My Leica is painted black. The logo, the lettering — all of it. When someone sees it for the first time they're not quite sure what it is. And that's exactly what I want.
I'm not the first to do it. For decades it was the only way — today Leica offers that option directly, but years ago it didn't exist, so I did it by hand.
Henri Cartier-Bresson did exactly the same thing. He painted all the shiny parts of his Leica black to make it disappear. Not for aesthetic reasons. But because he understood something fundamental: the moment the camera is noticed, the scene dies.
His obsession was what he called the decisive moment: that unique instant — not a second before, not a second after — when all the elements of a scene align. The light, the composition, the human gesture. In 1952 he published Images à la Sauvette — released in English as The Decisive Moment — a book that remains an essential reference in photography to this day.
But behind the decisive moment there was no magic. There was obsessive preparation and the elimination of everything that could get in the way. The Leica painted black. The same fixed 50mm focal length for decades. The same method. Less noise, more control over what matters.
Paris, 1932.
Behind the Saint-Lazare station, Cartier-Bresson peers through a gap between the planks of a construction fence. He puts the lens through. Waits. Shoots without looking through the viewfinder.
The result is the most famous photograph of his life. The one Time considered one of the 100 most influential in history. The one that defines the concept of the decisive moment.
A detail almost nobody knows.
When he developed the negative, he discovered that a plank crossed the left edge of the image. And Cartier-Bresson — the man who sent his photos with a black border precisely so no one would dare crop them — made the only possible decision: he cropped it.
That was one of only two times in his entire career that he cropped a negative.
He explained it without drama:
"There was a plank fence around some repairs behind the Gare Saint-Lazare train station. I happened to be peeking through a gap in the fence with my camera at the moment the man jumped. The space between the planks was not entirely wide enough for my lens, which is the reason the picture is cut off on the left."
Cartier-Bresson didn't lose control. He chose the location, waited for the moment, knew his camera — and when reality put a plank in the way, he made the only correct decision: crop. No drama. No dogma.
Mastery isn't rigidity. It's knowing when to bend the rule without breaking the vision.
That is exactly MAÎTRISE.
At openbcn studios you can also rent cameras that aren't designed to shoot faster — but to shoot better.
Not because they're special. Because they solve very specific situations on set.
The Leica M6.
When you need the rhythm of the session to change. Shooting on film forces you to look differently, to direct differently, to decide before you press the shutter. It cuts through overproduction and brings focus back to what matters: light, gesture and timing. On some projects that's not a limitation — it's exactly what elevates the result.
The Olympus Mju-II.
When you need to disappear. There are moments when a large camera changes the behaviour of whoever is in front of you. The Mju-II does the opposite: it goes unnoticed. Perfect for capturing real naturalness in backstage, street or organic content without breaking the flow of the team.
The Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera Model 2.
When the process itself becomes part of the image. More than a camera, it works as an interactive prop on set. The act of shooting, waiting and holding the print as it develops introduces a different rhythm and adds a genuine narrative layer to editorials, lookbooks or campaigns where the process also counts. It's not just aesthetics. It's interaction. It lets you direct talent from something tangible — holding the image, reacting to it, integrating it into the scene. And that creates moments you can't build any other way. Some productions don't end at the shot. They start there.
It's no coincidence these tools are here.
Henri Cartier-Bresson wasn't looking for the best camera. He was looking for the one that interfered least between him and what he had in front of him.
Everything in his process was designed around the same idea: see clearly, decide fast, don't lose the moment.
That hasn't changed.
On a set, the noise doesn't always come from the equipment. Sometimes it comes from speed, from overproduction, from having too many options and no clear decision.
That's why we work with tools that, at the right moment, do exactly the opposite: they reduce, they focus, they restore intention.
You won't always need them. But when you do, they're available to rent at openbcn studios — our photography studio in Barcelona.
And that's where everything starts to fall into place.
Best,
Marc
the one who also writes l'Atelier d'Idées by openbcn studios
