the time he needed to bring out every detail to its finest glow, until he emerged triumphant, the man and the camera, a master and his lens.
The camera had a case made from black hammered metal, the lens jutted out on a highly polished brass looking cylinder, finished at the end with a rim of more black metal. Two dials and a button poked out from the top and it bore the name Leica. It had to be almost 100 years old. It was satisfyingly heavy in the hand and made wonderfully mechanical whirring and clicking noises.
The size of a credit card and almost as thin, when off it looked like a simple silver rectangle of metal on one side and a screen on the other. When on a shutter opened soundlessly at the front to reveal a lens, the back was a perfect high definition picture of what the camera was aiming at. One tap of the screen and the picture was taken.
The camera was their portal to the globe, a way of having a wider conversation at a human level.