Freedom cannot be erased
By: Thorsten Overgaard. January 13, 2022. Latest update October 23, 2025.
That’s one of the great things about being a photographer; you can change people’s viewpoints. You turn on the television or social media, and you’re told what to think or how things look.
With a camera, you can express something. You can create something. I think if a lot of people turned off the television and social media and just took out their camera instead, they would start making the world a more beautiful place, a more interesting place.
"Vive la résistance!". Paris, France, Wednesday May 26, 2021 at 9:31 PM: Despite Paris’ curfew announced by President Emmanuel Macron between 9 PM to 6 AM, the Parisians are out and about enjoying the late summer sunset until 10 PM. French officials have warned that they will be strictly enforcing the rules. Anyone breaking curfew is liable for a 135 euro ($164) fine. (The curfew for Paris was in effect from December 14, 2020 to June 20, 2021 for Paris, and nationwide for France from January 15, 2021 to June 20, 2021). World Press Photo. © Thorsten Overgaard.
The Freedom Tool
The first cameras came into being 200 years ago, and in the beginning it was a studio camera. It became a thing one does, to go to the local portrait studio and have one’s portrait taken, and then give it as a gift. People went to the photo studio and had their portrait taken, and even the Royals had photos taken which were reproduced in large numbers so the common people could have a photo of them in their home.
The Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen was one of the most photographed writers of his time because he loved to go to the portrait studio and have his portrait taken.
The local photo studio was the Instagram of the 1860’s where you could get your likeness recorded and share it with friends by giving them “carts-des-visite” (a 10 x 15 cm photo mounted on a piece of card). The Danish poet H.C. Andersen was a big fan and had more than 250 portraits taken in studios in Denmark and around the world.
For the first 100 years of photography, a camera was a rather large and exclusive installation that required expertise on chemicals and the mechanics of cameras.
But then something happened
The small Kodak Brownie camera came out around year 1900 and made photography affordable, portable and something every child could do. It wasn’t any longer exclusive to a few to own and operate a camera. The camera came outside the studios, to the beaches, the streets and inside private homes.
Some of the most celebrated photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams and Vivian Maier grew their first interest in snapshot photography when they were children, with the $1 camera from Kodak.
| 1860 |
|
1900 |
|
1955 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| Box camera in the photographer's studio as they often looked in 1860. |
|
Kodak Brownie was so simple any child or woman could use one. That was the message of the ads. Price was $1. |
|
Henri Cartier-Bresson with the Leica M3 in 1955. Both he and the Leica could be said to have changed photography forever. |
| |
|
|
|
|
The reportage camera
In 1925, Leitz in Wetzlar, Germany introduced the Leica camera that Oskar Barnack had invented. His vision was “small camera, large print”, to make high-quality lenses that made it possible to record a small image on a negative in a small, portable camera, then make an enlargement of that negative in a darkroom.
It was quite an invention and an important stepping stone in the popularization of photography and marked the era of using a camera for artistic personal expressions, and for reportage photography and street photography.
But more to the point of this story, let’s look at the circumstances and business side of things. The story I want to tell here is how it took exceptional courage of Ernst Leitz II, the owner of Leica, to bring this very new and different camera concept to the world in the midst of worldwide economic depression and oppression.
Ernst Leitz II decided to put the first Leica into production in 1925, because the Leitz company had lost its market for their microscopes in Russia after World War I.
Ernst Leitz II felt it was his responsibility to ensure that his workers could keep their jobs, so he needed to produce something other than microscopes. That is how a microscope manufacturer (since 1849) also became a camera manufacturer in 1925.
Ernst Leitz II and his daughter Elsie Kühn-Leitz in 1926. Courtesy of Ernst Leitz Foundation.
German companies were traditionally – and still are to this day to a large degree – run like a family: Once you take on employees, you take on the role as the family head who makes sure everyone gets food on the table and has stability for their future.
Leitz II ran the company like a family, just as his father Ernst Leitz Senior had done since the beginning.
The statesman of Wetzlar
Ernst Leitz II was a sort of statesman in his global thinking. In my opinion, this is where the legacy of the Leica as the freedom tool becomes really interesting.
During the great depression in Germany from 1923-1924, inflation raced so quickly that from the time a worker got his pay until he could get to a bakery or store to buy bread and food, the value of the pay had devaluated enormously.
Leitz II thus issued his own money, and the staff was paid in part with Leitz money, a currency which he guaranteed in the local stores. This way, that part of the pay was not inflated but kept its value and the many thousand workers could feel safe.
While governments and national banks had their hands full managing their country’s economy, Leitz II managed his part of the world: His thousands of employees, their families and the economic infrastructure of stores, schools and other companies in Wetzlar.
Ernst Leitz II was the type of manager who walked through the entire factory to see what was happening and paid interest to the people working for him. He knew their names and their families. His dad, and founder of the Leitz factory, Leitz Senior, had been the same way.
He was also known for having an open door to his office, as well as patience and compassion to listen to anybody who would walk in and to talk to him.
Many nice things could be said about the Leitz family. World War II (1939-1945) offered new challenges which the Leitz family met with actions that now stand as an example of doing the right thing – even if back then these actions were considered unacceptable and even illegal.
There are times during history where you must decide and do what you think is right, not what the hypnotized masses do.
"A glass of water in Paris". © Thorsten Overgaard.
It seems almost destiny that a social family as Leitz enabled a new era of photography and freedom of expression.
The period up to World War II, and throughout the war, the Leitz family was unique in their continuous support for all races, nationalities and religious beliefs. They were on the right side of history at a time where they faced great personal danger to their own liveliness and wealth.
There is a German word, “Berufsverbot,” which translates to professional ban. As early as in the 1400’s, the street Jugenstrasse in Frankfurt was an isolated street for Jews only, sealed off with walls and a gate to the rest of the city. Jews were not allowed to do trade outside Jugenstrasse; and not allowed to own property either.
Berufsverbot is organized discrimination in that it becomes common knowledge and a sort of duty for the good cirtizen to discriminate certain people. Even though not made official law (because it is against international law and common sense), it become part of a good citizen’s duties to make sure certain people didn’t enjoy the same rights as others.
With the government monitoring every movement, including the government-sanctioned discrimination of Jews, one of the richest families in Germany – the Leitz family – risked their wealth, reputation and their very lives by smuggling Jews out of Germany!
More than one hundred families are on record as having been sent to New York with a new Leica around their neck (as starting capital to a new life in the USA), and a piece of paper from the Leitz factory saying they were “essential workers”.
The culture of a company flows from the top, so the Leitz organization was activated against berusverbot. The vice president of Leitz in New York, Mr. Alfred Boch, would interview 15-30 refugees a week in his office, then set them up in the Great Northern Hotel on the expense of Leitz while he spent his time on the telephone the rest of the week, finding jobs for them throughout New York.
Towards the end of the war, Leitz II’s daughter Elsie Leitz was even captured red-handed while she was smuggling Jews into Switzerland. She avoided deportation to a concentration camp when Leitz II, who was months sick with worry, stepped in and paid ransom to the secret police.
Yet, the resistance and fight for the values they knew to be right, continued.
Elsie Leitz was the one who rode her bicycle to the outside of the city gates when the war was ending and the allied tanks approached the city, and there she threw her bicycle and stepped in front of the tanks. It’s a miracle they didn’t shoot her or roll over her, just as it is a miracle that her effort prevented Wetzlar from being bombed. The Nazi’s had already left.
It is no wonder, that with the Leica, artists of all genders, political observance, of all religious beliefs and of all races can express themselves in photographs.
The ability to think for yourself was in the design of the Leica cameras from the beginning.
The story of the Leitz family stands as a testimony that one can stand tall and abide by one’s own integrity, despite pressure from governments, media and the hypnotized masses.
Go outside
The personal freedoms of movement and expression have been under pressure again and again throughout history. But freedom cannot be erased.
The history books are filled with examples where one can see that those who discriminate and suppress always end up losing. You can’t keep everybody a fool all of the time.
Long story short. I went traveling around the world and offered my free sunset walks the last couple of years. Under the slogan “Walk with Me” I got to meet a lot of people and walk the streets with fellow enthusiasts in New York, Istanbul, Paris, London, Zagreb, Copenhagen, Berlin, Belgrade and many other cities to offer some relief for the mind and something for the camera to record. See the dates of my upcoming photo workshops and masterclasses here.
London, Sunday November 21, 2021 at 7:30 AM: The Thorsten Overgaard "Walk with Me" group in Soho, London. © Thorsten Overgaard.
| |
|
|
| |
"I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours" |
|
| |
– Bob Dylan (Talkin' World War III Blues) |
|
Your unique voice
The camera is able to capture the world as seen through the soul of the artist, and that is why it is unique, expressive and a mirror which shows that freedom is inborn to all.
I try to teach in my workshops, by demonstration, that any person who “really wants a camera” does so to express herself or himself. It requires no explanation or reason, just the fact that you “really want a camera” is your entry ticket to the field of photography.
What is often overlooked is that you have a unique viewpoint from the moment you first pick up a camera and start taking photos.
Advertisement: 
The Thorsten Overgaard Photoraphy Extension Course for digital photographers has been so popular it has been unavailable for the last couple of years. Now it is in a new design that allow more to participate, and you can start today. Click to join.
Because you always had your own viewpoint, your photos may not seem special or unique to you, but they will to others.
You show your photos to others, and the fact that you made something makes you special. And the expression and style of your photos, will make an impression because it introduces a new way of seeing things, for anyone who views them.
You don’t need a long education to express yourself, and you don’t have to wait for permission to express yourself. And you don’t need permission to walk with a camera.
A camera is a freedom tool.
More to come
Bon voyage with it all. Sign up for the newsletter to stay in the know. As always, feel free to email me with suggestions, questions and ideas. And hope to see you in a workshop one day soon.
Get a free eBook on photography:
Start reading in a few minutes. Sign up here:
