current favorite camera of all time: The beat up, oldest Leica SL I own. It's just wonderful. Like an old, broken in pair of jeans. current favorite lens for Leicas: The Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO-Lanthar. Sharp like a scalpel. Bursting with personality. Goading me to enjoy the "miracle" of vignetting...
Tree with intersection. Finished with diagonals.
A brick billboard for taggers. (note: parallel sides. Yay! me.).
The new Texas fad of "grass tanning." The trees will be next.
the number one, must have Summer car accessory. Get a back up. Just in case.
I tried one of the Lightroom presets for the sky. Tropical neon. Never again... maybe.
today was "red car" day on the walk. I seemed to have seen them everywhere...
They had me at "ring pops."
Store mannequins doing double duty directing traffic.
Meditative mannequin. Looking outward to infinity.
Summer wardrobes. Big water bottles. Weird cars.
Towers. Version one. With birds and wires.
Towers. Version two. No birds, no wires.
fencing. Epée. Riposte. Sabre. Chain link.
Hallucinogenic wiring for train engines. Lovely color choice.
coming nearly full circle.
Cooler today. Only 105° (f).
I woke up with a weird and rebellious thought this morning. Our neighborhood is in the middle of an extended bout of people buying up 50 and 60 year old houses for anywhere from one to two million dollars and then tearing them down and building four and five million dollar houses on the lots. The original neighborhood was mostly a nice collection of 2,000 to 3,000 square foot 3:2 and 4:2 houses on big lots. The lots have to be big because ours is one of the last small neighborhoods with septic systems. Septic systems need drain fields. Hence the bigger lots.
I get a little riled when people buy up perfectly good houses and then scrape them off the lots. And I'm starting to be annoyed by older couples, empty nesters, who believe they need five thousand square feet of living space, covering most of the square footage of their lots. Delusions of grandchildren visiting frequently...
My idea was to buy the lot next door to ours, tear down the houses on both lots, Join the two properties together and then put two "tiny" houses on the big, combined property. That's it. Just two tiny houses. About 450 square feet apiece. One for me and one for B. Maybe we'll build a dining pavilion right between the two homes. Everything else goes into landscaping. Kind of the antidote to excess size and minimal taste. Might be fun.
On the other hand. We can just stay the course and watch the California-fication of Austin springing up all around us. Either way my current pronouncement is: "Long live the mid-century ranch houses." Destined to be collector's items --- in a big way.....
circling back to actual photographic talk.... that APO Lanthar lens is quite something. A good bit better than my iPhone lens I think.
21 comments:
It's not "Californification." it's "Californication."
You're screwed.
pretty much.
The weird car in the wardrobes and water bottles picture is a Mercedes Geländewagen. The Mercedes marketers call it a G Series. It was originally developed as a military vehicle for off-road use, according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_G-Class.
Suggested retail is $140,000.
G-Wagen's get 11-12 miles per gallon. With a 26-gallon tank, which costs ~$100 to fill up, you get less than 300 miles on the road. I'd laugh when I see one, but this sort of wretched excess is killing the planet.
JC....
And they're a dime a dozen in the neighborhood. But the two most popular cars in the area right now are the Porsche Macan Turbo S and the Porsche Cayenne. Just had a look at the Cayenne Turbo GT numbers. $ 196,300 USD and a whopping ?? MPG in the city. 24 gallon tank. Premium gas required. Not sure which brand excels at the "wretched excess" but I'm guessing Porsche sells more of the them so.....
My least faves are the Bentley SUVs. Like this one:
"A CHANCE TO CELEBRATE A LEGEND
As the era of Bentley’s 6.0 litre W12 engine finally comes to an end, a series of limited-edition vehicles has been created. Lining up alongside the Continental GT Speed Edition 12, the Continental GTC Speed Edition 12 and the Flying Spur Speed Edition 12 is the phenomenal Bentayga Speed Edition 12.
Building on the unrivalled power and luxury of the Bentayga Speed, the Bentayga Speed Edition 12 adds a range of handcrafted features that highlight the importance of its iconic engine. They include Speed Edition 12 badging, commemorative overlays on the cabin’s veneers that include the engine’s firing sequence and a plaque on the engine itself. Owners will also receive a scale model of Bentley’s W12 engine, cast from a genuine W12 engine block and supplied in an exquisite presentation box.
Limited to just 120 handcrafted examples, the Bentayga Speed Edition 12 represents one of the last remaining opportunities to acquire a W12-powered Bentley. As such, it will always be a very rare sight on the road. To learn more about it – or any of the other Edition 12 cars – please contact your local dealer today.
The vehicle is not available in Europe, and is therefore not subject to Directive 1999/94/EG"
Cost? $288,000. MPG: maybe 8 ?
Cayenne Turbo GT or the Bentley Bentayga Speed Edition 12? Both can go in excess of 180 MPH. Bot require you to pay the luxury tax. But I'm going to guess that the seats in the Bentley are just that much more comfy....
Probably almost as good as the Subaru Forester cloth seats. Maybe.
Or you could just get a Miata.
And the whole post slides off the edge.
Hey Kirk,
Thanks for another tour around Austin, enjoyed that. So much has changed since my wife and I visited in 1973/4....
Stay in the shade when you can.
Larry C.
That's what happened to my folks' house in the 'burbs after we all grew up and moved out. Nice rambler on an acre lot with a lot of big trees on it. They sold it as a tear-down for around $800,000 to some developer who tore it down, nuked the trees and built a McMansion that enslaved the lot. Sold it to some free safety for the Seahawks for $3.2 million. He was cut a couple of years later, don't know who owns it now.
I miss the days when you could almost find at least one Hummer in every grocery store parking lot. To me that signified wretched excess perfectly. A McMansion on wheels.
I hate to interrupt all of this car talk to say, as always, I enjoyed seeing the results of your photo walkabout lens and camera workout. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Mike Marcus, I really appreciate that. Makes me happier than talking about cars. Thanks for reading!
“ And the whole post slides off the edge.” I laughed out loud.
As part of an older couple relocating from the hot, humid south to the Baltimore/DC area, a mid-century ranch is about the only chance of finding a single-family detached house that is handicapped accessible. (It escapes me why 4M McMansions do not have an elevator, given that a lot of the owners are likely to lose the ability to climb stairs sooner than later.)
Save that ranch!
Photo question - do you save all these walkaround pictures, or are they ephemera?
Hi Richard, Two answers.
First, the walk-around photos. Most of them go nearly directly to the trash after I convert to Jpeg and post what I like. Some (10%?) I archive since they show the changes in Austin's downtown. Vacation walk-arounds with B. and B. are all saved after I throw away the embarrassing mistakes like out of focus frames or inadvertent shutter triggers. I have so many images to choose from I just don't need to store that many more...
Second, Our house is a 2500 square foot ranch style (the studio is a separate building...). The entry requires no step up from the front walkway. The majority of the house (all bedrooms, bathrooms, dining room, kitchen) are on the same level. The same as the entry way. Only the living room is "step encumbered." You have to step down two steps to access the living room. B. was adamant 26 years ago that she never wanted to have to climb stairs when she got older. I laughed at the time but now whole-heartedly agree. We are in the process of designing a nice railing next to the steps to the living room for use by friends who are either temporarily (knee replacement, fracture recovery, etc.) or permanently differently abled when it comes to steps and mobility. We'd like to be able to have all our friends access the living room when they come over.
Our next step, after some painting and a new floor for the living room, is to put grab bars in the bathrooms/showers, etc. One step at a time.
Come on up to northern NY. Far cooler, 12" or more of rain since July 4, and all we have here to worry about are the bloated caricatures of pickup trucks that require electrically unfurled steps to climb into and start somewhere north of 80K (pre leather crew cab option). While consuming unknown gallons per mile. While neither hauling nor towing. Anything. Ever. They look quite comical parked astride 1500SF homes because they are both too large to fit in the garage and so large they hang off the sides of a "normal" driveway. So why not park them on the grass and be done with it.
No teardowns at least. But some back alley garages in this part of the state familiar to you with 0 yard and 0 parking and 0 setbacks have been controversially converted into actual 2 floor living spaces and list for a mere 670K. A bargain compared to the 1 BR condos going for 800+
Content to stay in my 100+ year old 2 story and look at giant pickup trucks.
For now.
They used to say that red cars were involved in more collisions than other colours. I've only had two accidents in my life and they both happened in my red 1980 Accord. Btw, I really enjoy eyesore landscapes.
Just ordered a 50 Apo Lanthar in Z mount to go along with my 35. Stephen Gandy had a used one for $595. I just love these lenses. A lot of the attraction is the act of using them. They go back to late 70s all metal Nikkors. Very Nikon F2-ish.
Color!
Post a Comment