The Making-of ...

• Photo: Ilja C. Hendel

Before acquiring his new Leica M, photographer Ilja C. Hendel had one on loan from the Norwegian importer Bresson to create this reportage on the Norwegian prison island of Bastøy. That was when Hendel realised there was one claim about the M he could not subscribe to: that it is a discreet camera. "When I was on Bastøy and also when I've used it for other projects, people always approached me and asked, 'Is that a Leica?' The positive thing is that the M makes the protagonists curious about the photographer, which is a necessary premise for me to be able to go where my own curiosity takes me."

In this self-portrait we see Hendel on the ferry that commutes back and forth between the east and west shores of the Oslo fjord, passing by Bastøy on its way. He noticed surveillance cameras everywhere, except on the prison island, which is one of the few places where you don't see any of them.

See the reportage in LFI 8/2013, available on November 1th: LFI