A Timeless Lens: LHSA 50 APO Summicron-M Lens

One of my happiest moments during the pandemic was receiving word from the LHSA that I was the GRAND PRIZE winner of the 2021 sweepstakes.  The stunning 50th Anniversary Commemorative APO Summicron-M f/2 ASP lens was delivered to my home soon after.  The lens arrived in time for my first flight in over a year: from New York to my hometown in Utah.

It was during my childhood in northern Utah in the 1980s and 90s that I learned to love photography.  My father was rarely without a camera in reach and I followed his lead.  As a German immigrant, he had a particular fondness for Leica, Rolleiflex and Exakta cameras. He used them to take innumerable pictures of our family and the American West, and to teach me to do the same.

While I continued amateur photography after moving to New York for college and graduate school, other demands absorbed most of my time and resources.  It was not until January 2017, when the Leica M10 was released, that I invested in my own Leica system.  Later in the same year, my father gave me his beloved Leica M3 and lenses.  He had been diagnosed with the cancer that would ultimately take him from us, and he wanted to pass along his prized possessions on his own terms.

In the last year or so we had together, I took hundreds of photos of him and the rest of our family using the M10 and M3.  Capturing those moments made it easier to process the loss to come. And using his camera and lenses after he passed helps me continue to feel his love and connection to me.  Now the LHSA 50 APO has been pressed into service to capture, as best I can, the love and beauty in my life.  I take pictures with the lens I hope my father would appreciate, including the one that accompanies this article of my mother.