Mies van der Rohe

There was a time that all I needed was an index figure and a thumb to operate a camera. Back in 2007 when I was shopping digital cameras, only the SD14 and the Leica M bodies were purposefully designed with the barest necessity of controls. I'd pick up a pro level Canon or Nikon and never put it up to my eye because I was so put off by all the offerings to which the collection of buttons and dials seem to allude. Today, it seems that the Leica M bodies alone still give a nod to Mies van der Rohe's beautifully true design principle that "less is more".

In spite of the niceness of the review of the new Panasonic posted here https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/62908738, I couldn't wait for it to be over. I could never use such a camera.

In order to make photography of beyond that which is expected - on color, in focus, well composed - one must work deeper. More attentively. And finally unconsciously. The seemingly infinite offerings of these new cameras developed by the consumer product giants cannot lend themselves to a unified way of working. For unity is found only in simplicity. Or you might say that unity is absent in the midst of complexity and fragmentation.

I'm not saying it isn't possible - that is, that very high level work can't be done on such a device. I just know I couldn't do it. Rather what I increasingly see is photography that is device created - beautifully homogenous and empty. All the device bells and whistles demanded by the "market" have created a climate of work where "more" capability has actually delivered "less".

Less of what? Less of everything that really matters.

One need only to consider the 60+ years career of Irving Penn to glimpse at what power there is in working simply.