December’s creak from the Chair

Season’s Greetings TLS.  I hope you are all enjoying a delightful festive break.

On the subject of Christmas, since first memory, I have loved everything about it.  Generous, fun, colourful to the point of camp.  In my opinion, nothing captures Christmas like the Leica glow.  I believe that the festive atmosphere is best captured by the fastest lens of all, the .95 Noctilux.

It adds a dreamlike magic to almost any subject and suits the sentimental warmth of the season perfectly.

Released in 2008, to replace the f1 Nocti:  It is a very different beast to its predecessor.  Bigger and heavier, retaining the dreamy bokeh quality wide-open, yet providing a more defined sharpness on the focus point.  The f1 is fabulous too, but almost surreal on occasion.

For this month’s creak, I am sharing some images from a family Christmas in 2011.  When I only used the .95 and always fully open.  I was going through the archive and found this set recently, I hope it demonstrates the Christmas magic of the Nocti and a Leica M9.  Still a fabulous camera.

Talking of magic, the judging of our 180 images received will be completed this week.  As mentioned previously, a fabulous harvest and thanks to all TLS members who participated.

Winners will be announced, via the website, on January 14th and we will be sharing as many images as we can in the inaugural magazine later in the month.  And on that subject, Phil Coomes is making great strides in delivering an online offering that is taking shape beautifully.

It only remains to wish all in our TLS community a very happy and prosperous 2026.

Best wishes, Giles

Contact Giles, use the contact us page and select chairman’s corner from the drop-down

All images © Giles Johnson