Sure makes me happy to get flesh tones just right.

It all starts with good custom white balance. Correct exposure helps too...

Shot with a Samsung 60mm macro lens on the Galaxy NX camera.

Organizing around a zany schedule. Getting locations and timing right is just as important as working the shutter button...

I've got a long slog ahead of me this week. I'm always optimistic but then again, I always try to plan out every step. This evening I'll be photographing a fundraiser honoring playwright, Terence McNally, at Zach Theatre. I'm shooting the stage show while someone else handles the "red carpet" arrivals, etc. When I finish my job at the theater I'll rush home to post process the results of the 70 minute long program of actors, singers and speakers. My goal is to get the entire edited and color corrected take uploaded to the marketing people at the theater before midnight. I kinda have to because I'm supposed to be on a plane out of Austin the next morning....

I have multiple sets of camera batteries. Two each for cameras tonight and two each, packed with chargers for the cameras that will travel. Not calm enough to put things on chargers at midnight and then remember them early the next morning.

On Tues. I'm heading to Sacramento, CA. where I'll snag a rental car and head to a small, small town where my clients has a large, large infrastructure project underway. I'll make environmental portraits of the key personnel, as I did in other locations in late October and, when we wrap up I'll head back to the Sacramento airport and make my way to Dallas, Texas. 

I'm scheduled to hit Dallas around midnight and I have a reservation at one of the chain hotels for that night. But before I leave DFW airport I'll snag another rental car. We've got one reserved. On Wednesday morning, after breakfast, I'll pray that the GPS gods don't let me get lost and I'll head to a rural location that is dozens of miles from the nearest small town (two hours from Dallas) where we'll spend the afternoon making environmental portraits/photographs at another infrastructure project. The weather is freezing in north Texas; in fact, we have a freeze warning here tonight, much further south, in Austin. 

Once we get the photos we need out in the middle of nowhere it'll be another race back to the airport in time to catch one of the late flights back to Austin. Any time I have in airports goes towards importing files into Lightroom on my MacBook Pro and then making galleries to share with my clients on the east coast. 

I've got everything mapped out, I've got pin drops on all my map coordinates. I've liaised with the managers at every site and I've confirmed locations and weather with everyone. For north Texas I've got long underwear and a good parka. Gloves and a hat. I'm packing two different cameras systems because I want to lean on my experience with the Panasonics but I want to hold a try out for the Fuji XT-3. Since I might want to shoot the XT-3 in earnest I've also added a second Fuji lens, the 55-200mm f3.5 - 4.8. I know I'll hear howls of derision from the Fuji loyalists who believe in their hearts that I should have sprung for the 50-140mm f2.8 but they'll have to be patient with my awkward learning curve. Also, the cheaper lens is lighter, and fits in my Think Tank travel backpack a bit better. 

I'm traveling with one pair of boots on and one pair in the gear case; I've already been warned that both locations are just a bit muddy.... Worst case scenario? One pair of boots is old enough and worn enough to leave behind...

So, when I get back to Austin I'll get (hopefully) a good night's sleep and then Belin and I will drive down to have an early Thanksgiving Lunch with my dad in his very nice memory care facility in San Antonio, Texas. After lunch and a nice visit we head back to Austin where I have a charity event to photograph in the evening at the Four Seasons Hotel. So I start my week in a suit and tie and end my working week in a suit and tie. The middle part in a ragged sweatshirt and old jeans.

Friday is reserved to wrap everything up, send out files to those who need them immediately, and then start working on the bigger galleries that my Dallas/Sacramento client needs. I might take Saturday off but I'm worried that the sudden deceleration might be harmful to my system. Swim days include: Thursday (early practice), Friday (executive practice = after 8 a.m.) and, of course, Saturday for one of the long, tough ones. 

Here's new tip for time pressed travelers going in and out of the Austin airport. For $4 more per day you can now get reserved parking in the parking garage adjacent to the terminal. You need to go online and purchase the reservation. You'll still need to pay the $29 per day rate when you exit to go home but you won't have that cold chill of anxiety and the accompanying knot in your belly when you pull up to the airport with lots of gear only to discover that all the close-in parking is filled to capacity. I'm trying it tomorrow. 

With Pre-Chek (via Global Entry), and now reserved garage parking, we're finally getting back to a more predictable beginning for each trip. Now, if only sheer will power could make all the planes fly on time then we'd really have something. 

It just dawned on me why I never watch sports or anything else on television....who has time?

Kinda looking forward to navigating across north Texas

in search of a huge project in the middle of nowhere. 

Sounds like the beginning of a new novel about a photographer. 

Trying out, new this week: 

Reserved garage parking at the airport.

The Fuji XT-3 camera.

The Fuji XF-18-55mm and 55-200mm lenses.

Reckless disregard for sleep...

If my blog entries slow down it's probably because I'm paying more attention to finishing up projects in the short term. Like most things in life my attention span is cyclical. Stay tuned to hear about 

any disruptions in the schedule. 

Kirk

Don't eat all that candy, it will spoil your appetite for dinner...

some stuff gets shot not because it's interesting but because you have a camera in your hand, you are there, and you feel as though you might as well get something --- just in case there's nothing better around the bend. Filling up on junk, metaphorically.

When I was in Iceland ten days ago I noticed a pattern among photographers from everywhere. They would arrive at a destination and immediately begin photographing whatever was in front of them. The more technically skilled they were the more they tried to squeeze something "profound" and "artsy" out of each thing they came across. There seemed to be a fear that they'd miss something if they didn't turn over every leaf and document each pile of rocks. But the reality is that all of us were "time-limited" in one way or another. Either we had to compromise to meet the schedule parameters of a group tour or we had to fight against fading light and physical fatigue. But the reality is that there were generally one or two significant visual subjects that really merited a closer look and a longer engagement. 

If a cool waterfall was 800 yards from the bus park one would find photographers strewn along the pathway to the waterfall or scenic overlook, diligently searching for a chance reflection in a pool of water, an "interesting" growth of moss on the side of a rock, or another wide shot that showed everything and nothing (see image just below). Of course, I am as guilty as everyone else, I just tend to be faster at identifying something (anything) that might be an acceptable photo and making short work of the process. It's a rare photo that can't be made to "seem" better than it was by some judicious post processing...

But on rare occasions, when I had my wits about me and had come to the realization that I'd just tried to make an overflowing trash can look like great art, I would hew to a tried and true methodology of photographic discovery which is this: 

Arrive on site and take a deep breath. Get set in your mind what brought you to the site in the first place. What is the real treasure that your tourist soul seeks in this particular engagement? What did you really drive or ride all this way to see? What is the "important" shot. Generally, the thing you seek is furthest from your arrival point. If you aren't clear on your objective you'll likely get sidetracked and arrive at the true destination with only minutes to spare and then you'll rush through the process of getting an acceptable photograph. 

Better to set a good pace, keep the lens cap on and make your way straight to the "alpha" subject. Use all your time to get something you can be proud of at the "peak" of the attraction. Then, with your primary goal well met you can go back along the trail, stopping to photograph the things that caught your eyes as you made your way to the "good stuff." 

When we sequence a commercial job we try to schedule our most important shots of the day at the very first of the day and work along toward the least important shots. This ensures that we're not rushed on the important "money" shots, but if we do our jobs well (while we are fresh) we'll end up having more than enough time to get the lesser shots. If you do it in reverse you'll find yourself trying to "perfect" shots that most likely will end up on the cutting room floor (that's a film era reference but it means you'll end up deleting a lot of crap in the post processing).  Get the monster shot first. Hike to the top of the waterfall first; get the accent shots on your easy descent.

There are so many reasons that this makes sense. First, spending lots of time trying to get a banal shot morphed into something vaguely interesting robs you of the time and energy to apply your talents to scenes with much more potential and appeal. Secondly, it's just a reality of time management. If you have limited time you absolutely have to prioritize. And, finally, you know that editing through all those images takes lots and lots of time. Seeing thousands and thousands of images dilutes your enthusiasm and your honed ability to separate wheat from chaff; selfie from portrait; landscape from snapshot.

Better to have the discipline to keep your lens cap on and search for the good stuff than to promiscuously shoot 10,000+  in the course of a week and then spend another week looking for the pony buried somewhere in the pile of droppings. 

This is a lesson I have to keep learning. I'm not anywhere near as disciplined as I could be about what gets shot and what gets passed by but I know there are some subjects that will never have real value to me even if I push the clarity slider to 110 and add saturation like crazy. Those subjects are just time and energy wasters and it's our battle (mine included) to fight against shooting everything that appears in front of us. We'll inevitably run out of time. It's the only thing that's certain.

VSL reader and ace landscape photographer, Tom Judd, interpreted the photo I posted above. His version is just below. There are things I like about each. I'm curious how other VSL readers see it. Let me know in the comments (added in the afternoon). 

Kirk's photograph interpreted in post by Tom Judd. 

What FujiFilm gets just right that all the other camera makers royally screw up on. It's a big deal and it may affect the way you interface with your camera. #Scandal.

I've endured the same insult from camera company after camera company. If there was ever a way to decrease your pride of ownership just enough to give you pause it's this. It's a side effect of relentless and sometimes tasteless branding...

It's those damn camera straps that come packed into the boxes with our brand new cameras. I've bought four Panasonic cameras in the last year and each time I am disappointed and aesthetically insulted when I pull out the plastic wrapped, nylon camera strap that has bright yellow on it and huge white, embroidered letters, all over it, contrasting with its black background. They are nothing less than a garish advertisement for a camera you've already bought.

The Nikon straps are particularly ugly. They stand out like a beacon which says of the wearer, "I have absolutely no taste when it comes to carrying my camera in public." But hey, Canon users, don't get smug because Canon straps are just as ugly and poorly visually designed as most of the rest of the camera makers. I'm guessing the camera makers were all sitting around in velour hip hugger jeans in the 1970's, Dingo boots up on the conference table, and someone said, "Well, we'll always be including camera straps, let's just buy tens of millions of these groovy and far out straps with our logos in big, bright, poorly chosen typestyles. That way we'll have a fifty year supply and we'll so beat inflation." And the whole design group agreed and then went out to celebrate with Boone's Farm apple wine and Pinå Coladas. Leaving generations of camera buyers either so embarrassed about the straps they are provided that they went elsewhere and fostered a whole third party industry aimed at making better camera straps; or alternately their design decision created a public eyesore as people with horrible taste just ignored the hideous type and offensive colors of the straps and used them anyway, thinking, I am sure: "Well, I already paid for this I might as well use it." 

I'm guessing camera companies got together and had a contest for who could not only design and produce the most visually offensive shoulder strap, but whose oafish customers they could convince to actually wear them along with the camera. I'm guessing Nikon for the overall loss...

I was already stripping my understated, all black Tamrac camera strap off another camera to use on the new Fuji XT-3 in the house when I opened up the box to see the camera and check out the accessories. I was stunned and elated when I found the included strap. It's black on black. Not too wide. And the only branding on the strap is a discreet and almost invisible debossed logo on the non-slip strip of material that rests on one's shoulder. I had to turn the strap in the light to even see the debossed logo.

The strap is just about perfect. From an aesthetic perspective it IS perfect. It's quite enough that Fuji has their logo in white against the black of the finder assembly on the front of the camera. They didn't feel the (desperate ???) need to festoon it in a heavy handed, heavy metal manner all over the strap.

Had more makers focused on making their straps discreet and functional accessories instead of embarrassing shoulder mounted billboards (complete with "exploding balloon" logos) it's likely that abominations like the Black Vapid straps would never have hit the market. So many cameras would have been saved from accidental destruction. So many owners spared the agony of a camera getting loose from the tripod mount....

Kudos to Fuji for having good taste and for finally being one of the cameras manufacturers to provide us with a usable accessory. Black strap. Demure debossing. Perfect size and width. Well done.

Now admit it. One of the first things you do after you open the Nikon or Lumix box is to toss out (into the trash) the abomination of a strap that comes with your new camera and get online to shop for something that doesn't scream out, "I'm a cheap-ass moron with very bad taste." 

Thank you Fuji for getting a small detail correct and, by doing so, bringing a genuine smile to my face.

Like a dog with someone's favorite slipper....I just can't let go of all the landscapes I shot last week. Here's another one...

Note to self: Next trip to Iceland, bring a car full of supermodels to act as close foreground subjects in my photographs. This would give my images a heightened sense of depth that I'm afraid they are missing at the moment. But I do like this craggy sunset shot. The very end of the day, after the crowds headed to their buses.

Some one asked a serious question on the blog a few days ago and that was whether it's worth it to bring a large format camera on their expedition to Iceland. I can only answer for myself but my advice would be absolutely not.

Now, I am presuming they are referring to a large format, view camera. Something with a bellows and front and rear standards. Something that requires a dark cloth or a hood under which to focus. Something that takes 4x5 or 8x10 inch sheet film.

The simple reason I would advise this way is the prevalence and unpredictability of the wind in most places; especially near the sea shores. I think most bellows cameras are in their happiest zone with no wind and get progressively more anxious as the winds pick up. Somewhere around 15-20 mph the bellows+wind would make stability impossible and higher gusts than that would eventually cause the bellows to lose its structural integrity and its ability to be light tight.

Bring a camera you are ready to carry all day, deploy quickly and use mostly handheld.

One of the major appealing features for me of mirrorless cameras is the ability to set a 1:1 aspect ratio and see it, without clutter, in the evf.

Many of us spent years operating square aspect ratio, medium format cameras. It's always a delight for me to find that feature in a new camera; the ability to see and take photographs in the square. It's one of the things I didn't like about recent generations of Sony A7 series cameras; the technology was there but the Sony engineers didn't seem to understand that adding the 1:1 aspect ratio was important to many photographers.

How many photographers? Hmmmm. I'm not sure Tony Northrup has done an authoritative study on that parameter yet but I can guarantee that the group who feels very positively about square crops has at least one avid member....

The 26 megapixels of the Fuji sensor adds a bit more information to the square frame. The shot above is from a Panasonic G9. It's a good time to be a square shooter. Or a shooter of squares.

As to the image: Diagonals, depth, color contrast and nice sky; who could ask for more?

(well, it would have been even better with a beautiful model in the closer foreground. Next time).