a few years back I was doing an ad campaign for a natural gas company
based in Oklahoma. One small part of the assignment was to photograph
a particular restaurant kitchen that, of course, used natural gas for cooking.
I did the "straight up" corporate shots of the cook and his kitchen but I also noticed
the words tattoo'ed on the cook's hands and wanted a shot of that for myself. The original is in
color. I've shown it here before. I made a conversion to black and white because...
well...because I wanted to. I don't remember which full frame
camera system I was using at the time but it worked out fine.
Taxes: Most of my current participation in the family's tax preparation is concerned with the Schedule C, profit and loss statement for my business. Mercifully, B. handles pretty much everything else. I bitch and whine (how did "whinge" become whine? Pronounced like: "wine.") about the time it takes but in all honesty it only takes me two days to access all the numbers from two checking accounts as well as the numbers from two credit card accounts and then to filter out all the charges that are not relevant to taxation from the ones that are. For example: Lunch with Ben (not deductible). Leica M240 M-E (nicely deductible). There's not a lot of "gray space" but since every cent I spend in a year is via a credit card there are a lot of lines to look through. Okay. That's not true. I did write 23 checks last year. So retro.
Yesterday, around two thirty in the afternoon, I put everything into the template that our CPA likes and sent it, along with some brokerage statements, to B. She'll incorporate the rest of the needed information and pass it along. Sadly, I can't just depend on the standard deduction. I have to itemize. Otherwise my CPA will give me a stern lecture. But yesterday, at around 2:45 pm, I tasted freedom. I immediately went out for celebratory coffee. How rich would I be if I could deduct the cost of all my coffee episodes??? More about coffee in the swim section...
In a couple of years it will probably all change but we've been doing accounting stuff this way, more or less for nearly 40 years. Most of them profitable. A few.... not so much. But at least my part in this year's math adventure is done.
When I hit the point of completion I usually make some bold statement to myself that I'll get much more organized in the current year. I'll become a master of Quickbooks Pro, or some other dorky accounting program. I'll parse out the categories as I go along. Right. But, at 68, I know I'm lying to myself and, in fact, I'll probably just go in the other direction, put all the printouts and stuff in a cardboard box and delivery it (without notations!) to Barry; my accountant. He'll complain and charge me a lot more but I probably won't care.
Work: It's been a slow but happy year so far. Most of the work has been portraits. Either in the studio or on location. I'm happy working either way. We've booked a four day event in San Antonio in April and I've got a sprinkling of portrait work until then. But it's interesting. All the panic about money from my early years is gone. If fun and challenging work comes in I'm more than happy to rise to the challenge. If we hit a dry spell (or year) I'm happy taking time off for more swimming, walking and goofy camera fun.
Most of the portraits I've been doing this year are kind of a throwback to my earlier work. I'm using huge modifiers like 7 foot diameter, soft white umbrellas and going a step further by adding a layer of diffusion to the front for an even softer effect. I'm getting a lot of use out of the medium format GFX camera. Funny (to me, at least) that I have so much fun buying Leicas but I use them less and less in the business side and use the GFX for just about anything where I have a modicum of control with the subject. Not sure this would be true with fast moving event stuff. But, I bought the GFX 50Sii and a few lenses in the middle of 2023 and haven't felt the urge to "flesh out" the system any further.
The GFX is a good, solid working tool, it's just not as much fun as the smaller, sleeker cameras.
My kid was telling me that he bought a new computer last week. It's a MacBook Pro, 14 inch with an M3 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 2 Terabyte hard drive. He used to edit video for me and he was telling me that I wouldn't believe how fast the new machine eats through video footage. Multiple streams of 4K edits in real time. He also mentioned that he was surprised by how good the display on the newest machine is.
Ben's first computer. A Blueberry iBook. He had a desk in my office...
It got me thinking that it's probably time to upgrade my system. My 2018 vintage iMacPro has been rock solid and it does have 64 GB of fast DDR4 RAM and a fast Xeon processor but from what I've read on the various computer test sites my kid's machine is faster than mine by a factor of 10X-14X. I'll justify buying one as it will be a replacement for my 2018 MacBook Pro 13" which is probably one software (OS) upgrade away from being obsolete. And then I'll try sneaking it into the studio mix....
I do need to take a laptop with me for the April event job. The client wants a quick turnaround on some shots from day to day. Yeah! That's a supporting rationale...
I'm finding that the idea of retiring is more or less miserable. I'm diving back in with a handful of clients. I like the challenge of photography. I hate volunteering for stuff. I know first hand that most non-profits would rather have cash donations than more hands to manage. Your mileage may vary. And I think mentoring someone would be cruel. For them. I'm too scattered.
Swimming. I was plainly being immature at swim practice today. We had a new coach for today. I approached her at the poolside and told her that this was my first time ever to try a masters swim and I hoped I'd be able to get through it. She was very kind. Until my usual lane mate corrected my story. Drat. I really had the coach going for a few minutes.
It was 60° when we hit the water at 8:00 am. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the coach was coaching and the water was so clean you could have read fine point type at the other end of the 25 yard pool. If you had your goggles on. We had a challenging workout with lots of 100s on short intervals. In between sets of 100s we had a pyramid of 75s kicking. On the same intervals as the swimming 100s. That'll get your pulse up!
I'm trying a new swimming experiment. I've had the habit of drinking a cup of coffee upon rising each morning. That means I'm ingesting "healthy" dose of caffeine before practice. But in truth I have always been an anxious person and the caffeine sometimes exacerbates my performance anxiety in the pool. Get anxious in workout and your muscles get tighter and your brain makes breathing feel harder. Genius that I profess to be (sarcasm alert) I finally figured out after 63 years of competitive swimming, and 40+ years of caffeine-drenched morning swims, that I might be better served by skipping the coffee until AFTER workout and seeing if that affects my overall results.
Goodness gracious! So that's what it's like swimming relaxed!!!! I've been doing this experiment (no pre-workout coffee) for about three weeks now and the difference in workout is revelatory. No anxiety. Faster repeats. Less tired at the end of each set. Why didn't I do this say.....forty years ago? I guess I'm just a slow learner.
Now I'm wondering just how much that glass of wine with dinner affects my swim performance the following morning. Dropping another habit might just be a second interesting experiment. Guess I'll find out.
SXSW photo thoughts. It all starts on Friday. A great day NOT to be at the Austin airport. It's the start of SXSW. I love photographing there but I'm always trying to decide, right up until I walk out the front door, which cameras and lenses I should take to document the event over the eight days. This year I've had the recurring and strange idea of going really light. Now planning on taking two Leica CL cameras, the Sigma Contemporary 18-50mm f2.8 zoom and the ultra-fabulous Sigma 58mm f1.4. Two cameras with the weight of one. Small and light lenses with lots of good performance. Those are today's front-runners but you know that, with me, it's always subject to change.
Is it wrong to still be having so much fun taking photographs? I'm guessing not.
See you out there?
the chef in color.