It's fun to meet up with people who read my blog. We both brought cameras. I had a wonderful afternoon coffee with Gordon Lewis.

I was determined to get out today and take some more photographs with the new camera. I know that sentence sounds like something you've probably read here a hundred times... "Kirk wants to try out his 'new' camera." I'm referring this time to the Fuji GFX50Sii. I've taken it out for a short spin before but this time I had the new 35-70mm zoom lens on it and I wanted to see how it would all work.

But, of course, it's not the lens I used to take the two portraits here....that would be too easy.

So, I headed downtown and snapped a bunch of familiar scenes. I usually don't carry my phone with me on walks but B. was driving back from San Antonio and I wanted to be available if she had any troubles on the highway. I checked the phone every once in a while and the last time I checked I had a text from a number I didn't recognize. 

Usually I trash texts from unknown numbers but the text was written with nuances of familiarity. I remembered that my friend and blog reader, Gordon Lewis was supposed to be in town this week so I queried back: "who?" Got an instant reply. Yep. It was Gordon. He wanted to know if I had time to meet up this afternoon. I'm nothing if not spontaneous, and Gordon is fun to hang out with, so of course I immediately accepted the offer.

I dropped by the house, changed lenses to the 50mm f3.5, hopped in the VSL staff car and headed over to meet Gordon at a restaurant where he was finishing up a lunch appointment. We both agreed that it was too hot to walk around and take photographs so we decided to find a nice, cool, coffee shop. 

After a moment of deliberation I decided to take us to my local coffee place; Trianon Coffee. It's at the end of my street. I spend a lot of time there. Mostly goofing off. 

When I have coffee with people who are smarter and more interesting than I am I try to remind myself to stop talking so much and listen better. Gordon has been a professional photographer and is now focused on being a professional writer. He knows stuff that I don't. 

We talked a little bit about cameras and photography. More about music and a good deal about life. I had to drop him off over at the University of Texas after coffee. He had another meeting. But he made two hours of conversation go by in a flash. I was a little sad when he got out of the car. Kind of like when you see a good movie and then it's over and you have to exit the theater into bright sunlight but you wish the movie had lasted just a little longer.

He took some photos of me. I hope I get to see them. If they make me look at least 10% better than I do in real life I'll be sure to post them here... with Gordon's permission. 

Gordon Lewis. At Trianon Coffee. Austin, Texas

Fujifilm GFX50Sii + 50mm f3.5

#funstufftodoinaustin