Last year I was excited to be asked by Leica to try out the new SL2-S before it’s launch, and to make a video showcasing it’s abilities. Usually most Leica videos are behind the scenes style videos that depict the photographer doing his/her thing, along with a voice over, with a video team is assigned to shoot and produce it.

Being ‘me’, I decided to do things differently. I wanted to direct and produce the video based around ‘storytelling’ and decided to use an aspiring dancer to be the inspiration. My goal was to tell the story of a an amateur dancer struggling to complete her moves effectively. After many falls, she is transported to a forest, where she is free to let go and find her inner strength to be free and enjoy the moment. Once she completes her final jump, we find that she was never in a forest, but in the studio the whole time.

The setting was great as it allowed me to focus on exploiting the camera’s capabilities in high speed shooting and high ISO performance, while telling the story in a cinematic fashion.

The shoot was conducted in between pandemic lockdowns in 2 half days of shooting, which was very short, using pre-production firmware and without a production team. Overall I’m very pleased with the results from the SL2-S and hope you enjoy the video.