the back pathway to Mañana Coffee shop. Over the railroad tracks.
We finally finished cleaning up from last week's giant and very destructive ice storm. Dead and dangerous branches removed, endless stacks of branches and brush chain-sawed into manageable pieces and hauled off. The yard needs a good raking but I'll leave that to the lawn service.
After biding farewell to the final tree crew I really needed to get out of the house and go for a walk. We'd been hibernating during the cold weather and then I've been sticking around the homestead to find workers/services, supervise and pay them. Now that we have some days of sunshine and temperatures in the 50s it would be a shame not to pepper each day with a long walk. And even more of a shame not to bring along a companion camera.
After a couple days of big cameras and big lenses it seemed like a vacation to go out with just the little Leica Q2. I've posted a lot of stuff in color lately so I was ready for some black and white. I'm enjoying the black and white Jpegs I can get from this camera. Part of it is the high sharpness of both the lens and the high res sensor but additionally the Monochrome HC setting combined with added higher contrast makes the images more fun for me.
After an afternoon of shooting with the Q2 I came home with truly eccentric ideas about pulling out every single piece of photo gear from every nock and cranny and selling every last shred of it. Every camera, lens, microphone, flash, light stand, etc. I'd buy a second Q2 and, in my fantasy, never look back. As I continued along this thought pattern I thought it would be even cooler to make the second Q2 one of the "Ghost" versions in silver and white. I could designate that camera the black and white camera and designate my black version as the color camera. Two cameras. No additional lenses. Nothing in the studio. Just the computer and a small bag with the two Q2 cameras.
Have you ever considered such a crazy move? Would it work? Could it work?
I think if you decide you don't need to work for clients you might be able to pull it off well. Add clients to the mix and everything goes to hell. An interesting thought exercise nonetheless. Might try it. What could it hurt?
Late afternoon.
David Guerrero, Street Photographer par excellence.
Cranes. The official and perennial "birds" of Austin...
Reflections in a coffee shop window.
I really liked using the 35-70mm Leica R lens but it just doesn't fit anymore into my way of working. It's a great lens for a landscape photographer or a person with fast fingers, young eyes and a predilection for shooting in a totally manual mode. Sadly, that's no longer me...
13 comments:
My photographic fantasy is:
1. One Leica film camera. One super wide lens and one 135mm lens. And a nice person I pay $CDN50,000 plus extended health (full dental and eye car!) and 4 weeks vacation. This person's job is to develop my film and scan it :-) I of course pay for the developing costs and the scanner and the film. I shot 1 roll of black and white and 1 roll of colour film per week.
2. One Leica SL2-S with a water resistant lens for the 6 months it rains in Vancouver.
3. Latest and most expensive iPhone upgraded every year for the camera improvement.
4. Canon R6 II plus the kr*zy 800mm plus 2x telecoverter for 1600mm blurry and "collapse of context" photos. Most people hate these sorts of photos. I love them :-) #ymmv
I think I might be able to afford 2-4 someday :-) but 1. is pricey over 10 years :-)
I've had that exact thought more than once or twice. Sell every bit of gear...I have too much stuff that I've gathered over the years. Continue on with a single camera. I've always liked the Q2 and with 28mm and 50mm available to me I could make it work. I know I would be happy with the camera and it would feel great to unburden myself. Just the Q2 and a nice, small camera bag and two spare batteries. Maybe a small flash unit for those times when needed. Move forward with a nice, clean, unencumbered approach.
When you have had the experience of owning a number of fine cameras and lenses what makes downsizing hard is remembering the cameras or focal lengths which helped you take some of your favorite photos. So the churn of gear and money continues. Then you buy a new lens with the focal length you liked with your previous system and don't like the new one like you liked the old one. Or, rebuy a previous system. And, when your subject matter changes you can think you need to hang on to bits of gear you don't need. I have have found my years of experience with gear can mess with my work and budget at times. I think the solution is a small-maybe not as small as you are considering- carefully edited of equipment.
I think it it is sometimes necessary to change the kinds of subjects you photograph to be happy with your gear.
Not to push you one way or the other but I’ll take one of your SL’s and some lenses
For most of my personal work, I’ve whittled it down to a Lumix G100 and an OM 20 mm 1.4. For more ambitious things like travel or low impact documentary work, I’ll add the Leica 9 mm and the Sigma 56, and two more G100’s for each lens so I don’t have to switch. I’ve pretty much decided to leave the G9’s and the Leica 10-25 and 25-50 on the shelf.
I fantasize about doing this all the time. But then I read one more VSL post and another piece of gear magically appears on the shelf. I guess it will be a Q2 Ghost next.
I like the B&Ws, and I'm impressed they are JPGs right out of the camera (with a little extra contrast applied). You have inspired me to do the same thing with my Ricoh GR III and GR IIIx, to see how it goes. Of course they're not Leicas, but they are darn capable cameras. Talk about small and light and easily carried!
im not a big fan of your B&W (except for your portraits!) but these ones of people in the rain are very nice
A friend has literally one camera and maybe 2 lenses. Stripped down computer with minimal software. Small easy to manage SSD drives (they have gotten nicer beyond my nice T5 and T7 drives!) He isn't a deliberate minimalist but ultimately he is one. Shoots some pretty nice stuff. Seems happy. Packing for a headshot job, then an editorial session, I envy him.
I feel that you are inching closer and closer to getting an M10R or M11 :)
I've tried several variations of kits through the years, M43, APS-C and FF. Bought the holy-trinity of lenses, fast primes, etc. Serious GAS subscriber I suppose, only to realize my addiction was more with the gear than the pursuit of the memorable photo. Got bored with the whole thing and sold off practically everything. Fast forward a few years and I'm now with two FF cameras with three lenses shared between them - one set up for video the other stills. I shoot some paid video gigs and the occasional photo shoot, but mostly just playing around as an aging retired guy making YouTube videos of old historic or abandoned sites, i.e., pursuits I'd be doing even if not a photo/video nerd. It seems when the mission and passion are your guide, the equipment choices which follow are far more pragmatic than entertaining another journey down the GAS rabbit hole.
I've done the camera and hifi minimalist thing as a way to afford items which might otherwise have been priced beyond my means. That's how I paid for my first Leica M outfit: By selling off pretty much every other piece of photographic equipment that I owned.
But that was just a short term means to an end: I find that sustained minimalism is much trickier, and rather than just finding the right cameras and lenses to buy (as if that alone could ever stop those restless cravings!), my attitude towards them needed to change. This attitude adjustment is an experiment in progress.
Jeff in Colorado
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