Gray and foggy. Just the right kind of afternoon to go for a walk through the drizzle and make some dystopian black and white photographs while brushing the water drops off my camera.

 

I've been doing photography all wrong. I have a bunch of fast lenses and I think I toy around with big apertures and dizzy backgrounds way too often. I've also let my mid-2010 fears of horrible color noise piss all over my current camera work. Like an ancient film photographer I try almost desperately to use the lowest ISO I can (commensurate with freezing action and handholding a camera without too much shake) and to "crop in camera" so I don't lose much, if any, precious sensor information. But guess what? It's 2024 and everything changed. 

I saw a black and white photograph on a Finnish photographer's YouTube channel. He was showing how he does street photography in the freezing cold, with big, fat snowflakes flying around fast as hail. He showed one urban street scene, in black and white, and the technical information over to the side of his composition said that the image was done with a 35mm lens with the aperture stopped down to f16. 

I looked at the image for a long time. I liked seeing all the sharp details going back toward the very rear of the frame. I'd finished my work for the day so I picked up the Fuji GFX camera and the 35-70mm Fuji lens and drove down to our urban center. Unlike my new inspiration's hometown streets mine are almost completely devoid of pedestrian traffic so I couldn't capture hordes of people emerging from train stations or buying hot drinks from street vendors, etc. But I did what I could while enjoying the basic thrill of being happily mobile and with enough energy to power the adventure. 

I set the camera to shoot Jpegs and instead of using the Tri-X formula I've been obsessed with I just set the camera to the Acros black and white film simulation that comes standard with the camera. I set the aperture to f16 but every once in a while I needed to open up to f11 just to get a handhold able shutter speed. After a while though I realized I was letting old habits influence my settings so I threw caution to the wind and set the ISO all the way up to 6400. And left it there. Remarkably, at least to me, is that the difference between 3200 and 6400 ISO files isn't much. The files looked pretty good and the noise was well controlled. 

I didn't shoot any masterpieces today but I had a lot of fun figuring out, in spite of the prejudices pounded into my brain for decades,  new settings that take advantage of what modern, modern cameras are capable of and how these "features" will probably change the way I photograph with digital cameras. 

I was back into my neighborhood in time to get a couple bottles of wine. I'm invited to a dinner party at a photographer's house and I didn't want to arrive empty handed. He suggested wine and it sounded like a good idea to me.

Here's a sample from today's walk. 

I'll toss in some captions below, if I have time. 

Blognote: If you are here for the first time from Michael Johnston's site then welcome! If you love the way MJ writes you'll probably hate my writing style. Oil and water ("methinks"). But be patient. I'm sure he's doing well and will be back up and writing again shortly. We post a lot more photos here. Not always sure that's a benefit. Or a feature. But that's how it is. Enjoy.

Resident photographer banging away in the drizzling rain. 

Such a large ego that he can never pass up a reflective surface. 

I don't know what kind of business "Tox" is and I'm not sure I want to find out.

But the big graphic seemed fun to me and, again, a reflective surface. 

Not anymore. Lance Armstrong's bike shop on 4th St. is closed. 

They moved somewhere else close by but are no longer in the café/coffee biz.

Yep. There it is. The Texas family "car."

Damn. Pick-up trucks are ugly. I shot this because I love the way the 

ancient cars look in Robert Frank photos. Someday these will be ancient cars.

We had dense fog today and clouds of steam wending their way down the streets in

the downtown area. It was like a movie set with fog machines. 

Keens. It's always either Keens or Birkenstocks.

Either way it's nearly always with socks in the winter months. 

Get over it.

The holiday decor is gone. The clubs are taking a break.

The deep depth of field from the f16 aperture is fun when you combine the effect with lots of reflections in windows. 

Another variation of a Texas luxury vehicle. Such sleek lines. 

So aerodynamic. ... 

Mommie. Help. I spent all my allowance on a brutally depreciating asset. 

Can I have an advance on next month's allowance?

Mannequin season is year round. See real human on the far right hand edge of the frame....

A miniaturized residential nuclear power reactor. Naw. It's some relic from an old, coal power plant. Long since turned into a mixed use shopping and residential center. Yes, of course there's a Trader Joe's. 

 

The two above? No clue. 

Below? OT. Be wary. 

today's swim was glorious. Jane and I shared a lane and pounded out 3100 good yards for coach Jen. Something luxurious about swimming in rain and fog. Poor coach, standing there in the rain on the deck. Hell, as long as there's no lightning I'm always ready for a swim. 

Since Mike is off today I'll go ahead and also mention lunch:  gobs of 2% Greek Yogurt (unsweetened, of course), half a cup of muesli, half a cup of chopped up walnuts, half a cup of fresh, organic blueberries, half a cup of fresh, organic blackberries, mixed together with wild abandon. Tap water as a beverage.

Protein, two servings of fruit, Omega 3 from the walnuts. Fiber and minerals from the muesli. I might not live forever but..... just sayin'