A very workable alternative zoom lens for the Leica CL. If you bought a Panasonic S5 kit you might already own this one! But how is that full frame lens on a "cropped" sensor camera?

 

Today we're looking at the Panasonic S 20-60mm f3.5 - 5.6 zoom lens. 

It was nasty hot when I went out for a walk and a lens test this past Sunday. I wanted the exercise and I was curious about how well a lens that was designed for full frame Panasonic L series cameras might work on my APS-C Leica CL. I've found that the best way to uncover the potential of a lens/camera combination is to... put the lens on the camera and take some photographs with it. What a revelation!

I set the lens for f5.6 and left it there for the majority of my time tromping around on the downtown sidewalks. Seemed like a reasonable parameter to me. The lens is made of some modern composite material so it's much lighter than bigger pro lenses. It's also slow (aperture-wise) in comparison to the f2.8 Pro Zooms everyone seems to crave. That helps make it much smaller, and it's much easier to rationalize putting on the front of a small camera like the Leica CL. On that camera it becomes the equivalent of a 30-90mm lens, as far as full frame angle of view is concerned.

The lens is totally electronically integrated with the CL;  the camera applies the lens profile, the distortion correction, the exif info and all the rest. It's the same as using one of the Leica TL or SL lenses on the body but at a fraction of the cost. It also focuses very quickly and locks on accurately. At least it does in all the scenarios I encountered. 

So, how is the quality? 

Having been designed for full frame the lens sidesteps the usual gotchas people seem to find in zooms like this. There is no apparent vignetting and if you look at the foliage in the image below you can see that the corners are quite sharp and detailed. If anything I find the lens a bit flat or lower contrast. That's not to be considered a problem since it might be a helpful boost to dynamic range and it's also one of the easiest things to "fix" in post production. A tweak to the "clarity" slider in Lightroom is just the thing to make the lens come into its own for sharpness, apparent detail and a bit of snap. 

In this image the lens is actually focused on the clouds at infinity but the depth of field covers the trees which are somewhere between 50 and 70 feet away. >

While it's not a low light, complex designed, high speed lens it does well in so many other ways that I would consider it a replacement for the Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 for those who prefer a longer reach at the long end and don't mind losing the ultra-wide angle capability at the short end. It's not much heavier and since the lens came packaged with thousands and thousands of S5 bodies there have been an endless supply of like new 20-60mm lenses which have been separated from their kits and sold on the used markets for about $300; or half the retail/selling price of the lens. It's benefit over the Sigma is the extra reach but also a much lower amount of vignetting.

Please consider looking at the images here in a web browser on a decent monitor so you can see what I'm trying to describe. My writing isn't always clear and there's always the off chance that a bit of hyperbole might have made it past the censors. See it for yourself. 

These images were from a handheld camera. Neither the camera nor the lens feature image stabilization. The ambient temperature during the shooting period was around 103° which might be high enough to introduce some incidental electronic noise. The camera operator had already consumed 2.5 cups of full strength (but not overly strong) coffee prior to the production of the photographs on location. 

Why so many lenses? (memory triggered by the Spidermen above....).

Since bloggers seem to enjoy telling sad stories about their past I'll try my hand as a blogger at one particularly horrific memory of my own (who else's would it be?). I collected comic books and started doing so at a young age. I was a sloppy curator. My mom told me over and over again to keep them off the floor of my room. I had the first ten editions of Spiderman. The Marvel comic series. From the 1960s. The very first Spiderman story was in "Amazing Stories" which subsequently became "The Amazing Spiderman." The copies I had were well read and not "mint" but they were intact and in very good shape. I was rebellious and left my comics strewn all over my room when I left for college Uni. 

When I came home for the break between semesters my comics were no where to be found. My mom had donated them to the Bexar County jail. 

The current value of the first Spiderman comic, a single copy, as was recently sold at auction, is $3.6 million dollars. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/arts/spider-man-comic-auction-record.html

Now, mine wasn't in "mint" condition. But I did have the first 122 comic books in the series, in sequence. I was devastated at the loss. I eventually got over it. But my only thought now is that the inmates at the jail got to use some very, very precious toilet paper. Makes Cottonelle look free. 

I've gotten over the trauma and have long since forgiven my mom. But I can imagine that my compulsion to hoard my favorite cameras must have something to do with this early pre-adult experience of stinging financial loss. And the loss of a treasured collection of what I always considered to be the very best of modern art. Even today I sometimes ponder the thought that if I still had the comics I could sell off a few at a time and I would never have to fly commercial again...

I'll be sobbing over here in the corner from the memory of my tragic comic book disaster/loss. You just go ahead and look at the photos in their large form and see what you think about the lens. I'll be okay. I just need to find my handkerchief...

Portrait of Afradet. Finding a style by looking backward.

Afradet Z.

Sometimes I feel lost or untethered from my career in photography. I wonder what the heck I'm doing with all these cameras and all these lenses. As I age there are fewer jobs I want to do. Fewer times I want to torture test my patience at the hands of an unfocused but well panicked client. And sometimes I lose the strings that bind together what I've come to consider as my personal style of photography. 

Usually this cognitive haze is swept away by some new and challenging assignment that keeps my mind occupied and distracted but sometimes the clutch of indifference and malaise linger for days or weeks. When I feel most adrift I take time to go through old files and old boxes of work I enjoyed doing, and images I enjoyed making. I almost always come to the same conclusion: I love making portraits of interesting people.

The recent arrival of the second Leica CL was a pleasant distraction for a day or so. But I still felt unsettled. So I went back to my source of re-inspiration and started pulling images out of the nooks and crannies of the digital library on my desk and really examining them. Trying to divine what it was about each image that moved me to revisit it. And to find joy in it. What I came away with is the realization that I love the process of sitting quietly with people and waiting for them to reveal something both special and at the same time universal about themselves that shapes an expression in a moment. To freeze an emotion, a feeling, a glance, a gaze and a shared moment of mutual recognition that can never reoccur in the same way again. To suspend the slow decay of time and existential stability that is such an illusion. 

I first met Afradet when we casted for an advertising campaign. She was just right for one of the parts the ad agency and I envisioned. She had an energy that made images with her in them both realistic and at the same time distinctly a step up from routine documentation. She supplied a spark in the construction of what would otherwise be a routine corporate photograph meant to show off the kinds of people a company aspired to have in real life. An aspirational image for H.R.

After the project was over and time passed I reached out to her to see if she would come into the studio and sit for a portrait. She came by one evening, after dinner.  Once again there was that energy but also a sense that her life contained uncertainty and no little quotient of angst. I think it comes across in this photograph. 

We talked and photographed for hours. 

And then, as in so many other encounters in life, we moved back to our separate existences and whatever brought us together to share our non-commercial portrait session was over. But the images remain for me as both a reminder of the person but also a reminder that those people are constantly changing and coming into and out of our orbits. 

The best portraits come from momentary infatuations. Glancing affection. Admiration. But that's why so many commercial portraits can't help but fail. There's no bridge.

What to do on the 4th while the mercury is climbing and the world turns a bit slower? Read a fun novel.

 

Austin kids jumping from the Lamar Bridge into the cool water of Lady Bird Lake.

It's a hot day. I slept in. There's no swim practice today so why get up early?

By nine it was already on the way to boiling outside but the light looked pretty and soft coming through the thick white curtains, through the French doors.

The air conditioning was purring smoothly and the air in the house was cool and dry. 

I made a big cup of coffee, settled into my favorite reading chair in the main room, and got to work reading the novel I just started last night. 

Truth be told I didn't move from that chair for the next four hours. I was paralyzed by the tingly anticipation the story and the writing generated. Compelled to read to the end to see how everything turned out. 

When I looked up after reading the last page it was two fifteen in the afternoon. 

John Sandford had kept me enthralled and focused like a laser for half the day. It was that 2019 book of his; "Bloody Genius." His main character, Virgil Flowers is the guy we'd all like to have as a best friend. Smart, insightful, human and kind. And if I were really a writer I'd want to be just like John Sanford. 

The whole process of getting lost in a fun, fast, great novel brought back to me memories of Summers in sleepy San Antonio, one of three kids in my parent's house spending most hot Summer afternoons glued to books. Stacks of books from the library. Getting lost in fiction. Discovering new worlds and making the acquaintance of people who weren't real but maybe should have been. 

It's a quiet day here. The mercury has already scooted past 100. The humidity outside is like a scratchy wool sweater against bare skin. 

B. has her book in one of the back rooms at the other end of the house. I only logged on here now to order another John Sanford book. The writing is more addictive than heroin..... It's going to be a long Summer.

Stay cool. Don't hold any fireworks too close to your face. Try to keep your fingers attached. Be traditionally patriotic. Be genuinely appreciative of whatever you've got. And enjoy your holiday. 

Me? Firing up the Kindle.... chilling a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for later.

A minimalist "carry everywhere" camera system for going out and just living "through" the moments I'd like to photograph. Nothing fancy. Nothing big.

 

the two lens system.

At one point in most photographers' tenure of exploring the world around them they will wish for a smaller and lighter system than the one they've been using. They'll want to move away from large and ponderous cameras and the attendant fat zoom lenses toward something that's less of a burden to carry and also more fun to use. 

There are a number of good options for building a "minimalist" kit and some of them are very good choices for careful photographs who want the lighter load but still value higher resolution,  color rendering and overall performance. I am still fond of the Fuji X100V as a single piece solution. While I wish the lens were longer --- 40mm full frame equivalent --- would be just about right, the camera is lightweight, the images quality delivery far exceeds most expectations and the camera is fun to shoot with.  The only factor that kept me from totally committing to that camera for the long terms was the lack of lens interchangeability. But I'm flexible. I'd be keenly interested in an updated version of the X100V that had a two position (real, optical) lens that would give me something like a 35mm view and also a 60mm view. 

That would cover the range that I use most often and if it doesn't need to zoom, just supplying the two focal lengths exclusively, I think it could be engineered without adding too much bulk or complexity to the camera. It would change the X100V and I think there is a huge embedded base of customers that would hate the change, resist the change, and skew the future market for that camera. 

When I came across the digital Leica CL I knew the small camera had much promise as a street shooter's every day carry camera. I've tried it with a number of lenses and there are several options that really work for me when making this camera into a small system that I'm happy to carry with me. The "upgrade" from the Fuji was the ability to use different lenses. The "upgrade" for me was I could use the L mount lenses I was already buying for my bigger, full frame cameras. 

The camera is very straightforward. It's a basic mirrorless camera with an easier to understand menu and menu interface. It uses a very good 24 megapixel sensor (circa 2017) that's augmented by Leica's Maestro II processor and the camera provides a good interpretation of Leica's color science. There is, even in this less expensive model, the same detailed color discrimination one finds in Leica's flagship SL2 and their medium format S3 camera. 

Unlike most current Leica cameras the battery is not exclusive to Leica. The camera uses a stock BLC-12 type battery which is used in a number of Panasonic cameras, several Sigma cameras, and a handful of other Leica cameras that are variants of Panasonic long range zoom cameras. The benefit is that instead of paying a fortune for extra batteries one can buy "generic" versions for a lot less money.  While a Leica SL2 battery is currently $285 per one can get a Sigma branded battery, made by Panasonic, for about $40. If you really are on a tight battery budget you can source this battery type from several well known third party packagers for around $20 each. 

The CL takes all of the L mount lenses. That didn't seem like a big selling point at the time of its introduction but now, five years later, the number of L mount lenses has increased dramatically and the line up now also includes some L mount lenses made specifically for the cropped sensor sized APS-C Leica cameras. 

Sigma's high value Contemporary lenses in 16mm  f1.4, 30mm f1.4 and 56mm f1.4 are all very good choices that do a great job on this camera. But in addition all of the other Contemporary i-series lenses are also good complements to the CL. I don't own all of the i-Series lenses but there are two that I would use to make a favorite kit with. Those are the 24mm f3.5 which seems to be a near perfect size match for the CL, and also the 45mm f2.8, which is inexpensive and, at all f-stops from f4.0 onward, is an amazing optical performer. It's also just the right size for the diminutive camera body. A third lens which I am just coming around to using on the CL is the Sigma Contemporary i-series 90mm f2.8. I like it because it's a throw back to the very popular (in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s) 135mm  lens on a full frame camera. 

The 90mm used on an APS-C camera is a very sweet combination of telephoto compression, subject isolation, ability to easily toss the background out of focus and lightweight/easy to handle mechanics. 

The one sticking point that many regard as a deal-killer for this camera is the fact that it does not include image stabilization and, while I wish it did, I'm not so attached to that feature that I personally would disregard the CL. Although I understand that for some folks I.S. is a necessity. 

I'll admit that I'm not as steady as I'd like to be with the 90mm f2.8 (135mm equiv.) on the camera but my workaround is to lean on the Auto-ISO and set 1/250th as my lowest shutter speed for normal shooting activities. 

I think the lack of I.S. is important to note because the camera doesn't really lend itself to tripod use. The tiny size of the body makes mounting on a tripod seem awkward. Of course it's easy enough to do but it just feels "off" to me. 

If I'm going out for a walk with no photography subject in mind I usually take the camera with only one lens. Lately I vacillate between taking the 24mm or the 45mm. The 24mm gives me the same angle of view as a 35mm on a full frame camera while the 45mm gives me about a 68mm "look." If I'm feeling uncertain about which way to go I have a different small system mentality I fall back on. 

If it's a hot, sunny day and I might want to photograph some objects as details and then other images require more wide angle imaging (a sky line of buildings, as an example) I'll default to the Sigma Contemporary 18-50mm f2.8 zoom lens. This gives me a 27mm to 75mm range (f.f. equivalent) with a fairly fast maximum aperture. 

If I want to go out in the late evenings and photograph at the theater or in a music venue, or perhaps just a beautiful model in a coffee shop. I switch to fast lenses. The two I really like right now; as a pair, are the TTArtisan 23mm f1.4 and the Sigma Contemporary 56mm f1.4. The speed is great and allows me to keep the shutter speeds high enough to ensure sharp frames. Both lenses are sharp and the 56mm is most likely the sharpest of all the APS-C, L mount lenses I've used. 

Circling back to my original premise, the combination of the 24mm f3.5 and the 45mm f2.8 is my idea of t he perfect two lens kit. The wide lens give me a conservative wide angle point of view which is the most comfortable of focal lengths beyond "normal" for me to compose in. With 24 megapixels of resolution the image can be cropped to a 50mm equivalent with little if any loss of image quality. The 45mm gives me enough reach to make good environmental portraits and to isolate details and smaller objects well. 

The camera and two lenses fit into my smallest Domke bag and the whole system, along with a couple extra batteries, weighs next to nothing. It's the system I would bring along on vacations with B. and other times where photography is possible but not the "main event" on the schedule.

Street shooting with the little Leica CL is a wonderful thing. The camera seems made for quick, discreet work in crowded places. Used with either of the two basic lenses it's not at all obtrusive or even noticeable. The AF is quick and accurate. The shutter is quiet and can be set to a silent, electronic-only shutter when needed. The lenses, when used correctly (stop that 45mm down one stop if you are closer than five or six feet from your subject!) are clinically sharp but also have some nice character to them. 

I can generally shoot all day long with three batteries but if I was on a photographic tour of a major city and shooting from dawn to well after dusk I would carry four or five batteries --- mostly because I'm a battery worrier. A condition bequeathed to me by my old Kodak DCS 760 cameras which would average, on a good day, about 100 exposures per (big and heavy) battery. You would probably be comfortable with the Leica CL and three batteries if you thought about it....

I won't wax philosophical about "the Leica Look" or the "specialness" of Leica but I will say that after having spent a century designing cameras for really picky and demanding users they do seem to be able to make cameras that fit just right into certain niches and to provide a value of operability that's sometimes missing from cameras from those who are just lately arriving in the game. 

A Leica CL can mostly only be had used these days and you'll end up paying between $1800 and $2000 for a mint condition unit. A bit more if it comes with all the original trappings. 

Is it worth it? I can only speak for myself. All cameras now in the market should be able to hit a baseline of image quality from which most users cannot differentiate one model from another. The value then will be in what "features" are available, how the handling works out and how you feel about your relationship with pleasing industrial design. I like using the Leica cameras because I like the fact that they have relentlessly simplified the user interface and seem to have resisted adding so much complexity that the camera becomes unusable by people not habituated to working with endless menu choices and "custom settings." I think "custom settings" is another phrase, used in photography, for "punishment." The more custom settings a camera offers me the more I feel as though I'm being punished for not being able to memorize hundreds of settings a what dozens of unmarked buttons have been assigned to do. 

To have a camera that's quick and easy to use for the kind of work I'd like to do with it is a major selling point for me. You have to remember that many of us came from a time when we could only set a few things on any cameras. Those were: focus, aperture, shutter speed and ISO/ASA. All the "color profiles" were set when we decided on the film stock we would use. .  Those are four things to think about in order to make a photograph. 

Now Sony, Canon, Nikon etc. users have dozens of buttons at their disposal, all of which can be programmed to do dozens of different "tasks." I can't imagine having to set and memorize all that stuff just to be able to make a simple exposure. So, for me the Leicas check a very important box. They help me to focus on the real task at hand. Not programming rarely used crap into a menu but the pushing of a shutter button to make an image. Over time it's a big brain and time saver. 

The CL isn't the "everything" camera. If I used big, heavy zooms I'd choose something else. If I wanted to shoot more video I'd definitely choose something different. If I were s sports shooter....same. But if I wanted to walk around Austin, Rome, Berlin, etc. and photography the endless reveal of daily life this would be my choice.

Revisiting an image from a Sunday afternoon at Willie Nelson's ranch. Reading in the national news about a friend performing with Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones....

 

Selena R. 

It's an odd end to the week. I got a request to bid on a video project for a pharmaceutical company. Came in via email about 10 minutes after I said to myself, "I wish I had a fun video project to do so I could get some use out of that new GH6...". I'll bid on the adventure and see where it goes. I did a good photo project for the same company last year and they seem to have come back around to us based on the success of that campaign.

The bidding process for video is so arcane. Mostly because you can never tell how long the edit will take. People love to make endless changes to video timelines. And endless tweaks to the motion graphics. Shooting the footage is actually the easy part.

No guarantee that I'll get the project but I decided to pull out the two gimbals we use most for stabilization and make sure the rechargeable batteries are still good. They should be okay since we put them on their chargers every three or four months.

Not sure I want to get pulled back into all the minutia of a project that requires models/talent/actors but I'm hoping that's what a good producer is for. I have one in mind. Ran into her at a recent event. She's still working on film and video productions here in Austin. It's always nice to hand off stuff like casting...

Another odd thing this week. Do you remember the video I did of Chanel as Billie Holiday at Zach Theatre? https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/search?q=chanel+video

Here is Chanel performing for the fundraiser video we created content back in the Summer of 2020. It's her Tina Turner character: https://vimeo.com/462396471  (Shot with a G9 on a gimbal, incidentally...). 

Anyway, back in the fog of Covid I heard that she auditioned for and won the role of Tina Turner in a live theatrical production in the West End, London. Big time. Amazing show. Famous venue.

I was very pleased for her. 

Then I read this week in the New York Times (or maybe it was the Washington Post....the heat, remember?) a short article saying that just last week, near the end of the run of the show, the management let her go. Apparently she'd been invited to perform with the Rolling Stones, in concert, in Milan, Italy. In order to sing with Mick Jagger she had to miss one performance of the Tina show. Not a tough choice in my book. I'd pick the Rolling Stones every time. 

At any rate it seemed strange to read about all the drama in a national newspaper. Chanel is quite a talented performer. I just didn't know she was that famous. 

**********

I photographed with the new (to me) Leica CL today. It was way too hot to do anything complex or even anything that required much effort. In the end I posted one photo of some chairs. Summer is starting to wear on all of us here in Austin. If I walk through the neighborhood in the evening I can sometimes hear the families in their homes praying together that the power not go out and that the air conditioning continue to work. 

I hope their prayers are heard. Coolness is good. 

No Competition for Chairs in the Sun. Not Today.

 

Walking over to the Cookbook Cafe to have coffee with my video producer friend, James. Saw the chairs. Decided to see if the new (to me) Leica CL works. It does.

James and I have decided that firing bad clients is the most fun thing to do this Summer. We're only keeping the ones that: we like. who have a sense of humor. who pay their bills on time. and the ones who hire us because they actually like our work.

I'm amazed there are still more clients in Austin right now than there are good photographers to service them. 

Also can't believe that I typed that part out loud.

Time once again to raise those rates. Not just talking to myself...

New Arrival. Small System Back-up Camera.

 

This is the second Leica CL camera that I have purchased from the Leica Store Miami. The cameras they've sent me so far exceeded my expectations for condition on each transaction.  Both cameras came impeccably packaged. I've blacked out the bar codes and addresses on the outer to preserve what little privacy I have left on the web. Disclaimer: I pay full price for the cameras and have no affiliation (other than admiration for their business model) with the store. 

The box was stout and well taped at every spot and juncture. I wish every other vendor could learn to pack as well...

The styrofoam noodles aren't just tossed on top of the box situated inside. In fact, it seems as though LSM has perfected some technique by which the noodles are equally distributed on every side of the internal boxes which is obviously better protection than just tossing a handful of cushioning in at random. I've had delicate stuff shipped to me by other vendors where the product is lodged directly against two sides of a box and it seemed as though the styro-peanuts were casually tossed in on another side as packaging theater of the worst kind.

Just under the top layer of styrofoam-noodles there is a black, cloth bag with drawstrings and a white line rendering of the Barnack original Leica camera technical drawing on it. Inside the bag is the printed receipt for the camera and a small assortment of Leica themed postcards. It's a wonderful way to envelope something as banal as a sales bill. 

In the nest of styro-noodles there is a plain, cardboard box which serves to protect the inner product box from abrasion and handling.

Inside the plain cardboard box is the actual Leica product box and it's very big considering how small the actual camera body is. Sorry that this image is a bit dark. It was shot with another camera maker's camera... kidding, just kidding...

The silver outer box opens up to reveal a black box which contains all the pieces associated with the camera. But each group of parts has a "drawer" within the black box to keep everything neat and tidy. 

I pulled the box just above out of the top drawer of the black box/assembly and it contained the actual camera body nestled securely in protective high density foam. Considering all the layers of protection I would be amazed at just how destructive a shipper would have to be to break one of these cameras in transit. I guess you could cause some damage if you were to toss it out of an airplane at 30,000 feet...

And just above the camera is revealed. I looked over every square inch and I have to say that this one appears just as a new one in an previously unopened box might. To add to that feeling the folks at Leica Store Miami wipe the previous user's info out of the camera memory, update the firmware to the most current rev. and deliver a camera that plays the original greeting screen and requires me to set the date, time and zone.

The team in Miami go out of their way to make the purchase of even an older, retired camera model that was never the flagship of the maker, feel very special and very valuable. It's so rare to find this level of attention to both packaging and to describing the camera in our pre-purchase discussion. Wow!

Another nice thing is the e-mailed notices that come at every juncture. Confirmation of shipping. Confirmation of UPS transfers. Confirmation of "out for delivery" along with an accurate estimation of the delivery window. And a delivery confirmation e-mail that came minutes after I accepted the package from the UPS driver. At every step of the way I've been so impressed by their service. Perhaps that's why this was the fifth time I've bought a used Leica camera from these guys in a little more than a year. 

I've put the original strap on, put in a freshly charged battery, put the shipped battery on the charger, formatted an SD card and run through the menus. We're good to go here. And I'm happy. 

Of course no one "needs" a second CL. For that matter, given the state of the industry and the economy, no one needs much more than a good phone to do current photo business. But it's fun and nice and I'll take my small system with me when I want to travel light but still be able to charge people for the work. 

Most photo enthusiasts or pros won't care much about the packaging and services offered by the Leica Store Miami unless they are interested already in Leica cameras and products. Why? Because that's the only kind of camera their store sells. You can't get a Sony there. You can't even get a Panasonic there. But if you want great information about Leica and then great service during a purchase I can't imagine a better photo/retail experience via long distance. Just amazing.

Thanks to David and Josh.

Street photographer in Paris. Last century.

© Kirk Tuck

 

My preferred camera in 1978. The Canonet QL17. Used here in Avignon.

 @1978 Kirk Tuck

Paris with the EOS-1 and the original 85mm f1.1.2 lens.

 

You know that power plant I always seem to love photographing? You can't get this view any more. Why? It's surrounded on three sides by giant, high rise buildings. Layers and layers of them.

 

But at one time (2010) it was out in the  middle of a field and the nearby warehouses were old cinder block buildings with one or two stories and a lot of lonesome space in between. 

Time flies when you turn a city into a Boom-scape. 

Ceiling Detail at the Alexander Palace in Pushkin, Russia. Just 400 meters from the Catherine Palace.

 1995 was also the year I spent a couple of freezing cold weeks in St. Petersburg, Russia. I was there with a team from the World Monuments Fund documenting art and artifacts from the last palace of the Czars. While I was looking up and photographing this detail in the Palace (then the headquarters of the Russian Naval Intelligence Agency) I was escorted by my translator and a military officer who came complete with a sidearm and a list of things I could NOT photograph. 

One of my "fondest" memories was standing knee deep in snow in front of the Alexander Palace shooting Polaroids to share with the two tank crews who were manning the tanks just in front of the entry way. It was a successful bribe that granted me access to photograph the exterior of the building on a chilly February afternoon. 

One of my most used Hasselblads on that trip was the SWC/M. The one with the super-wide Biogon lens permanently attached to the camera body. Ah, the film days....

We were, I think, the first western survey team allowed in the Palace in about 70 years. It was an interesting time in Russia....

Summer passtime. Looking through photographs. Finding stuff I liked. Figuring out why.

 

Alanis Morrisette at Liberty Lunch for Sony Records. August 29, 1995

What I wrote a few years later....

"...The distinguished members of the photo-press operated in the space between the barrier and the stage.  As memory serves there were exactly three photographers at the concert. It was a time of film and getting fun shots actually required some.....knowledge.

All I needed was one good shot. I was shooting in black and white and I took two cameras to the event with me. One was a Leica M4 with a 50mm Summicron, loaded with Tri-X film. The other was a Leica M6 ttl .85 with a 90mm Summicron, also loaded with Tri-X. I didn't plan on shooting much with the 90 but it sure made a nice semi-spot meter with which to gauge exposure."

The keeper image for me was the one I posted here. I used up one 36 exposure roll of Tri-X film. Of course it was all stage lighting as flash in the press pit was not allowed. It was a time when you really did have to know how to measure light with a meter, how to focus on a fast moving performer and how to wait for the right moment so you didn't run out of film. 

1995 is a nostalgic year for me. That's the year Ben was born. The year I went to Rome on a personal photo adventure with two medium format Mamiya 6 cameras and hundreds of rolls of Kodak's new chromagenic film, T-Max 400 CN. along with my photographer friend, Paul.  

https://filmphotography.eu/en/kodak-t-max-t400-cn/

When we got back from our Rome shoots Paul and I both made big prints and had a two person show at Austin's best Italian restaurant, Madam Nadalini's. Nearly 400 people came to the opening. It was an amazing time back when photography/art still had the power to enthrall ordinary people. And back when openings were a big social draw.

And in the middle of all that year's fun I found myself sandwiched between the stage and the crowd at Liberty Lunch photographing one of the most popular musicians of the moment. It was August in Austin and we were all drenched in sweat. The crowd of young kids, mostly women, roared every time a song started. It was a bit intoxicating. 

I made a print in the darkroom the next day and that was the coda. When I look back to see what we could pull off with completely manual cameras and "slow" film I am embarrassed for all the "photographers" now who can't conceive of working with anything less than complete automation and endless technical "training wheels." Or limitless ISO sensors.

But I'm sure the guys who photographed out in the wild, with glass negatives in giant bellows cameras, a hundred years ago, would feel exactly the same about my generation of photographers. 

Context is helpful.