Do you approach your photography the same way each time or do you have different ways of handling photography based on different use cases?

 

Texas Wines. Early morning grape harvest.

Leica SL2 + Leica 24-90mm f2.8

Sometimes it feels like I write about gear too much. But it's much easier to write about than how and why we actually make photographs. Everyone seems to have their own way of warming up to subjects, their own way of working in the fields and even their own way of carrying or holding their cameras.

It's disingenuous to say that there are "two kinds of photographers in this world" but I do think we can draw a few conclusions about how people photograph based on how they pack and which cameras they use to cover various different subject matters. I posit that the split is between people who have "general" camera systems (selected once and unchanging) and try to press a limited amount of gear into the service of everything and every event, and then there are people who have sussed out different packages of gear that are brought into use for specific kinds of photography. "Ultimate versus flexible."

In the first example a person might have a DSLR and the "holy trinity" of f2.8 zoom lenses. You know; the 16-35mm, the 24-70mm and the 70-200mm lenses from any of the big camera system brands. Whether they go out to do "street shooting" or adventure travel or studio work they press one all purpose camera body and these three lenses into service. The have no other option in mind but what they researched, purchased and learned to use. In their minds these are the "logical choices".

While this selection might be perfect for a wedding photographer, an event photographer or a photo-journalist it's a selection of bigger and heavier lenses which were most likely chosen to methodically "cover" the range from 16mm to 200mm as though a non-broken sequence of focal lengths is of high importance in the making of photographs. This photographer ends up carrying a lot of weight and bulk which for some jobs might make sense but for undertakings such as documentary photography or street photography might be a burden. A classic example of overkill. 

At the other end of the photography spectrum might be a person who selects one rangefinder camera body and one 35mm lens and tries to shoehorn everything possible into that very limited kit. If the "one lens - one camera" person limits himself to a single genre of work; say, street photography, and further limits himself to only making images that fit well into the 35mm lens's angle of view then, I'd guess the kit would work well. But trying to do a classic portrait, images with nice compression effects, controlled macro shots, etc. he might find himself limited. The single lens and body can hardly handle a wide range of subject matter. Fine if one is pursuing one specific style but not so fine for the generalists. 

But beyond all this assumption I wonder how people actually use their gear when they are out taking photographs. When I photograph out in the street I'm not working for a client and am only out to please my self with the results. So I like spend time thinking about what the heck I'm really doing out on the streets of my home town. 

After much self-reflection I've pretty much figured out that my first goal is really never the photographs I might take but a confluence of things the walking provides. I like getting away from my computer screen. I like meeting people. I love walking and looking. And when I see things that look peculiar or especially beautiful to me I like to stop and make a photograph. But the search for specific subject matter or "looks" is never the overriding impulse for a walk. 

Regardless of which camera and lens I choose I proceed in pretty much the same way. I've done variations of this in many different cities and towns. 

I generally arrive in the area I'd like to photograph by car. I park in a favorite place and then go through a little check list before exiting, locking up and heading out. I put my phone in the center console of the car. I hate carrying my phone around with me when I'm not on someone's temporary payroll. 

I choose a hat from the collection in the back seat. If it's brutally hot I don't give a crap about fashion or aesthetic acceptability. No, I look for the hat that will provide me with the most protection and at the same time will keep me cooler. If the weather is mild I just look for a hat that will keep the sun off my thinning hair. In cold weather all hats look dorky so I just pick the one that's warmest.

I make sure I have an SD card loaded and formatted before walking away from the car. I don't know about you but I've had enough experience shooting "blanks" that confirming the existence of a card is now on the checklist. I'm pretty good about making sure the battery in the camera is fully charged but I also make sure I have at least one extra in my pocket. The camera, no matter which one I've chosen, hangs from my left shoulder on a conventional strap.

Before I walk away from the car I also check to make sure the camera's menu is set right. If I'm going to be walking around in bright sun (typical here more often than not) I make sure I set the lowest ISO, the little WB symbol for sun, a medium aperture and...the ability of the camera to automatically switch from the mechanical shutter to the electronic shutter should the exposure require it. 

Then I'm off for the walk. 

As I walk down a street or a hike and bike path I try to look as far forward as my eyes allow. Often I'll see a beautiful bicyclist coming my way and I'll chose a point along the trail on which to focus and I'll try to time her passage. Sometimes it works and sometimes not but the ones that get away aren't important to the  walk. Scanning ahead also exercises my eyes. After hours at the screen it seems to help my eyes to work through a range of distances focusing on each and evaluating the potential photographs that are strewn around the place. 

The first part of any walk is basically a "warm-up." As you take images that are most likely "throwaways" your two hands are getting used to the camera controls all over again. I'll focus on a exhaust smoke stack and feel my fingers on the focusing ring. Or I'll see exactly where I can put an autofocus square for the best results. I bring the camera up to my eye and focus it on a new piece of architecture and quickly evaluate the preview in the EVF. If the image is too dark or light I want to make sure I know exactly which dial to turn, and in which direction, to add or subtract exposure compensation. Same with my ability to quickly stop down or open up the lens at will. If it's a lens without a dedicated aperture ring I want to make sure I'm on target with the right camera control dial to make the change. 

After ten or fifteen minutes of walking, stopping to make images, and then walking on. I get more comfortable with the way the camera hangs on my left shoulder. I get more comfortable with the spot at which the camera itself bumps gently against my waist. The camera hangs there waiting until I see something. I know some people like to wrap a strap around their wrist and keep the camera in their right hand waiting to pounce. Instead of being a "fast pouncer" I'm more of a "look far ahead and anticipator" which means I generally have ample time to pull the camera up and get ready to make shot that depends to a certain extent on good timing. 

I walk pretty briskly when there's no one around but when the streets get a bit crowded I walk a bit slower and look at faces more. I also look at the street fashion with more interest. I also walk more slowly because it's relaxing and I can emanate more a sense of casual affect rather than seeming to be on an important mission. I try to look like an old duffer tourist. A harmless addition to the street who is wondering around with a camera trying to wrap an out of town perspective around the sites, smells and people of the area. Sometimes, I even fiddle with my camera while looking up at a building I've photographed many times before to give the impression that I'm new or tentative about my "hobby." 

Why? Because people are much more comfortable with the idea that they might be a direct or inadvertent part of an interested tourist's explorations than the "target" of a cynical street photographer who might be looking down his nose at the regular folks. I must be a good actor because occasionally, when I stop to just look around and try to decide which direction to go, some nice person will come over, ask me if I'm looking for someplace and offer me directions. I'm always willing to go there so I keep places on all point of the compass in mind for just these eventualities. If I'm on 2nd St. heading east and someone offers direction help I'll ask the way to the convention center. If I'm going the other way then I ask for directions to the library. I also take a moment to ask them where they are from and how it is they got to Austin. 

Sometimes I ask if I can make a photograph of them. By then the seem comfortable. I thank them and move on. Sometimes people will give instructions that are just wrong. I smile and nod and thank them anyway. The whole time I'm chatting with a direction maven I hold my camera in my hands in between us and at least have the intention of asking them for a photo....

When I look ahead and see something or someone I'd like to make a photograph of I click the camera's power switch on and start planning what I'd like to see in the background. I may hurry up to a better intersection point so I can get the background I really want but I may decide that the background is totally secondary and slow down so I don't look too anxious about getting the shot. After all, why would a tourist need to be anxious about getting a shot?

If I'm addressed by a homeless person or a person just passing the time with his or her friends on the street I never ignore them and I never just walk away. I address them directly and as we're talking I try to decide, as best I can, if they'd make a good subject. And also if the time spent versus value of the photograph have a positive ratio. Many times you learn that with certain personality types you'd just be spinning your wheels but you have to be careful about that attitude or you might miss a shot that could be really fun. 

So, one camera and one lens, rarely ever any camera bag or backpack, casual attitude and the intention of just having fun and making new observations occasionally punctuated by the taking of a photograph. And I almost always bring the camera to my eye to shoot. I never shoot from the hip and I rarely shoot using the rear screen. I want people to know that I'm taking a photograph. I thinking trying to hide the process makes it more difficult to trust my own intentions. It certainly looks creepy to the people around you if you try to get a quick, furtive snap instead of just "getting it right." 

In this situation my frame of mind is to wait for photographs to call out to me and demand to be taken.

So, that's the way I work on the street but it's totally different for me if it's a job. The photo above was taken as part of a multiple day shoot in the central Texas wine country. I was introduced at the outset to everyone who was working/volunteering at the harvest. We had model releases that had to be signed. There was no mistaking that I was there for a job. 

One the day I photographed the image above I arrived at the vineyard around seven a.m. driving an hour and change from Austin mostly in the dark. I packed a couple of camera bags. My main camera was a big Leica SL2 with the even bigger and more daunting 24-90mm zoom. Why? Because with the willing complicity of the subjects I could take my time, focus, compose, try a different angle, work a different exposure, etc. and after a few minutes of being the subject nearly everyone ignored me entirely and let me work as they got back to work. 

There was no acting on my part. No subterfuge. No playing the tourist. My goal was to project the intention of making beautiful photographs of an important process. And as in most things one's honest intuitions drive the energy to make it happen. 

I'd bring my big, tattered Domke bag to the small area I wanted to photograph in and I'd put the bag on the ground, open it up and select what I thought might be the right camera and lens for the shots I was looking for. I'd leave the bag on the ground and work the shot until I either thought I got exactly what I wanted or until I decided that the camera and lens were not working for the image I was searching for at which point I'd return to the bag and reconfigure. 

I have the belief that on jobs without tight schedules that it's a wonderful and productive thing to experiment with different cameras, different formats and different lenses. Many of the photos I took in the vineyards were done with the more conventional Leica SL(x) cameras but for a number ( some of which turned out to be my favorites from the project ) I used a much different camera. One that made me approach images in a completely different way. 

That camera was a Sigma fp camera fitted with the big, obvious, dorky rear loupe. It's a big loupe that fits over the rear screen, magnifies it by 2X and gives you a "poor man's" EVF substitute. If you don't work with it all the time each episodic visit to this camera and its attachments requires a lot of concentration to make stuff work. Concentration that isn't really elicited when cameras are easy and almost automatic in their operation. But, as a believer that friction in all processes makes the heat and energy of art, I've come to depend on the Sigma fp for a real workout. 

Using the fp with a manual focus lens out in a grab field with a giant harvesting machine coming by a few feet to one side is a wonderfully challenging experience. Some shot will work and some won't but you'll never know it until you're finished and paging through the results. But after an hour or so with the Sigma you might want a break. Maybe  you'll grab that Fuji X100V you've tossed in the bag and use it in a much looser and more playful way and those images might be nice adjuncts to the ones you did with the other two systems. 

The camera bags follow me around but I never shoot with them over my shoulder. They are there only to bring along the camera inventory and hold gear that you might want to experiment with. 

When I work on projects like this I dissuade clients from diving into "shot lists." I think lists are very counter productive. You'll end up concentrating on some person's idea of what they'd like to see instead of the reality of the actual location or the actual process you are photographing. I also want to spend as much time as I can on a location. I'm obviously not shooting all the time but spend more time looking, walking around to see other angles, looking for ways that shifting sun affects the look of a previous shot now. 

At the end of a good day of shooting I will have used two or three different types of cameras and a mix of lenses (but mostly in the 20-100mm range...) to get looks that work. I end up sweaty, dirty, and tired. But happy tired. My cameras are dusty, the camera bag most likely needs vacuuming and if you are invited to stick around for a cold beer or a glass of wine you generally do so to join in the feeling of community knowing you will see some of these people again and you'd like them to consider you a friend, not a mercenary. 

When I finish a five day job that utilizes an array of cameras a big part of the satisfaction for me is to pull everything into Lightroom afterwards and really look at what kinds of differences the different lenses or lenses and cameras made in the photographs that I liked the best. Sometimes a weird camera will surprise you because the images are unexpected and good in a way you never "pre-imagined." Like ripping the wrapping off a Christmas present only to find something completely different and even better than what you may have anticipated. 

But I also use the cameras in a totally different way. My example of a third approach is working with a design firm to photograph the content for an annual report. Most of them that I have worked on recently really orbit around the CEO shot as their anchor. It's the shot or series of shots that you absolutely have to nail if you want to succeed in the business. In these situations everything is tightly controlled and pre-planned. You have probably sat through meetings with the ad agency and also their counterparts in Marcom at the client side. You've walked with the art director and the client support people to scout every possible location and many times you'll be asked to set up three or four complete locations, figure out the compositions, light them and have them all ready concurrently so your executive (around which everything revolves) can walk into the first scenario, get photographed there, move to the next scenario at the location, get photographed and more from there to ........ you get the picture. I always hope I got the pictures. 

In this situation you are being hired for two things. The first is knowing how to put the CEO at ease and how to direct him or her into their best expressions and poses. The second things is your knowledge and expertise at choosing exactly the right equipment and using it without fail. There is no experimenting with different cameras and lenses. You are focused on performing right at the edge. Each of your locations must be set and locked down. You're attitude must be conducive to getting the responses you want and need. 

I would never go in and be subservient to a client. My approach is the antithesis of that which use on the street and not at all like the approach for something like the wine shoot. I want to be in charge. I want to carefully schedule and when the CEO walks in I want them to consider me as proficient at providing the right approach to portraiture as they are to their business. We work as equals to the extent that this is possible. And it almost always is. 

The cameras are set on tripods. The lenses have been carefully selected to provide just the right composition between the subject and the extent of the background. The lighting is stylized as the agency, the Marcom people and I have pre-planned. All that remains is guiding the principal to his correct spot at the location and then directing him or her in such a way that you pull from them, actively, the look and countenance you'd like them to express in the resulting photographs. 

If there are camera bags they are stuck in the corner. The interaction is direct and firm. Positive but controlled. And, generally you are using the very best camera and lenses you can afford and using them in such a way as to leverage their best potential. So different than street photography in which the moment and the gesture outweighs the technical perfection every time. 

But how do you photograph?

I hope this goes some of the way to explaining why I have multiple cameras and multiple formats. Each way of working can be best served by specializing the equipment. By working in a manner that supports the venue and the life of the location. And provides the best service to your direct intention. Whether that is pure enjoyment or serious work. There is no single camera or systems that handles everything best. There just isn't. You can either  have multiple systems for different uses or you can photograph with one camera and stick to narrow boundaries. That's just the way it is...

If we're also shooting video then that's a whole different kettle of fish. 

Mamiya 6 medium format camera.

Rome.

Panasonic G9. 12-60mm f2.8-4.0

North Carolina.

It's another day. I've wasted most of it. But that's okay, some days are meant for just relaxing.

 

Good lenses don't have to cost a fortune.

A couple days ago I posted a long blog with a lot of samples of photographs made with a super cheap 23mm lens on the front of a super expensive camera. I made classic blogger mistake by bringing up a second subject along with my primary subject. The hope was that people would look through the images and be amazed (as I was) at how sharp and near perfect the images were from the lens. It support my long term idea that there is really not a tight interlock between lens performance and price. It would also reinforce my constant mantra that you have to test stuff for yourself. You can't rely on strangers for accurate data as it relates to your own vision. Most reviewers don't have a clue about how you like to use lenses anyway.

But then I asked my blog to multi-task; I screwed up, violated the "one subject only" rule and I mentioned a blog post by Michael Johnston who posed the question: Are hobbyists (photographers) being priced out of the camera market? And in one fell swoop I moved everyone's attention from my main premise (the lens = good+affordable) to the small side question (un-affordability?) which many more people wanted to respond to. And, ironically, the lens actually illustrates the premise that very, very affordable gear is completely workable, even praiseworthy. It was the wrong blogging strategy for an age when everyone is engaged with the doom and gloom of the financial markets. And the harsh realities of inflation.

But the whole question of affordability, and the state of the economy, seemed to have its own momentum and I churned out two more posts. One about property values and another about surviving in a freelance "art" business. And by then I was bored to tears. 

Today was one of those days when you get the small jobs of daily life taken care of and there was nothing big, exciting, perilous or profitable on the agenda. And nothing photographic. Not even a walk. So I spent the day just doing things that I like. Or that needed to get done to safeguard the overarching routines of my comfortable life. 

I got up early, made coffee and toast, then went to swim practice. The sets were interesting. Instead of distances we did blocks of time. Swim as far as you can in four minutes. Do an easy couple of laps and then repeat the swim as far as you can in four minutes. Over and over again.  No matter how the coaches slice up the sets we still manage to get in at least three thousand yards in our hour long practice. 

I grabbed a coffee and a blueberry scone at the local coffee shop and ran into an old friend who is a certified power player in Austin real estate. She and I chatted in the parking lot for 40 minutes about a wide range of topics until we both realized that our coffee was getting cold and it was time to break up the chat-fest and head to our respective homes. 

I deposited checks yesterday from three large jobs I did back in April. So this morning was a time to sit down and write checks. I usually write one each month, on the first, to put into our joint household account for stuff like property taxes, health insurance premiums, utilities and groceries. Today I decided to pay for this month and the next two just so I wouldn't be tempted, when looking at the money in my checking account, to rationalize something new like an expensive lens or a Leica medium format camera system. Better to remove temptation with the stroke of a pen. 

It's also my turn to cook dinner today. I love cooking fresh salmon and Whole Foods has a great fish counter so after I balanced the personal and business checkbooks I headed over to the local "food oasis" and bought fresh fish, an assortment of vegetables and a jar of instant coffee. The instant coffee is for all those times, like tomorrow, when I have to get up super early and get on the road. When I'm too sleepy to go through my usual "pour over" process/ritual but really could use the caffeine. I actually like tolerate a brand of instant coffee called "Mt. Hagen." It's really not bad. 

I love checking out at Whole Foods because they've done such a good job at training millennial shoppers to do self-checkout that there is always a cashier with no line who will ring you up and bag your groceries while you stand around looking as cool as you can in your Birkenstocks, bad shorts and your sunglasses. 

Two photo events happened today. First, I got a lovely e-mail from a client letting me know that the budget for photography was not approved for their upcoming show in Nashville, TN. The client seemed a bit crestfallen but promised: "next year!" I was okay with that since it's a big show and the Covid numbers are creeping back up all over the place. I wasn't anxious to become part of the Hard Right Wing Airplane Mask Theater and I'm not ready to pony up and fly private just yet... that would be too Veblen. 

I think B. was relieved since, in her telling, I always have such great optimism about out-of-town trips and, in fact, the reality of the experiences rarely measures up. I think she'd rather we just go somewhere on vacation together instead. I've learned not to be disappointed by lost work anymore. There's nearly always a very silver lining...

The second photo event was, ta-da! the arrival of yet another piece of gear. But nothing outrageous or priced beyond the grasp of mere mortals. The new "gear" was a Gitzo photography backpack. I'd seen it a while ago when I was planning a different trip, thought it would be a good airline travel piece of luggage, put it on my "wish list" at B&H and then promptly forgot about it. They e-mailed me to let me know that the product had gone on a limited time sale. I could save about $50 bucks if I still wanted it. I did. 

I'd write a long and torturous review about the new camera hauler except that I have just unboxed it and haven't yet put in a single glorious lens or legendary camera body and I haven't adjusted the straps and put it on my shoulders. That's on the mid-range (within a couple weeks) agenda. 

This backpack is bigger than the others I've got. It's the 30L (30 liters?) version and it's very well padded. The main compartment opens to one's back so it's not vulnerable to street crime like a conventionally opening backpack is. Also there is a roll top compartment on the top which you can expand to carry stuff like a light jacket, a warm hat, some extra socks...

I like having the right luggage for the right purposes. This fills the bill for transporting small systems through airports, hiking and general travel. If you're doing car trips it's a great way to have a grab-n-go inventory of camera gear pre-packed. 

My other backpack is a smaller Think Tank model which works fine but isn't as deep. It's good for smaller system cameras but not bigger, full frame Leica behemoths. Some pix of the new product below. 

We're sliding into Summer around here. It's consistently near 100° (f) and getting sticky. The grass is turning brown unless you water with no regard for water restrictions (nope, not cheating here) and everything seems to have slowed down. We live in an area of town where many people have vacation homes to escape to and the benefit for those of us who don't is that traffic calms down and reservations at restaurants are easier to come by. 

And then there's the daily time in the pool. Mostly early in the morning before the UV gets crazy (and dangerous). Yep. It's Summer in Austin again....

Keeping one's head above water in a financially declining world power... A suggestion for self employed artists.

 There are three things I find that photographers, as a group, are really, really bad at. One is changing direction/styles/offerings quickly enough to prevent a backward slide in business. The time to learn about a new process or a new venture in content creation is pretty much the day you hear about new stuff. So many of my peers in my age demographic were felled by the shift from film photography to digital. They feared the "complexity", overestimated the appeal of their current approach/aesthetic and were too cheap to invest a bit of money to at least stick their feet into the "water" and experiment. Once they got left behind they found it too hard to catch up and exited the field. My smart peers, also my age, were buying $20K digital cameras in the 1990s, figuring out the good points and bad points of digital and then letting clients know that they could offer cutting edge technology and cutting edge content. They did well. Clients crave the new and innovative.

The first takeaway is that change is inevitable and will come for you. Just like compound interest change can be your best friend or your worst enemy. For relative newcomers to a market new innovations can be an opportunity to bypass traditional barriers to entry and make a mark more quickly than was possible before. But the big lesson is that you can ride the front of the wave in a new development and attract the attention of paying clients or you can hold back and wait ---  as your clients move away toward someone else's new acquired expertise and you plunge into irrelevance. 

In a similar vein I noticed a decade ago so much resistance from traditional photographers to incorporating video production into their business offerings. We started shooting video projects on and off back in the 1980s but it really just became widely practical with the introduction of cameras like the Canon 5D mk2 which allowed photographers to enter the realm of moving pictures inexpensively and with good results; if they had the foresight to learn the basics and practice them until they became successful (see Vincent LaForet). Many photographers who embraced digital video a decade ago moved on from still photography to full scale video production increasing their income and increasing the range of higher paying clients available to them.  In 2017 about half of my income came from video productions for medical practices and law practices. Clients I had already been supplying with still images for many years prior. We only had to show them that we were proficient to open up a new source of billing. 

Learning video basics also enabled a whole generation to make good money pontificating on YouTube and getting paid for it. A profit center than never existed before...

The bane of unchanging styles. I recently watched a video by a photography influencer who bemoaned the idea that clients are no longer interested in "production value" but instead are focused on "authenticity" in the images they want. Yes, styles change. We need to change along with them. I remember a video production team here in Austin who, way back in the early 1990s, decided to make a 180° move away from their competitors, all of whom were using Sony Beta SP cameras or something similar to do slick, overly lit, over-produced videos for clients. They started experimenting with grainy, "authentic" Super-8 film camera production, made a reel of it and showed it around to the cool ad agencies at the time. They walked away with enough work to keep them busy for a couple of years. When the style ran its course they were already experimenting with something totally different. Now, some 30 years later and dozens of course changes later, they are still working, winning Addy Awards, billing and thriving. Even though the two team members are twice the age of their best competitors. Styles change. Markets change. The photographers and videographers who fall by the wayside are the ones who refuse to experiment and change as well. 

People in general and photographers in particular wind up their careers in the red, financially, because they don't make good financial decisions. We all feel like we're bulletproof and riding a never-ending escalator up when we are in our 30's or 40's. When big jobs come through along with big fees there's always a tendency to overspend. To celebrate too hard. To over-reward one's self for a nice, but short blip of enhanced profit. In years past, when credit was easier to arrange, that might have meant upgrading to a bigger house, buying a much more expensive car, going on more exotic vacations and spending so much time at nicer restaurants that the restaurateurs started going on nicer vacations. 

Another offshoot of that was the old saw that "one should invest in one's own business." Which photographers always took to mean that they should buy much cooler cameras and much more expensive lenses and other gear. Or, that they should invest in a beautiful studio space. Ah, to have been a bankruptcy attorney during an economic downturn in which over-mortgaged photographers with recently acquired studio spaces "transitioned" out of business. Investing in the right stuff is fine but over-investing is more a sign of an inflamed ego than it is a good business strategy. 

While some of my camera purchases can be construed as over the top the reality is that we (me and spouse) economized and saved money at every turn over the last 30-40 years. We bought a middle class home 25 years ago and never moved again. We converted a garage to a studio and stopped paying downtown studio rent. We eat most meals at home. Happily. But when it comes to "investing in the business" my partner and I both think that means maintaining the things that directly make money for the studio but it also means putting profits into financial investments over the long term, not buying more stuff, taking more cruises or showering our families with a bunch of expensive gifts and showy largess. Yes, we were the parent's whose child got his first smartphone when he graduated from high school and was heading to college. A College education which we also saved for. Instead of buying big, shiny new SUVs or sports cars or second homes or whatever else people feel compelled to spend money on. 

If you took good math courses in college or high school you can probably figure out the appeal of compound interest. We're not especially bright but we realized it was a winning concept. All small business owners should diversify outside their own businesses if for no other reason than to not have every single egg in one basket. A "basket" that depends on you showing up and performing every single day. 

If you can take your ego out of your financial strategy and just do straightforward, conservative investing then, over the long run, you might be shocked at the assets you can accrue. And how comforting it is to know that you won't have to worry about unexpected expenses... or how to fund retirement beyond Social Security.

The last thing that I'll suggest here is that photographers, graphic designers and even videographers are, as a group, terrible, terrible marketers. I have a bunch of friends who are or were working photographers who refuse(d) to believe that they need to do anything more than put up a website with their favorite photos on it and send out a few e-mail "blasts" every year to the clients they currently or historically worked for. Much is made of the overarching value of "word of mouth" advertising. 

The reality for many traditional photographers is that their clients have aged along with them and many are now exiting the market. The ones that are left have been marketed to by more savvy content creators who, over time, erode that original bond. A bond that most good advertisers know needs to be nurtured as often as possible. 

Most businesses know that they'll lose X percent of clients each year due to retirement, relocation, a singular unsatisfying experience, the perception that their current photographer or supplier isn't really interested in them as a client anymore. Why would they think that? Because they haven't seen new stuff or heard from the artist in way too long. 

We used to have a sign up in the ad agency I worked for in the 1980s. Its message was aimed squarely at our account executives; our sales team. It just said, "Lunch them or lose them." It spoke to the necessity, in that decade, of spending face time with clients. Especially the ones who had the power to sign checks or assign jobs. Preferably both. Marketing needs to include targeted social media, email campaigns, traditional direct mail but it can also include personal touches like "thank you" cards, sending flowers after a big project or just having casual lunches at which business is only tangentially discussed, if at all. 

Finally there is the "reverse momentum" that living through a long career seems to cripple small business owners. They remember what their rates were ten, twenty or thirty years ago and they fear that they'll lose clients if they raise their rates ---  even when inflation is taking a bigger and bigger bite out of everyone's spending power. The successful businesses that I know of and have worked with try to raise rates by ten percent every year in a quest to stay even. To maintain profit margins. To be able to reinvest in new technology which might drive new avenues of income. The suppliers that fail have the ingrained memory that Acme Gadgets is used to paying $X and they fear that Acme might leave them if they want/need to raise rates to X+10%. So each year, as costs rise, as prices all around them go up, the content creator who fears change makes less and less money at every turn. Even though the same clients pay more for groceries, gasoline, rents and charge more for their products, raising their own prices as needed. 

Being in business is tough. That's why the majority of people in higher income countries work for the state, or the corporations, or as someone else's small business employee. And it may be that the advantage of being an employee is the reduction of a number of stressors and uncertainties owning a business could put in their lives. But the disadvantage is this: A freelancer may have 50 clients who cycle through the business in a given time frame. If one client moves on there are still 49 clients left to work with. And, one hopes, that #50 will be replaced. If you work for one employer and their business fails or they decide to eliminate a business sector and subsequently let you go you may have no one waiting in the wings to break your fall and will have to spend time and money to find another job. Or worse yet, another career. 

There are logical things artists can do to at least give them their best chance at financial success. First is to find the clients who can and are willing to pay what you need and deserve. Second is to never stop innovating and offering new styles, points of view, products and services. 

Suppose you are mostly providing photography but you take classes about video, experiment with it in your free time, maybe start working on video projects in some capacity for someone who is very successful at making video, and eventually become able to also supply video services in addition to your photography. Now your photo clients can also provide an income stream as video clients and your video clients are an easy sell for your photographic services. 

Finally, when you have profits, extra cash, unexpected windfalls, etc. instead of patting yourself on the back with a new Porsche Caymen or a trip to Barbados consider putting the money into long term financial investments. Find a good certified financial planner.  At some point you'll get tired of chasing jobs but your money, well invested, will never get tired of working for you. It works all day and all night for as long as you have it invested. And many years later you will realize how smart it was to be less manic with your money. Because you'll still have some. 

We all make choices. Some work out.

Working Photographer. Living in a boom town. Yikes.

Is the Austin real estate boom a giant bubble just waiting for the right pin?

 I arrived in Austin, Texas in 1974. At that time it was a sleepy little college town with a big University, some state offices and not very many other employment opportunities. The flip side of the equation was that you could get everywhere (safely) on a bicycle, center city apartment rents were about $75 a month and everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) was cheap as dirt. Students mostly did not have cars back then. The University offered nearly free health insurance. Shiner Bock beers were $0.25 unless you were drinking at one of the three or four upscale hotel bars --- then you might pay a full buck for a cold one. 

We probably boasted more PHD degreed waiters and busboys, per capita, than any other city in the country because there were so few "real" jobs but the vibe was great and the cost of living was so low that no one wanted to leave after they graduated from UT. How could you blame us when you could see the Talking Heads and the B52s at the Armadillo Headquarters for $4? And then walk back home to your apartment. Safely.

It took time but it's all changed. We've grown from an MSA of a little over 125,000 people to well over 1.5 million and counting. What happened? Well, since UT had (and still has) a very good electrical engineering school and a great mechanical engineering school, and a great business school, tech companies and early high tech start-ups started to gravitate here and put down some real money. They hired and paid people salaries that matched those in more expensive parts of the country. And then layer after layer of peripheral and support companies moved in to take advantage of proximity. Followed by retailers and restaurant chains. Dry cleaners and yoga studios. And lots and lots of subdivision housing developments.

Now we have Dell, IBM, Samsung, Intel, AMD, NXP, Apple, Tesla, Google, and thousands of other companies clamoring for some real estate and a chunk of the talent here in central Texas. They came here because companies like Texas Instruments and Motorola had discovered that lower costs, better lifestyles and a highly educated workforce were cool secret weapons to use against their competitors. Now it's all a "virtuous" spiral. 

I graduated from UT, taught at UT, got recruited away to work in advertising (mostly for tech companies) before finally finding the courage to do what I'd always wanted to do --- pursue photography as both a passion and a business. And it was just the right time and place to do so. By the mid-1980s this place was growing so fast it was hard to keep up with the city's boundaries. We worked seven days a week all the way through the 1990's ---  and for good fees.

While local commercial/corporate photographers didn't demand rates as high as their counterparts in NYC and LA the trade off was a much less stressful existence and, still, much lower costs of living. 

I've always lived within a few miles of the city center. Mostly on the affluent west side of the city. I bought my first home in the Tarrytown neighborhood for the princely sum of $42,000. The current value on Zillow is just under $600,000. We moved from there into the Eanes School District in between the Westlake Hills and Rollingwood townships which exist just south of Lady Bird Lake and just west of the downtown area, opposite Zilker Park. We moved here a while back just for the schools which, at the time, had the best overall scores and reputations for academics in Texas. And then, starting in 2000 everything changed again. 

Austin's popularity went off the charts. And land and house prices rose to match the momentum. 

Here's what the local business journal says about the meteoric rise in property values in our neighborhood:

 2. West Lake Hills

• Typical home value, March 2022: $2,546,281
• One-year price increase: +48.0%
• Five-year price increase: +106.6%
• Price increase since Jan. 2000: +295.4%

1. Rollingwood

• Typical home value, March 2022: $2,717,518
• One-year price increase: +44.1%
• Five-year price increase: +104.1%
• Price increase since Jan. 2000: +285.0%

My house is in the Westlake Hills area while our swim club is in Rollingwood. These two neighborhoods have had the fastest property value growth in Texas. Together with Tarrytown they represent the areas in Austin with the highest per family net worth. Buying a house here 25 years ago has turned out to be like winning the lottery. 

But the flip side of it all is that we're a state with no income or corporate taxes so most of the revenue for....everything....comes from property taxes. We have some of the highest property tax rates around. When the appraised value of your house rises the amount subject to taxes rises in lockstep. 

Because there are rich and poor school districts all around Texas the federal government implemented what has become known as "The Robin Hood Law" to even out per student investment in Texas.  Wealthier school district have to send percentage of what they collect in local taxes to the state to help fund the poorer school districts. Last year the Eanes School District sent over 100 million dollars to the state. These funds were paid by the local tax payers and then redistributed to other areas. 

If you were, say, a middle class photographer living in the district you might have seen your property values skyrocket but if your business income didn't also skyrocket in the same time frame you are now on the hook for lots and lots more property taxes and few other benefits. You could, of course, sell your property and benefit from the appreciation but then you would have to find some place else, more affordable, in Austin to move. Good luck with that. One might suggest moving out of central Texas but ..... really?

This also means that more and more middle class people are finding all of Austin unaffordable vis-a-vis housing costs and they are exiting day-by-day. At some point the property values will rise so high that Austin will have driven out all the people who don't make prodigious incomes which means that restaurant workers, grocery store workers, domestic workers, and a host of other median income workers (including many working photographers) will be forced to look for somewhere else to live and this will take away a whole huge layer of the workforce that currently supports the lifestyles for the higher income families. San Antonio is the current recipient of our "worker exodus" but costs are rising there too.

Example: We currently can't source enough lifeguards in the city of Austin to open most of the public city pools for the hot Summer months. And that's amazing to me because the city is offering prospective lifeguards about $20 per hour, a starting bonus of about $1250, and the pay package includes healthcare, paid vacations and even bus fare. And this is just one example of the ramifications of job constriction affecting life in the city. 

From my point of view as a working photographer there are a number of things that directly affect my business. I can no longer reliably source assistants. There are few people who can work as freelance assistants and piece together enough work to earn enough income to make the equation balance. Competition for assistants is strong. The current asking day rate for good assistants is between $500 and $800 a day. For still work. Higher for video. Same for talent. Same for hair and make-up people.

There is only one real photo lab left. The others succumbed to rising rents and employee costs. There are only one or two rental studios left and as recently as three years ago there were dozens. Parking is more expensive. And photographer's rates, along with most people's salaries, have not kept pace with inflation. Not in the least. 

It seems to be a problem without a solution. 

Markets tend to self-correct. I hope it's not too sudden a correction or a lot of people are going to get hurt. 

My solution is to keep pushing for increased fees for....everything. All the time. 

Expensive camera coupled to an "under $100 USD" lens. Can it work? Are there advantages? What was I thinking?

 

This photograph is amazingly sharp. Just out of the ballpark.

It was done with a sub-$100 lens on a Leica SL2 body.

No built in lens profiles, no stabilization, no AF. 

Just very nice glass in a well built tube...

I guess it's human nature to want to use the full potential of the tools we own. If you have a 47 megapixel, full frame camera it's assumed that you'll set it for raw file capture, put a zillion dollar lens on the front and shoot at its full resolution. But I would ask... if you buy a high performance car that can achieve 150+ mph does that mean that you always have to drive it all out? Does the tachometer always have to be pegged? Isn't most driving done "in town" on roads with 30 mph speed limits? Just a thought. 

I bought a TTartisan 23mm f1.4 lens a while back for the L mount. It's an APS-C lens. It definitely does NOT cover the full 24 x 36 mm frame of a full frame camera. But on an APS-C camera the angle of view corresponds to a popular 35mm focal length on a full frame camera. When I used the lens on a Leica TL2 or CL I was impressed by the sharpness, color and lack of vignetting at the f-stops I normally take advantage of; f4.0- f8.0.

It's a really good lens for the price and I plan on getting a lot of use out of it. But....

I really like the color science and the ergonomics of the Leica SL2 and I'd also like to shoot a 35mm style lens on that camera as well. I have a lens for it. It's the original Sigma 35mm f1.4 lens in the L mount. It's huge and weighs a ton. Sure, it's very sharp and well corrected but it can be a burden to tote around. And when I shoot with the SL2 and the full frame lens I reflexively shoot the full resolution of the camera. And often use the raw format. But there are times when I wished that I could use a lens that's smaller, lighter and easier to carry around. So yesterday I decided to do the usual walk but instead of using a full frame lens I grabbed the 23mm TTA and put it on the camera. 

I had hoped that using an APS-C lens and setting the camera for the APS-C format would trigger some internal logic which would compel the camera to write only the cropped raw file. I set the camera for raw+Jpg and went out for the walk. By setting the raw+jpeg in APS-C the camera did indeed show the cropped image across the full frame of the viewfinder. It was just as if I had the lens mounted on a cropped frame camera. The crop with the typical 1.5 X factor. 

I shot merrily as I walked. I tried to photograph tight shots, close-ups, distance shots and everything in between. I even photographed a few frames with the lens wide open. I really liked the handling and the performance of the lens. I laughed a bit since I read that so many people devote so much of their time and money chasing "ultimate" lens performance when I think that comfort in actual use is at least as important and, as TTArtisan seems to be proving (some hit and miss...) they can make highly competitive lenses at small fractions of other makers prices. 

There was no image stabilization. I could implement it only by cheating. I could chose a Leica M or R lens  profile from the in-camera list. A lens profile that at least matches the focal length of the manual "dumb" lens I wanted to use. That would trigger the ability to use IBIS. But....as I've discovered before each of the canned lens profiles also comes with adjustments to color shift, vignetting and distortion parameters that many times harm the image rather than help if I try to cheat a profile made for one particular lens to a different, third party lens. Other than that the camera and lens interfaced perfectly. 

When I got back home and looked at the files I realized that the raw files are always going to be presented in the full 35mm frame. In this case the raw files are shown as  nice photos inside a black circle because....the lens doesn't cover the frame. But the Jpegs were perfect. They were written as APS-C files so no cropping or corrections had to be done.

So, what are the advantages of pressing a small, light lens into service on a camera with so much full frame potential? Well for one thing the files sizes are smaller. I also gain about a stop of depth of field. The entire package of camera and lens is much reduced making it a happier street shooting package. Manual focus lenses can be fast and fun to work with when image peaking and smaller apertures are engaged. And...under $100 USD. Seems just right to me. 

What was I thinking? Not much. I just wanted to see how the lens would perform on a camera I really like. And still, at the crop format size, be able to have a high resolution file. If you are willing to work at your technique many of these inexpensive lenses can do admirable and professional work. At least I think I could get people to pay for images made with this combo. Of course you could spend thousands of dollars and get a Leica M mount 35mm Summicron lens and an M to L mount adapter and have the same size plus the "benefit" of the full resolution of the full frame camera. But where's the fun in that? Here are the samples. Decide for yourself. 

I'm a walking advertisement for REI. 

The pants, the shirt and the bucket hat.

You can't see my shoes but I got them at REI too. 

No affiliation. No links here. But boy...

am I stylin'

one foot away from reality.

Ah. A rich frame filed with color and tones. 

The camera and lens seem to "do" reds just fine.

A Veblen car. Mike would not be happy...

Sure. The added depth of field helped. 

OT: Swim practice was exhilarating this morning. The water chillers were working overnight and the water was nicely cool; brisk. We did a monster set that went:

19 x 75 yard sprints with descending intervals. The last five should be "touch and go." Followed by a 100 recovery swim.

19 x 50 yard sprints with descending intervals. The last five should be close to best times. Followed by a 100 recovery swim.

19 x25 yard sprints -- all out --  on an interval that allowed for maximum effort. Followed by a 100 recovery swim.

I never figured out why we were doing 19 of each distance....

Coaches are working in a lot of HIT workouts lately which stands for High Intensity Training. They are trying to get us out of the habit of finding comfortable workout paces and getting us to swim closer to our racing times to build an acceptance of pain in return for speed. It seemed to work that way this morning. 

If you are not exercising for at least an hour every day you are accelerating toward an endpoint you might not want. You don't have to train all out. An hour walk works almost as well. But everyone makes their own choices...

Speaking of choices...

Have you seen Michael Johnston's weekend post? He asks if the "Hobby of Photography" is getting priced out of reach of hobbyists? What do you think? 

I get the statistics of inequality but I also know that most of our readers are highly privileged, high earners (at least during their careers) and professionals with college degrees. Is what we're seeing in the photography gear world really a progression toward unaffordability or are people just trying to have it all? Big cars, big houses, big toys AND a full complement of the latest cameras? I'd be interested to see what my readers think.

A High Temperature Test of an Older Lens on a Newer Camera. And learning to embrace a focal length I have generally disparaged.

I swam well at practice this morning. But I still had too much energy rattling around so after lunch

I headed downtown for a jaunty 4 miles walk through my favorite parts of downtown. 

It was 101° this afternoon. I think I have successfully shed the wretched 3 extra pounds 

I gained over the winter. Everything fits better now. And no sweat stains on the shirt....

I used, as an excuse, the need to test the 28mm Zeiss lens on the Leica SL2. That's what got me out of the house and moving through the heat. 

My take? The Zeiss 28mm f2.8 lens is a perfect companion for the SL2. I use it mostly at f5.6 or f8.0 and it's wicked sharp right out to the corners. This lens was made, pre-in-camera-lens-"correction" so it actually handles distortion with grace and dignity. And the corners don't go all waffly. 

I use the lens mounted on a cheap as dirt Contax Y/C to L mount adapter. It works fine. The lens focuses on infinity and doesn't seem far off the marked focusing ring distances at all. Since there are so few 28mm lenses available for the L mount I'm very happy to have shelled out a couple hundred bucks about five years ago for this one. All manual, but I'm not hampered by a lack of logic or training so I can use it just fine. 

That's all I've got. Here's a gallery to show off what the lens is capable of...