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Leica Q3 43 Review by Gordon Laing

This is the best review I’ve seen of the Leica Q3 43.

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Leica Quality Issues?

Photographer Marcus Puschmann writing on his blog entitled Streets of Nuremberg:

I will leave Leica behind. For good.

I have been a passionate photographer for years, and in that time, I have used cameras from various brands—Nikon, Fujifilm, Olympus—without ever experiencing this level of unreliability and poor service. Those cameras have been true workhorses, tools I could count on no matter the conditions. I never had to worry about them suddenly failing in the middle of a vacation, a client shoot, or an important moment. I never had to brace myself for a repair saga that dragged on for months, only to be met with corporate gaslighting.

Leica likes to present itself as a brand of excellence, a brand built on heritage, craftsmanship, and a close relationship with its customers. My experience has been the exact opposite. What I’ve encountered is a company that refuses to take responsibility for repeated hardware failures, treats its customers with skepticism rather than support, and hides behind technical jargon instead of standing behind the reliability of its products.

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Travel Sites

I enjoy reading sites devoted to exploring the world. And I favor person-to-person recommendations.

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Audiobook Narrators

A narrator can make or break an audiobook. This is a list of exceptional narrators, in no particular order. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. Please suggest other narrators worth listening to in the comments.

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Tracing Quotations

Quote Investigator is a website that fact-checks the reported origins of widely circulated quotations. According to Wikipedia, the website was started in 2010 by Gregory F. Sullivan, a former Johns Hopkins University computer scientist who runs the site under the pseudonym Garson O’Toole. Many of the quotes examined on the site are emailed to him by readers.

O’Toole is also the author of a book entitled Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations. The New York Times reviewed the book in 2017 and confirmed that Gregory F. Sullivan is indeed the author of the website.

Sullivan “tries to track down correct information about the provenance of sayings by utilizing the massive text databases that are being constructed right now along with other quotation history resources.”

The site reports that it had more than 4.2 million visitors between June 1, 2021 and May 31, 2022. It’s a free site.

The Library of Congress also hosts a list of quotation reference websites. However, many of these websites, unlike Quote Investigator, do not cite an original source. Even so, it is a good resource.

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Photos of Pittsburgh

These websites display many interesting photographs of Pittsburgh:

It’s not clear who is behind these useful websites.

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Visiting Washington, DC

Places to Visit

Learning About Washington

Places to Stay

Four Seasons: Best Hotel in Washington

Events and Activities

Last updated: November 3, 2024

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U.S. Ambassador’s Residence, Paris

The residence of the United States Ambassador to Paris is at 41 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in the 8th arrondissement. It is known as the Hôtel de Pontalba. It was built by Louis Visconti for the New Orleans–born Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba between 1842 and 1855. Edmond James de Rothschild acquired the building in 1876.

During the German occupation of France, the mansion, then owned by Baron Maurice de Rothschild, was requisitioned as an officers’ club for the Luftwaffe. After the war, it was rented out to the British Royal Air Force Club, and then to the United States.

In 1948, the American government purchased the building, primarily for the United States Information Service. These offices were moved to the Hôtel Talleyrand as restoration was completed in 1971 during the tenure of Ambassador Arthur K. Watson. The building then became the official residence of the ambassador. This magnificent structure has only been the Ambassador’s residence for a little more than fifty years.

I’ve not yet had a chance to see inside the residence and enjoyed this video tour led by Denise Campbell Bauer who served as President Biden’s Ambassador to France. I hope one day to see it for myself.

Oilver Gee of the Earful Tower podcast made the video possible. If you have an interest in France I suggest you check out the podcast. The podcast is available on Apple podcasts and elsewhere.

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Washington Post

Three decades of beautiful snow scenes in the Washington, D.C., area

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A cold and cloudy Sunday morning in Washington

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Sunrise at the Washington Monument

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Quatre lieux interdits prisés par les photographes à Paris - RadioFrance

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Candid Photography

The great majority of my works are candid, meaning I don’t ask people for the photo nor do I tell them that I took their photo. I do this because I want to keep the moment pure as I saw it. The moment a person knows they are being photographed, they either get self-conscious or their behavior becomes more exaggerated than normal human behavior allows. It’s all about capturing that ‘unguarded moment’ and trying to make the people in the photos look as true to that moment as possible.

thegirlwholeftthefridgeopen

Also on Flickr

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‘A Touch of Magic’

My goal is to document the ordinary moments of life that we too often take for granted that are simply part of the human condition. I try to capture not only the authenticity of the ordinary moment, but the precise moment when the ordinary has a touch of magic associated with it.

James Rice

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I reckon I’m not alone in having trouble understanding passkeys: Michael Tsai’s Tech Blog. Are they practical, reliable and trustworthy?

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If I knew what the photograph was going to look like, I wouldn’t bother taking it. It’s the voyage of discovery that fascinates me.

– Lois Greenfield

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On Intimacy

Manuel Moreal:

Maybe it’s just me but the more time I spend online the more I enjoy consuming content from people who are not afraid to share content in a very honest and sometimes vulnerable way. People who share without an agenda, people who share because they think it’s important to communicate both the ups and the downs of this shared experience we’re all going through called life.

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Why Photograph?

Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.

— Anonymous

Source: Sam Benari.

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What Makes Paris Special

There are few things more beautiful in life than sensuality, with the word being used in its’ most elegant sense-and of all of the cities in the world, few offer such splendor more than the omnipresent scenes of daily life in Paris.

Peter Turnley

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Being a Friend Means Being Truthful

You can’t be a friend if you are not willing to tell the truth. This doesn’t mean that you are right. Being right and being honest are not necessarily the same thing.

— Paul Ferrini

Source: Annie Mueller