2021 was a year of personal exploration that didn't really end up going anywhere. Maybe I can take what I learned this past year and apply it to something useful in 2022.

I bought my first Leica, an M6 TTL in 2004. I've bought and sold a number of them since then. I currently own an M3, M6, MP, Q2 Monochrom, and SL2-S. In the above timeline, film cameras are green and digital cameras are yellow. Can you spot which type I tend to keep longer? The dates should be mostly accurate. There are some conflicting notes on my old blog, but they occur in 2012 which is the year I really messed things up during a platform change, so I've used my Lightroom catalog and Flickr data when in doubt. I also have some notes suggesting that I've owned two Leica M7s but I don't remember that at all.

The future for me probably holds a beat-up original M10 at some point after the M11 is released. Prices should get more reasonable then. I'll probably end up selling the M6 to fund it or something like it. Or maybe I'll sell the MP one day, although the thought makes me shudder. I've had friends say to me, "Never sell a Leica. You always regret selling a Leica." I should probably heed their advice.

While looking up information for creating My Leica Camera Timeline, I ended up in a bunch of old Tinderbox documents, dating back to 2008.

The above image shows a project map from my 2009 daybook Tinderbox file. It's so easy to understand what was going on when I can see my notes visually like that. But I also have the same information in a simple outline.

I know I talk a lot about how plain text is so great and future proof, and it is. But it's best for searching and less useful for understanding. At least for me.

I prefer creating content in Ghost to WordPress. It's faster, simpler, and generally cleaner. However, I don't love the people behind Ghost. Their goals don't align with mine. Most of the time, who cares? But sometimes I do care. Then I saw Mike Rockwell's post with quotes from Matt Mullenweg and it reminded me that I much prefer Automattic's attitude which is one reason I've reverted copingmechanism.com to WordPress.