His series “Exkurs über das Reisen” [Excursus on Travelling], in which he himself often took on the role of fictional characters, could be seen as a transitional phase.
[6] Book editor Rainer Iglar describes Leitner's photographic approach (2018): When he, who always travels and for whom "photography is the adequate means for the uninterrupted work on a poetic chronicle", returns home, he goes on "desk duty", he arranges and edits his pictures, he makes small prints from his 35mm color films and sticks them on labeled, titled and numbered index cards.
[7] Cultural journalist Johanna Hofleitner underlines his insistence on a working process developed for analog photographic workflows.
[8] In Leitner's travel photography, it is not "the exoticism of foreign worlds" that is decisive factor (Rainer Iglar[7]), but rather "the recognition of the self" (Urs Stahel[9]).
In his "literary” photography, he pursues the "concept of a staged photograph that tells stories of an almost floating reality with romantic irony (and self-irony).