Total Change of Plans. All Previous Camera Strategies Trashed. Fun at the "Day of the Dead Celebration" with a Weirdo Camera. Saw five different young people photographing with Leica M cameras. It's now a thing!

 

Some people are shy about approaching strangers. Me? Not so much. With kids these days I always ask a parent first. Always. Even if the kid is doing something so cute and unrepeatable that I'd love to click the shutter right now. No permission from mom or dad? No pix. Just my approach... All the kids here have had their "participation" approved by one of their parents. 

I wrote a post this morning meandering around about which camera or cameras to take with me downtown to casually photograph at the "Die de Los Muertos" event. I thought about Leica CLs with big lenses and CLs with little lenses and then, about fifteen minutes before B. and I were about to walk out the door I switched gears entirely, dumped all the choices on the dining room table, went out to the office and grabbed the Fuji GFX 50Sii camera with the 35-70mm zoom lens and also snapped up an extra battery. I used that one camera and one lens for the hour and a half I spent downtown making these photographs. It was actually fun. 

The camera is not the quickest focusing camera in the world but it makes really, really nice files. B. and I walked over about a half mile from my usual parking spot and watched the parade of bands, dance teams and weird floats make their way down Congress Ave. After the parade B. went off to find her sister who was in town for the event and they caught up while I walked through the crowds very gently asking people if I could photograph them. No one turned me down. No one hesitated. But it only makes sense. If you are going to go to all the trouble to paint your face and make a costume I'm thinking it's a pretty sure bet that you'd love to be photographed. But I still asked before I shot.

We were starving by 2 o'clock so we walked back over to Lamar Blvd. and had lunch at the Whole Foods flagship store. Lots of veggies and some mashed potatoes and a piece of fish for me. And some fizzy water. After lunch we headed over to the West Chelsea Contemporary Art Gallery where we had been invited to a Q and A with the artist, Cey Adams. His work is a blend of Pop and Graffiti with a liberal amount of repurposed imagery from 1950s and 1960s print advertising. He's definitely a hot property in the art markets right now. Call me a cheapskate but as much as I liked some of his work I was not feeling particularly motivated to drop $30,000 to $60,000 on a painting this weekend. Gotta keeps something in reserve in case Leica M11-P cameras actually start to ship. Right? 

The files I shot today didn't need much work in post. The camera meter is pretty accurate and if the camera had time to lock focus I never had to worry about sharpness. Be sure to look at the images on the big screen. Otherwise why bother? I thought that 500 images  was a good "take" for a less than two hour shoot and I have about 60 selected that I like the looks of. It's not so hard to do the work and finish the work. You just have to want it.

Experimental frame with dropped out/replaced background. 

Sure. Bacon wrapped hot dogs fried in bacon fat. What could go wrong?

Not exactly a WFPB diet option. But who am I to judge?

I ate more different birthday cakes this week than I could count. 

And none of them were particularly healthy. I know that for sure.

Is Champagne on the WFPB diet? Should be....

The barricades lining the parade route were mostly ignored by all manner of photographers. 

I'm a stickler. No press pass? I'll stay on the other side and shoot across. 

But that's just me. 

Sorry. Just one draft. No re-writes. Life's too short to fuss.