Now is the WINTU of our discontent...

We live in an age when every person on the street carries a camera - in the form of a phone. With that acknowledgement comes an acceptance, at least for most people, that they are likely to be photographed without their knowledge or consent in public places. This situation was not always technically possible; at least not until the advent of the Leica camera in the mid 1920s. One of the accessories offered by Leitz, the manufacturers of the Leica, was a little viewfinder which clips into the accessory shoe on top of the camera. Its telex code name is WINTU (which, for those of us so inclined, just begs to be punned;-), and it was offered in the catalog in various iterations from 1929-1938. The WINTU is a right-angled viewfinder: the photographer appears to be looking in one direction while the camera lens is pointed at right angles to his gaze. In this way it is possible to discretely photograph people without their knowledge. The WINTU I have is so developed that it even has a little prism which couples to the camera's internal range finder. Thus one can not only frame the subject using a 50mm lens but bring that person into sharp focus. I was pointed to a little book a few years ago called "My Paris" by a rather fascinating Russian character by the name of Ilya Ehrenburg. After the Revolution he wound up as a refugee living in Paris before and during the first part of WW2. The book is an album of candid photographs taken in *that* Paris using his Leica and WINTU.