Alfa (1750) … Dog

There’s something wonderfully fitting about photographing an Alfa Romeo 1750 with a Leica M9. Both are unapologetically old-school, machines that demand your attention and reward patience rather than speed. Neither will do the work for you — they expect you to know what you’re doing, and they don’t forgive sloppiness.

I didn’t want the whole car. That would have been too easy, too obvious. Instead, I went in close, focusing on the sweep of that impossibly red wing, the chrome stalk of the lamp, and the way the bodywork catches the light like a perfectly tailored suit. With the M9’s CCD sensor, the reds come alive — rich without bleeding, deep without drowning in shadow. It’s not a modern, sterile rendering; it’s colour with character.

Composition here was a matter of restraint. I let the lines lead away into a blur, the shallow depth of field carving the Alfa out from the urban chaos behind it. The M9’s full-frame rendering gives the bokeh a subtle, filmic softness, the background melting into a haze of shape and suggestion rather than distraction.

The late afternoon light was doing exactly what I’d hoped — enough gleam to bring the curves to life, but soft enough to preserve the texture in the reflections. Exposure was a careful balancing act, pulling back just enough to keep the highlights from blowing while holding detail in the deep reds. The M9’s files have a kind of malleability in post that’s different from CMOS — less forgiving, perhaps, but more rewarding when you get it right.

In the end, the photo works for the same reason the 1750 does. It’s not trying to be perfect; it’s trying to make you feel something. And if you don’t feel a little taller, a little more dangerous, and a lot more stylish looking at this, you might be standing on the wrong side of the road.