Gunther Walker
LEICA ADVENTURES – Landscape photography with vintage 35mm Leica film cameras.
Biography
Influenced by my late grandfather’s 1930s photography, I like to explore an inherited love of nature and the unknown magic that is the world of taking analogue photographs; capturing light, time, space and emotion with my vintage Leica cameras.
After my grandfather’s death in WW2, my grandmother buried his Leica camera in April 1945, for safekeeping from the occupying Americans. She unearthed it in November 1945 and used it until the 1970s. I inherited it in 2019.
On my wanderings through nature, a Leica is my constant companion, photographing landscapes in a timeless connection between past and present.
I studied photography at school, but then followed a musical path and completed a degree in Commercial Music at the University of Westminster and became a manager in the music industry. I have worked with bands, composers and record producers ever since. Having completed extensive research into my German family history, the acquisition of my grandfather’s Leica has opened up a new and long forgotten creative path.
I shoot my vintage Leica 35mm photography on my grandfather’s 1932 Leica ‘Standard’ camera as well as its younger cousin, a 1939 Leica IIIb.
During the last year, my photography has been recognised and featured by Leica in Leica Historica’s VIDOM magazine (feature) and Leica Fotografie International’s online ‘Stories’.
I feel humbled and proud that my grandparents’ camera has a new life in my photographic journey.
