Richard Seymour's beautifully shot film depicts how a Leica M10 is made

Photographer and filmmaker Richard Seymour has created a four minute video depicting the intricate and laborious process of making a Leica M10 camera. The Leica M Series has been around for more than 60 years and this latest model is manufactured exclusively in Wetzlar, Germany by highly-trained specialists.

Seymour’s film is a beautiful and almost hypnotic testimony to the craftsmanship demonstrated by each of the workers in Leica’s utopian-like factory. By focusing not just on the cameras but on the individuals making them, Seymour is celebrating of the expertise and hours of hard work that are required from factory workers, not just at Leica, but all over the world. With its white interiors and uniforms (featuring hair nets and leather gloves), the manufacturers wouldn’t look out of place of the set of a blockbuster sci-fi. The short film documents the process detailed on Leica’s website that uses 1,100 individual parts including 30 brass-milled components, 126 screws, and 17 optical elements. The top and base plates of the camera are milled from solid blocks of metal, then ground and polished by hand for over 40 minutes. The Leica M10 is a heralded camera amongst enthusiasts but at a price of over £5,000, it’s definitely not one for your average holidays-snaps.