A Gallery Moment. Ep. 1. "Everybody gets a trophy."

From the Zach Theatre production of "Matilda." Jimmy Moore as Ms. Trunchbull. 

Fuji X-H1
Fuji 50-140mm f2.8 (at 129.5mm)
ISO 2000
Handheld. 

Latest Amazing Product Review. Light up my life. And one thing that really sucks!!! Cue the music....

Last Sunday was Cinco de Mayo. A Mexican holiday celebrating the exit of France 

from Mexico. I just happened to be at a rocking good party at the memory care

residence with my dad. Sadly, no margaritas were on offer.....

But the mariachis were surprisingly good. Some of the best I've heard. 

Before we leap into the review of the incredible new product I thought I'd talk about all the weather excitement here in Austin. We're having some record rainfall this Spring and all the lakes, streams, creeks and shallow spots are full of water. These are no gentle Spring showers... we're getting pounded in some instances by up to 4 inches per hour. This depends on where in the area you live but on Tuesday we got our share of super heavy rainfall at VSL H.Q. Ground Zero. 

I was working at my desk in the office at around 8:30pm when the wind picked up and the tree branches started thrashing around. It's been raining off and on for weeks now and the ground is saturated all the way to the center core of the planet. There's no where else for the water to go. Fortunately, we're up in the hills so flood waters would have to crest over 400 feet to totally cover our property. Still, temporary water with no place to run is... interesting. 

As I sat typing and watching the 1200+ lightning flashes (as reported by the Weather Channel) I noticed a growing pool of water seeping from the east wall, adjacent to my desk. On the other side of the wall is a low spot and I've had trouble with it before. We have a French drain there but it's been in service since 1998 so I think it's permanently clogged up. As the pool of water grew on the inside of the office I grabbed the (priceless) Shop Vac out of the closet and fired it up. In seconds we were sucking up floor water with all the power of the turbo charged vacuum. In minutes the five gallon container was full and I emptied it out on the side of the studio that doesn't flood (smart, huh?). I repeated this exercise for a while until it dawned on me that I hadn't check on the French drain in front of the house. If the intake gets clogged up with leaves it forfeits all responsibility and if the flood waters go over the side walk and into the garden under the kitchen window then we have RED ALERT and water seeps onto the hardwood floors in the living room. 

I rushed outside, battered by the wind, and rain that felt like spiteful bullets, only to find the drain well stopped up and in full dereliction of its purpose. I cleared the drain cover and then pulled it off entirely and watched for a second as the water rushed in fast enough to make a whirlpool. But I was too late. The water had breached the last lines of defense and was just starting to spread in the living room. I called out to Ben and he cast his headphones and game controller aside and grabbed a mop and bucket. We shouted out to Belinda and she started pulling Turkish carpets off the living room floor and finding old swim towels with which to aid in the water soaking-up operation. With the big Shop Vac we made short work of it and, with the drain re-opened and fully operational, the leak/intrusion stopped. 

I rushed to empty the Shop Vac and head back out to the studio. The water had spread a third of the way across the floor and showed no signs of retreat. Again and again the mighty Shop Vac sucked until it was full and then, emptied, it sucked again. Some time after 10 pm the rain slowed down and the water stopped its attack on my studio floor. 

No major harm done. The studio has concrete floors and is covered with 3/8ths inch foam tiles (the kind used in exercise areas...). We'll mop up and replace the tiles as some of them are nearing 18 years of service. But it sure showcases the wonders of home ownership and studio ownership for me. Oh Boy!

Oh Shop Vac, you are my hero!!!

We had more rain yesterday and it was also a doozy but I spent some time in a dry spell working on the drains. We've got more work to do with the ones for the studio but they held the line during yesterday's squall, and today we have some actual sunshine. And the attendant super-high humidity. Lovely, all just lovely. 

Coffee on the way to swim practice. Feeling down? Feeling overwhelmed?

Nothing a good, fast 3500 yards with friends can't fix. 

Goggles? Check. Suit? Check. No lightning? Check. 

Ready, set, swim. Yay!!!!!

Moral/take-away from my tale of water woes? Buy yourself a Shop Vac and keep those drains clean and operational. 

Now, on to our review of the latest "Amazing Product" to appear in the studio, courtesy the hardworking delivery drivers from Amazon. 

The product we're writing about today is a simple LED light. It's sold by Godox. 

I've been using Aputure LED panels for several years now and I like the sturdiness and color integrity of their more professional series of Lightstorm fixtures. But I have had my eye on their COB (chip on board) lights, the 120D and the 300D, for quite a while. These are set up with one monolithic LED chip (about 1.5 inches by 1.5 inches) so they make a harder light source and work more like a  traditional electronic flash than a panel light. You are able to use them with speed rings and that allows you to use them with modifiers like soft boxes and octaboxes effectively. I hesitated to buy the Aputure products because they seemed expensive and I didn't really have a pressing need for them. I was doing just fine pushing panel LED light through a diffusion screen for most of my work. But in the back of my mind I knew it would be nice, if they worked well, to use different lights, along with speed ring friendly modifiers because it would mean the whole assemblage could be put onto one light stand, effectively cutting in half the number of C-Stands or light stands I would have to bring on location. 

A few recent video assignments brought that idea back into my brain and I re-started my investigation into the Aputure models. But interestingly, each time I looked at a review of the Aputure 120 (around $650) I would also read about another choice; the Godox SL-60W. The color specs and basic mechanics are pretty much the same but the Godox sells for (right now, today) about $159, delivered. I continued reading. 

Both are fan cooled. Early Godox units had a reputation for being loud. More recent reviews point out that when both units are warmed up and have been in operation for about 15 minutes the fan noise is the same. Obviously, the Aputure model uses a thermostatically controlled fan which ramps up the final RPM as the heat increases toward its equilibrium while, apparently, the Godox just runs the fan at speed whenever it's turned on. The Aputure is rated at 120 watts while the Godox is 60. The difference, theoretically, should be about one stop. 

While the Aputure is more robustly constructed and has more "air" holes for ventilation there are some things I like much better about the Godox unit. The biggest is that the Aputure ( like the Lightstorm LS units I already own) separate the control box from the light unit itself. The control box is connected via an almost proprietary LEMO cable to the light and dangles underneath it. The control box has its own dangling accessory in the form of a power brick to convert the A/C from the wall to D/C. You'll need to remember, every time you pack to leave your studio and go on location, to pack: the light unit, the LEMO cable, the control unit, the power brick and the removable power cord for the power brick. That's a lot of stuff to remember. That's a lot of stuff to pack. 

The Godox SL-60W is set up like a last century appliance; there is one power cord that goes from your wall socket into the back of the unit. The cord is removable and replaceable (standard computer cable) but it's just one, standard electrical cord. Done. 

All of the Aputures can be configured to run on batteries. The Lightstorms I have can be purchased configured to work with either Sony "V" mount batteries or Anton Bauer cinema batteries. If you want to use the $159 Godox in a battery powered configuration you really ....... can't. I'm sure you could get an external battery, with an inverter, and make that work but you're back to hauling around more stuff. Godox does make a battery powered version of the SL-60W, with an internal lithium battery but that unit can't be used with a wall plug so you've got two units from Godox that are both somewhat less flexible than the Aputure 120D or 300D. Except that you'll already be hauling all those cables and brick with the Aputure units...

I bought my Godox SL-60W knowing full well that I'd be using it as a "plug-in-the-wall" only unit and I'm fine with that. 

Most of the time I intend to use the light for video work, in the studio and on location. If I want to work free from the wall plugs I've got a number of battery powered options to use in my inventory. But this is the only LED light I have that can be used in conjunction with speed rings and their associated modifiers.  Something I would mostly use for interviews. 

So, how does the SL-60W actually work? Pretty well. I opened the box, glanced at a tiny owner's manual, plugged the light in and turned it on. The light output matches the output I get (color, hue, and color temperature) from the Aputure LS units fairly closely. More than close enough to use both brands in tandem to light a shot. The interface on the back is incredibly simple; more so if you choose to ignore the small remote that comes with the light. 

I'm currently testing the light with a 42 inch octobox that has two layers of diffusion. I'm happy to say that at ISO 400 I can do portraits with the light in my usual configuration at 1/125th and f4.0. That's a perfect spot for portraits taken with the Fuji cameras. (I use my boxes in a bit closer than some...). 

I left the light on at 75% power, with the octobox mounted, for two days. The temperature (there is a readout of operating temperature on the rear panel. Put the setting dial for two seconds to toggle back and forth between centigrade and Fahrenheit) never exceeded 90 degrees F. I like to burn stuff in. I've been told that most electronics will either fail at the beginning or the very end of their useful life. This one seems to have survived. 

The light is adjustable in tiny steps. The analogy is a lens with a very long focusing ring throw. 

The only control, in addition to the temperature readout and a power knob, is a button that will allow you to "program" the unit to work on various channels or groups with the supplied remote control. While remotes always sound like a great idea I have about six of them for various Aputure lights and all the remotes are in a drawer together. I never use them. I can't understand the allure. Or the need to put up with more operational complexity. 

I'm sure someone will trot out the argument about the light being all the way up near the ceiling and how they desperately and immediately need to make a "critical" change in the light's output level but I don't use lights in the same way and am almost never in such a rush that I can't take time to lower a light and make an adjustment. 

For me, the light has two controls. One is the power switch. The other is the power control knob. That's about as simple as you can make things. 

So, to sum up: Great light for the money. Good color and output. Wickedly cheap. Lots of plastic in the construction (although the body seems to be made of metal). Did I mention the price? 

Here's the logic: One light in a soft box (or equivalent). One light on the background with a grid over the reflector. Done. Less than $400.   Nice. I think I'll buy two more. Still cheaper than the Aputure 120D. 

Buy one here. 

Large and bright rear panel with simple and obvious controls.

Some additional color around town. Make mine saturated. Thanks!

Having fun posting different stuff over on Instagram: Look here! 

When I was on the north side of the lake everything seemed drab. When I walked over the the south side of the lake there was color.

It was an interesting weekend during which I got not a damn thing done. Sure, I went to swim practice on Saturday (that's a given) and I drove down to San Antonio to spend the afternoon with my father, but the rest of the time I just spent spinning my wheels and contemplating why we are born just to suffer and die?  (literary reference: you have time, you look it up). 

So when I woke up this morning I decided not to while away the time doing more random office work or checking in on investments: instead I made a very superior cup of coffee, drank it and then headed out the door for a long walk through Austin's usually vibrant but apparently "late to wake up" downtown. I've been dallying with a small Fuji camera that's called an X-E3. Today, for no good reason whatsoever, I paired it up with the 60mm macro lens that Fuji sells. It's a nice package because if you are brave enough to discard the lens hood then the whole assemblage is small and light. And you have the psychological assurance that, because the sensor is contemporary, you aren't missing out on any potential quality in your resulting images. 

As usual, I walked across the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge and into town via the Seaholm Power Plant multi-use development and headed east toward the Convention Center. I walked down second street and it felt unusually bland and colorless. The sky was overcast and seemed to suck all the saturation out of the tall buildings and nondescript office fronts. 

Usually, when I reach the Convention Center I turn left, head North and then, a few blocks later I turn West and head back to my point of embarkation via Sixth Street. Today, on a lark, I turned left instead. Within seconds I was rewarded with the sight of about twenty five policemen from Houston riding a bunch of horses up the street towards me. I turned South onto the Congress Ave. bridge and ran right into the pre-production of a big gaggle of police with bicycles, motorcycles, on foot, and some even wearing bagpipes. They were assembling to do a memorial parade up Congress Ave. to the Capitol grounds. I took a bunch of images and then moved on, heading South. 

Then I turned onto Barton Springs Road and followed the sidewalk to the West. Nearly every building (except the boring state and city office buildings) was painted a rich and saturated color, or sported a giant mural or two. After the almost colorless section of downtown, North of the river, the colors were surprising and most welcome. I photographed each color graphic or magnificent paint wash that caught my attention, and I did so from multiple angles. 

One benefit of the tiny, poorly implemented EVF finder in this camera is that it's progressively forcing me to come to grips with using the rear screen. It's a different way to look/photograph and one I denied in the years before I finally got my prescription changed in my glasses and started using bifocals. I think I actually take more time with the rear screen to work out composition. Must be a result of having spent all those early years looking at the rear screen of a view camera. I've stopped fighting it...

By the time I got back to my car I'd seen a tasty bit of color, but only on the more laid back, South side of the river. I also discovered a brand new hotel just a few blocks from Zach Theatre that I had previously never known about. It has a great little coffee bar and the main restaurant looks promising. The reason it remained undiscovered by me for so long is that the main building looks like a parking garage and the parts of the hotel that interest me (the coffee shop, the lounge, and the restaurant) are housed in a restored carpenter's union hall. A building I've seen on and off for about 40 years. You had to get close enough to read the small "A" frame sign just outside the front door to know the hotel existed. The sign said: "Yes. There is a hotel in there." 

I don't know if it was the walk, the surprising amount of South side color, or my discovery of the inviting little hotel that changed my mood. Probably the whole mix. But at any rate I came back to the house feeling a small taste of renewal and a bit of optimism for the week ahead. Nice.

A mid afternoon coffee with a very, very good friend didn't hurt either! 

The trees are not obscuring the intention of the photograph. They are the intention. 

Yeah Baby, Yeah. 

(An Austin Power's movie reference. So nineties).

Putting cameras and lenses into context. What's really important in getting interesting photographs? Not just technically good photos but interesting ones...

Nearly every camera choice, in the moment, seems like the optimum one. Many of us slide in and out of cameras and camera systems looking for something that, over time, we don't seem capable of finding. I think we're looking for that one great camera or camera system that just integrates so perfectly with the way we want to hold objects,  how we want to operate the tools, and which delivers images that have exactly the colors, hues and tones we always imagined would be most satisfying for our finished work.

There are a lucky few who actually find a camera that constitutes a vital and enduring part of those photographer's methodologies such that they are able to keep and use those cameras exclusively for years; decades even. The rest of us seem bound to a cycle of discovering a new camera, hoping that it will be "the one", using it for a concentrated period of time only to find niggling operational or haptic glitches which eventually sour us on the camera and help us rationalize our move on to the next big thing; the next camera mirage out in the desert. How else to explain, for example, the significant downgrading of image quality Nikon users are willing to accept in order to "upgrade" from the exquisite D850 to the Z7?

But as I look back over decades of picture making with dozens and dozens of cameras I find lots of images that I now consider very interesting and very satisfying. Each successful image lends a bit of its success (at least in our malleable minds) back to the camera and lens we took it with. As an example, I really love the image of this model standing in the stream at Pedernales State Park, about 40 miles from Austin. For years I gave some credit for the image to my prestige brand of camera and lens. It was taken with a Leica 180mm f4.0 Elmar R series lens on a Leica R8 camera. When I look at the image, and many others from the same shoot, I have nostalgic feelings about that equipment and wonder why I ever sold it; why I moved on to other cameras and lenses. Surely, if the camera pleased me so much when making this shot I should have kept it around. At least that's what my emotional self tells me...

The reality (and this will infuriate Leicaphiles) is that the 180mm Elmar lens was no great wonder-lens. 

It's slower aperture (compared to an f2.8) made getting an exact plane of focus sharp more difficult than it should have been. And whether I used the lens on a tripod or not it was never the sharpest of my Leica lenses; which is a bit counterintuitive since a slower, mildly long telephoto lens should have been easier to design and make. Add to this the fact that the focal length of the lens got shorter and shorter the closer to an object one tried to focus. 

And that R8? Hardly the best camera I've owned even though the press at the time salivated about it endlessly. What was wrong? Well there was a manufacturing defect on the first new one I pulled from the box; it scratched film. Not intermittently but all the time. It was not a glorious example of electronic implementation either and was one of the first cameras I ever owned that locked up and would not function from time to time, unless you removed the battery and re-inserted it. 

Leica talked a good game about their tight tolerances in the film gate but if there was a difference in imaging performance between that camera and, say,  a Nikon F5, you sure couldn't see it with conventional films. Maybe in a lab........ but probably not. 

No, what I really imagine is that many good things just came together on the day we took the photo at the river. We were in the great outdoors and the weather was fine and perfect. The model was young and lean and beautiful. It was a hot day and the model closed her eyes and took a moment to savor the cool water tumbling over her bare feet. The light fell where I wanted it. The negative turned out to be sharp enough to print well. The art director from the magazine we were working for did a good job scouting and casting. And yet, as photographers we're so quick to give ample credit to the gear. Crazy, yeah?

When I sold off the Leica R series gear in order to go digital in the 35mm format realm I did so with very little regret. I'd spent three or four years trying to see a technical difference between that and the Canon and Nikon equipment I'd used before and I was never able to see much beyond the fact that the Leica 90mm Summicron did a really nice job translating the tonality of skin into black and white negatives, and from there to prints. But even that was short lived; after I used the Nikon 105mm f2.0 DC lens for a while...and realized that there were plenty of lenses that were just as good. Some maybe better...

I love this abandoned rest stop I found by chance a few dozen miles down a two lane road from Marathon, Texas. There's something about the image that really speaks to me. It feels so lonely but it is convincingly evocative of a red hot day in windblown and nearly deserted West Texas. I also have a bunch of similar work showing fences in the foregrounds, mountains in the background, and clouds that pepper the sky almost like a painted movie background. But that's all down to the actual location and time of year.

I'd love to think there was something magic in that Olympus EP-2 camera I was toting around at the time. And something equally magic about its $100 kit zoom. But it's the scene and the subject that power the image and not some ephemeral quality provided by the camera and lens. Maybe, for me, the picture's power comes from the scene being so different from my everyday, urban life. The sky being different. The weeds growing up around the edges of the concrete. Maybe it was just the happiness of discovering something so few other people have noticed. But for the longest time I was nostalgic for that camera because of this image and a handful of others. 

The real magic had nothing to do with the camera but everything to do with the fact that I'd just turned down a book contract. The negotiations were not pretty. I was feeling frustrated and Belinda suggested that I take a road trip just for myself. I had no schedule to keep and no place I had to be. Essentially I'd bought myself permission to make an unhurried trip for myself that turned out to be a delight and I'm fairly certain that any camera I had taken would have had its reputation elevated by taking a bit of credit for the nice situation I had created for myself as a picture taker. 

Many of us who have reached a certain age and who have plied photography either as a career or passion for decades, have waxed on and on about the "magic" of Hasselblad cameras and the "power" of the square format. As an example, I am guilty of constantly showing black and white work; mostly portraits, that I made twenty or thirty years ago. People universally love the images and, reflexively, photographers always want to know what equipment I used to make the images. But when I think back each successful portrait is much more in debt to any number of other parts of the picture taking process and much less so about the camera or format. 

For example, one of my favorite models for many years was (and still is) Lou. She was the kind of person who, when she walked into a coffee shop, everyone in the place (mom's, guys, employees, couples, etc.) would stop in mid conversation and just admire her. Her carriage and bearing. Her perfect skin. Her beautiful eyes. Her constantly kind and energized smile. So, if you put someone like that in front of your camera then how much credit can you possibly give to the camera instead of to the person herself? I could have used a Brownie camera, a Nikon with a 43-86mm lens on it; even a Lomo camera and people would love the image because I made the right selection of subject.

And how much of the image is about posing, the lighting (which I worked on constantly) and even the custom dyed background I hand made and put out of focus in the background. How much of the success of the image also depended on the way I processed the film and the way I printed the prints? How much of the look of the image is down to the Pictrol filter I used in the darkroom to blur the edges of this image (in counterpoint to the reputed sharpness of the Zeiss lenses)?  And yet, as photographers we're so quick to give all credit to that "wonderful" 150mm Sonnar lens. 

The real magic was being in the right place and in the right mindset to introduce myself to Lou and to ask her to sit for portraits. The camera is totally incidental to that. It was a time in my life when I felt confident to meet beautiful people and, without much hesitation, invite them to the studio to be photographed. At a certain point one ages out of that assuredness and access. The camera could soldier on forever but as one gets older finding and engaging perfect, young subjects is more and more difficult. And without access to the perfect face I guess the one thing we can possess is "the magic camera." 

The other day I came across the image just above and was happy with the skin tones, the general composition and the beautiful model we used for a hip furniture store ad campaign. I was working with a young, energetic art director and he seemed pretty competent at finding great models and then figuring out scenarios in which they shone. When I saw the image again my first thought was how simple this shot was and how easy it is to do, technically, now. But my second thought turned, reflexively to giving the camera credit for some of the success. Surely it must have been one of my Kodak DCS760s with a special Noct Nikkor lens or maybe even my old Contax RTS III with a Zeiss something or other on the front. 

I searched through 300,000 images in my Lightroom catalogs to find the original. I was already regretting that I might have sold, or traded in, what surely was an outstanding camera. Well, the image was taken in the earliest days of digital with an Olympus E-10 camera. For those of you who don't remember that was what we'd call a "bridge" camera. It had a small 2/3rds inch, 4 megapixel sensor engineered into a robust-y, all metal camera body, coupled with a relatively fast zoom lens. The camera itself looked great but it lacked files with much dynamic range, and the noise in the photos got progressively worse from ISO 200 onward. We made this camera work because I lit the hell out of the scene. This was still the days of big strobe packs and lots of power and we made the camera look good by using it at the absolute lowest ISO setting and placing Profoto flashes with big soft boxes in just the right places. We worked hard with technical fixes to make the files good enough to publish. But now, when I look at the images, why am I so quick to give the camera so much credit?

We selected the framing, the model, the costume, the lighting, and the model added just the right look. In retrospect I refuse to give the camera much credit at all. Given all the good stuff we humans added I'm pretty sure we could have shot this with just about any camera and made it work. 

In the image just above the camera handling was at fault. This was not at all what I was going for but I went through three flash sync cords, all of which failed, and ended up trying to open the shutter of my Pentax 6x7 camera on bulb and then quickly hitting the test button on my Profoto flash pack before releasing the shutter. There are two exposures here; a flash exposure and a long exposure and they gave me an unusual blend of visual content. But I love the photograph. I like seeing half my subject's face in black shadow and her wide open eye staring into the camera. It's sharp and not sharp and vague everywhere. I can't credit the camera at all for this wonderful accident. I handled fucking up camera and flash function all on my own. 

Here's an example (man on bike) of a photograph taken with a camera I had so many struggles with that it was like swimming with a cinder block tied to one ankle. I was in Berlin testing out a camera that had yet to be launched and it was a handling nightmare. The quality of the EVF had been brutally sacrificed in order to put a five inch screen on the back of the camera. The maker wanted to be the first to offer a camera with wi-fi, blue tooth and cellular connectivity but the result was a very, very complex set of interfaces and technologies that were mostly in opposition to the way photographers actually use cameras. While the sensor was fine it was certainly no better than anything already on the market from Nikon or Sony. But it was 2013 and camera makers seemed convinced that camera sales would continue to break records. So there I was in Berlin looking for interesting things to shoot with the beast. 

I saw this and shot it but I also shot lots of images I liked; in between the camera spontaneously shutting down and then spending 30 long seconds rebooting all of its systems. I later used the same camera and lenses to make this image below and even though we were surrounded by the company's technicians we still had to take breaks to re-launch the operating system...

We were shooting at the Photo Expo in NYC. I designed the light I wanted and worked with our professional model to get the looks I wanted. I felt triumphant at the end of the day because I'd worked through numerous camera shutdowns, some focusing fails and other issues and still came home with images I liked. Don't tell me I should credit the camera for those! Had I been using a different system I could have done the same work but with a lot less stress and frustration. The bottom line in my inquiry would still be: Why are we giving the camera and lens any credit at all! In most situations having to do with creating visual content the contributions of the light, the subject, the photographer's point of view, and even the propping are, in fact, much more important to the success of a shoot than some "magic sauce" from a specific camera maker. 

It's sad and funny that we give up our power as creators to the myth of "superior glass" as well. I've owned so many different brands of lenses and while some do have distinct "looks" most are flexible enough to provide the basis for just about any style and parameter of shooting (within their focal length class). I was so excited to get the Zeiss 85mm f1.4 lens for my Canon system; until I realized that it was soft as a marshmallow when used wide open ( you know, that thing we were paying for...) but the big surprise was focusing. It was a manual focus lens and it had tremendous focus shift as it stopped down. So, if you focused while the lens was wide open and then shot at f4.0 your chances of having a face, much less an eye, in focus were about as good as that of winning the lottery. What a great and enduring value for only $1800. I finally started getting good results when I stopped down the lens and then focused but soon realized I'd get even better results with the $400 Canon 85mm f1.8. 

I don't know if you personally have ever shot with a Zeiss Sonnar 150mm f4.0 on a Hasselblad but that lens must hold the world's record for flare. One hint of backlighting and you'd think you smeared Vasoline over the front element. And the list goes on and on. Worst wide angle distortion I've experienced was with the Leica 19mm Elmarit R. I've read recent reviews from people who are using this lens on any number of mirrorless cameras, like the Sony A7 cameras, and they gush over the sharpness and "look" of the lens but no one mentions the almost comical "mustache" distortion that is immediately evident in any image that has (used to have?) straight lines in it...

And if we are discussing the camera's contributions to our personal art we have to put into context how much of the photograph is constructed or reconstructed in post production. This image (just above) owes it's desaturated look to the low contrast, low saturation, color negative film I was using in a medium format camera and has nothing to do with camera menu controls but the story is analogous to the way we operate today via PhotoShop. Reviewers prattle on about "color science" and how they like X color science much more that Y color science --- right before they hop into Photoshop and apply a new profile and then start dragging the control sliders all over the place. Is it really the camera and system that's providing the color construct or is it just supplying the basic, raw materials that we use to manufacture the final image from an average set of digital data?

 It's like the saying in Buckeroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension (movie reference) which Buckeroo tells to Pretty Penny, "Wherever you go, there you are."

We drag around all the stuff we know about how to shoot and what to shoot and, unless you have one that's broken, the camera is much less important to the final birth of the image than we can possibly imagine.

I had such high hopes when I changed from the Nikon D810s to a Sony A7Rii cameras and lenses. But my subjects didn't change, my approach to them stayed the same, and my processing was almost already hard wired. If anything it was harder to get the color I wanted and it was less comfortable to hold the Sony cameras; even though they were smaller and lighter.

I thought I was being an incredible risk taker when I changed to the Panasonic system and, most importantly, to the G9 cameras. After all, I was moving from full frame, high resolution cameras to a sensor two sizes smaller and a camera with one half the resolution. But you know what? Given the way I use the cameras and the way my clients use the files the differences were minimal. What came squirting out through the USB cables was so close in quality, color and sharpness that no one cared about the provenance of the actual gear.

After I'd been shooting on remote locations for a while with the G9s I kept hearing all the advertising that lives in my head tell me that I'd be able to make better images with a bigger sensor sized camera and a camera with a great lens system. I bought the Fuji cameras. I like them just fine but when reviewing images over the past several years there's not a lot of difference between the G9 files and the X-H1 files. The difference seems only equal to the amount of credit we're willing to cede to the idea that there are perfect  cameras and I think we both know that they don't exist, except on the pages of Digital Photography Review and in the collective minds of millions of men with disposable income and the need to be right.

At least that's what I've learned from using a wide range of cameras and lenses to make over a million images over the last 40 years. And you know what? There's no rhyme or reason as to which cameras are best. The images we love are the result, mostly, of being in the right place at the right time with the right subject and the right light. Nothing more, nothing less. My favorite photographs have come from a little 35mm Minox compact, a Leica CL with a 40mm, a Canon TX with an ancient 50mm 1.8, a Panasonic g9 and even a falling apart, old Tamron Adapt-all zoom lens on a nondescript film camera.

More important, always, was what is in front of my camera, how the light looked and how well I put the pieces together. At most, the difference between cameras adds about 10-20% ---- max to an outcome. If you could only have one camera; even the crappiest, and you had no ability to change or "upgrade", if you loved your subject enough you'd not only make it work but you'd eventually figure out the secrets of that camera and make it sing. We need to take more credit for the work we do and to stop sharing it with the cameras and lenses we just happen to use.

A new piece of stainless steel. A question to anyone out there who owns (or owned) a Fuji X30 camera...

There it is! The 4 foot by 7 foot piece of 24 gauge, stainless steel. 

Just waiting for the ad agency's client to settle on a shooting date. 

Watch out for the sharp corners!!!

While it hasn't been my busiest week there's been enough activity to remind me that I'm still making a living as a full time, non-trustfunded, photographer. We've shot portraits this week, done photography for a big event for the Texas State Bar, made photos for a large, regional medical specialty practice (150+ doctor/members and counting...) and taken time out to track down a large hunk of metal for use as a background for a upcoming advertising agency shoot. 

The stainless is "just what the doctor ordered." And that's an inside joke because the shoot is for medical surgical devices.... 

I had a funny exchange with the driver who delivered the steel yesterday. He looked around my office and saw all the cameras and lights and framed photographs and then he asked what I do for a living. I told him that I was a commercial photographer, to which he replied, "You sure don't see many of them anymore." Followed by, "And you do this as a full time job?" He was pretty much convinced that with the introduction of the iPhone that "real" photography had gone the way of telephone operators, rest room attendants, and full service gas stations.

I explained to him that people still seemed to be willing to pay money for photographs that required lighting and some degree of know how to create. In fact, the first thing most new clients ask these days is whether or not we know "how to light stuff...with lights." Maybe these are the clients who have been burned by too many new shooters who profess to be..."experts in available light." 

It was an interesting exchange for me because it leads me to believe that most people presume all photography comes either from a stock photography source, or from a phone. I assume that we're actually becoming a rarity as a profession and perhaps someone will start inviting me to dinner parties as a curiosity.

I also reminded myself that some of the remaining professional photographers are just plain crazy. Otherwise I can't explain why I got in the car and headed toward Mopac Expressway with the intention of going to Precision Camera to pick up a used Fuji X30 this morning. Logic and guilt kicked in a few blocks from my neighborhood and I steered the car into the parking lot of the local Starbucks, turned off the motor and reflected on this sudden state of affairs. Had a I reached the point where the unmitigated lust for new cameras was now balanced by rational thinking and the realization that I have absolutely no use for yet another compact camera? 

Or do I just need more data points these days before committing to yet another transaction? I'll go with the second choice. And having chosen I am reaching out to my brilliant and kind readers and asking them if they've ever had the experience of using an X30? If they have an X30? And how they like the X30 as a general use camera? 

I am seduced by the camera because it looks so pristine in black and seems so well engineered for a camera with a modest sensor size. 

This one comes with a beautiful fitted case and doesn't have a scratch on it. I'd mention the price but I know dozens or hundreds of you would rush up to buy it! 

Anyway, let me know if I should add an X30 to my drawer of other poorly considered purchases...