OT: Kirk Acknowledges that he will never compete at the Olympics. But he sure gets to spend a lot of time in the pool. And with wonderful people.

I wrote about retiring and mentioned that my schedule will be open enough to get in a lot of swims without worrying about scheduling conflicts. A commenter wrote to tell me I would not go to the Olympics. Having 69 years of life experience and a healthy dose of higher education I kind of figured that out on my own. But here's a little secret: Most masters swimmers don't show up for daily practice because their goals include getting a gold medal at the Olympics. They do it for social connection. For health benefits. To enjoy healthy competition. To maintain optimum body weight. To maintain muscle mass as they age. To maintain a healthy blood pressure. To stave off cardiac events. To put off hip and knee replacements. Because pushing off the wall in a great streamline is the closest most people will ever come to flying without an airplane. To continue wearing the pants bought in college. Because they are 35% less likely to die of all causes compared with the general population in the same age demographic. Because they get to hang around the pool in a swim suit. Because the people they swim with are in better shape, are happier and more attractive than the general population. Because it's fun not to be at work first thing in the morning. And because swimming helps one sleep better. Add that all together and I think swimming every morning is a better deal than winning once at one Olympic Games. 

Most older men who take up golf in retirement die within 18 months. And in those 18 months they have to spend a lot of time with other retired men in bad outfits. That sounds like a really sucky bargain to me. Exercise? In an electric cart? In Major League baseball games the average three hour game has ONLY 8.5 minutes of actual play. And that's an "athletic" pursuit? Amazing with the public will buy...

If you go to a one hour swim practice I'm pretty sure you'll get 58+ minutes of active, aerobic and some anaerobic exercise. A tremendous bargain compared to just about anything else  you can do. 

Or you could just play pickle ball and keep an orthopedic surgeon on retainer. Just saying. 

Kids who swim make better grades. Have more discipline and don't mess up as much as non-swimming kids. Among college athletes they have higher academic achievement. 

B. Already water safe at 2.5.

Prince Rainier Memorial Pool in Monte Carlo. A nice pool in which to do laps.

Tyler is a masters swimmer at Longhorn Aquatics. UT.

Young B. At workout. Still swims now at 29. Still in great shape.

Early habits pay off. 

Rip Esselstyn. He recently set a world record in the 200-meter backstroke for the 55-59 age group in 2019 at age 56.  Yeah. He swims on my masters team. He's 62 now. Still looks the same.

The WHAC USMS swimming pool. Clean water, fast swimming.

UT Swim Center. USMS Nationals

B. Post workout. Better appetite.

Shawn Jordan. Gold medal winner at both the 1988 and 1992 Olympics.

Yeah. He swims with my masters team. 

I might never go to the Olympics. 

I get my rewards every morning at 8.

And for the rest of the day...

 

It's Saturday Afternoon. I'm ordering watches on Amazon. Also trying to decide which ONE camera and ONE lens to take to Chicago next week.

  Portrait of B. from the past. Original camera: Pentax 67. Lens: 150mm Pentax. 

This is a throw back edition to Swiss Watchmaker's 1955, 50 Fathom Dive Watch series. Hand made by Blancpain in Switzerland. It's a company that has been making very, very limited edition dive watches for a small but extremely affluent market of watch lovers. Established in the 1700s. The cost of this watch is $19,500. With a black nylon watch band. It's a very pretty watch; I only wish they made a version without a date window...

I still doubt I'll ever spend anywhere near that amount on a watch...

But, kind and generous readers...I do have a birthday coming up....

But...

Maybe the watch below makes more sense >

This is a Watchdives dive watch currently being made and marketed as an homage to the line of Blancpain watches represented up above. This watch is available with a glass crystal or with a sapphire crystal. Available in stainless steel case for the glass variant and in titanium for 

the sapphire crystal variant. 

It uses a popular and proven Seiko automatic movement, has a screw down crown and is waterproof to 300 meters. It also features a black, nylon wrist strap. It sells for between $119 - $139 on Amazon.com.

At the end of July this year I ordered one of the models with the stainless steel case and the glass crystal. I've worn it every day since. In the pool for an hour workout per day and, after letting the strap dry, for the rest of the day. I take it off at night. Otherwise the lume would keep me awake. While it keeps accurate time and hasn't needed to be rewound it is hand-wind-able. Not all modern automatic movements are hand-wind-able. It's a feature I value. 

Today I was ordering another couple sets of swim goggles, an extra (Panasonic) battery for the Leica DLUX8 and a few other odds and ends and in the shopping process the Amazon algorithms sent me a glance of the sister watch; the one with the titanium case and sapphire crystal. And coupled the ad presentation with a sale price. I immediately added the watch to my shopping cart. It's too good a value to pass up --- that is, if you like the look and feel of this watch. 

And the idea of waterproof to 300 meters.

And, bonus, no date window. Just utter face simplicity. $119. 

The watches are made in China but feature a Japanese, Seiko NH38 movement. 

It's a bargain. Sure beats the $19,500 price of the original model.

On to more important things. Which goggles did I get this time?

That's easy. Speedo mirrored Vanquisher 2.0 goggles. This will be my sixth or seventh pair. If you use them everyday they don't last much longer than about six months. The lenses, in fact all parts, are made of plastic which eventually fogs from prolonged contact with pool chemicals. And since they are plastic if you abuse them you can break the parts that hold the elastic head straps. If you break the strap lugs and don't have a back-up pair of goggles in your swim bag then workout is over until you can replace the broken goggles. I'm rotating an existing pair from their packaging in my bag to be my new daily users and adding the newly arriving goggles to be next in rotation. I have a bunch of flawed and foggy goggles in the trunk of the car. Just in case. For $25 per it's easy to "Be Prepared." 

I guess that's about it. Watches. Swimming. Am I forgetting something? Was it something about kale???

Oh yeah....the camera quandary. Which camera and lens to take along with me on my upcoming long weekend vacation with B. After much deliberation I've narrowed down the choices to either the Leica Q2 or the Leica DLUX8. Leaning toward the DLUX8 right now for its smaller size, lighter weight and an actual zoom range of 24-75mm (equivalent). It's a brilliant little camera and I just got a back-up, back-up battery for it. 

If I were out to do serious photography on the trip I'd lean toward the Q2. But I'm pretty much set on my role as a "tourist on a family vacation" instead of being a "dedicated and driven" photographer. I figure if the city seems really, really great, visually, I can always go back alone and dive into making photos. After all: "Lonely hunter, Better hunt." 

I am certain though about which watch I'll be taking.... 

Lots of posts. Don't read more than you can handle at one time. 

Here is the latest from Michael Johnston, AKA: TheOnlinePhotographer. He sent this to me a few minutes ago via email. If you are a TOP reader you might find information you want. This re-use is MJ approved!

 Time for an EXECUTIVE DECISION

The Online Photographer

22 minutes ago

I've decided what I have to do. It's becoming clear that the new site is not going to be ready for prime time by October 1, so...

The Online Photographer is moving here to Patreon temporarily. The URL is:

patreon.com/theonlinephotographer

But, TOP on Patreon will still be mostly free. It won't be just for paying customers. Naturally, I love it and appreciate it when people want to join for a few bucks a month, but I'm more comfortable when you can do it voluntarily. So, here on Patreon, you can either join as a paying supporter, join with a free account, or just come to this page and visit—most things will still be viewable that way. Hopefully people will become supporters because they want to, not because I'm coercing them by withholding most of the content. That's the way it's been up till now. Of course, a few things will be reserved just for supporters, because it's only fair. Supporters support me, after all.

How long will this last? Well, certainly until I get my groove back and settle into writing again. Maybe a couple of months. (That might turn into double that—just guessing.) As a way of taking the time pressure off of getting the new site up and running smoothly.

Dad's decision disk
Some people like making decisions early—"there, that's settled"—while others like leaving decisions until the last minute. I actually hate making decisions. Early-deciders think people like me are crazy, but there's an explanation for people who feel this way—it's that we dislike closure, because it shuts down possibilities and makes it harder to react and respond to new insights or new information. It's a version of what they call opportunity cost. When you decide on one course, you lose all the other possibilities. So people like us make decisions grudgingly and late and might still want to leave them open-ended even longer.

Just a personality kind of thing.

Decisiveness is good for certain pursuits—business, probably—but maybe not always; indecisiveness can hamper us in many cases, but in other circumstances it might be what saves the day. I could name examples of decisions reached rashly and too soon. Sometimes, people, or companies, or countries get cornered into having to accept a decision that's clearly wrong. (If I named those examples, it would hijack this discussion straightaway.)

My father's notion was that any decision is better than no decision. He was so frustrated with my indecisiveness that he came home from a trip once with a present, a brass medallion about three inches in diameter. One side was inset with red enamel and said "NO," and the other side was enameled green and said "YES." He told me that whenever I had a decision to make, I should flip it on to the carpet and go with whatever came up. 

So the next time I had a decision to make, I flipped it on the carpet. It came up Yes. I stood there for a minute or two, staring at it contemplatively and pondering, then reached over and with my toe flipped it to the No side. Then I pondered a while longer, and flipped it back to Yes.... 

Laughing emoji goes here....

So that wasn't going to work. 

Anyway, this isn't really a decision either. But I'm overwhelmed and stressed out, and if I don't find a way to relieve the pressure, then these next ten days (the TypePad site will be gone forever on the 30th) will not be pleasant. Or productive: I don't deal with pressure well (never have), and I don't work effectively once the pressure gets too high. When you don't do things until you have to, sometimes it's good. It falls under the category of motivation. But when the pressure gets to be too much it turns into a net negative. 

Again, the new URL is patreon.com/theonlinephotographer. I'll point my domains there within the next few days. The old links will break on the 30th.

As an aside, I've gotten fascinated in the past week or so with videos showing boats navigating Florida inlets—Haulover Inlet, for one—which I never knew was a thing. (The internet is full of surprising things you new knew existed). Boats being buffeted and tossed by chaotic waves—it's like watching a metaphor.

I will be astonished if I don't lose half my audience in the next two weeks, so, if you stick with me through these choppy seas, you're really helping, and thanks. 

If you have any comments, please leave them over there. I'll leave comments turned on here for a few more days, but they'll disappear soon. 

Mike

B. before he could even swim....

 

A favorite. B. The best person I can think of with whom to retire.

At Sweetish Hill Restaurant in the mid-1980s.

Olympus Pen FT half frame camera. 40mm f1.4 Pen lens.

 

Guest Post by Henry White. What the heck is Kirk up to?

Another random photo of a very nice person...

 It's kind of weird. One minute KT is here pounding out post after post and the next minute he's M.I.A. I walked through the ten inch steel blast doors into the entry area for the Visual Science Lab headquarters and everything was dark. Except, of course, for the 30 foot wall of blinking front panels for the servers and the status lights on the plutonium powered, uninterruptible back-up power units. I turned off the layers of intruder alarms and went into the break room to fetch coffee. Usually by this time in the morning my boss has been in for hours, reeking of chlorine and sunscreen, and the coffee machine is always humming. Today? No such luck. The custom brewing mechanism was stone cold; untouched. The air conditioning still set at 50 degrees...

I started the coffee machine humming and walked over to KT's office door, did the retinal scan, the fingerprint scan and the voice scan, and entered the thirty digit code to get through the door. I looked carefully around on the floor to make sure I hadn't inadvertently triggered the automatic release on the black mamba cages by doing the alarm disarming out of sequence... Nope. I got it right and I'm still here to talk about it. 

No notes on the desk. No messages on the whiteboard that hangs on the wall. No text messages either. 

Perplexed I walked over to the underground garage to see if I could use my "Sherlock Holmes" brain to discover anything. While the Veyron, the McLarens and the Bentleys were all accounted for the Subaru was missing. Road trip? Always possible. I checked outside on the crash pad but there was nothing new, just the continuing car fire from the exploded lithium batteries on that EV we were considering...

I walked over to my much smaller office and settled in to see how the markets were opening everywhere when I finally got a message on my proprietary iWatch; the one Tim had made for our team as a "Thank You." It was a terse message. Brief. Not wordy. Almost sketchy. 

It said: "retired. out shooting portraits. sell the cameras and the lights when you get into the office. Give yourself a bonus. Ghost write a blog post for me. don't sell the three original SL cameras. They are special. No company will ever make that good a camera ever again. Also, have the mechanic check the O2 mixture on the Veyron, it hesitated a bit last night when I hit 165. That is all. Soldier on." 

I didn't know what to make of it. Usually his instructions are more detailed, more authoritative. 

But since I have been handed a project, here goes: 

Gosh. This is harder than it seems... daily inspiration? Almost inconceivable.

"FACTS ABOUT THE WORLD'S GREATEST CAMERA" 

It's not widely known outside of closely held circles but earlier this year a German company brought to market the world's greatest camera...ever. It's called the ....... wait! I'm getting an encrypted call on the KT dedicated burner phone. Ooops. I'm not allowed to divulge the new product just now. Yikes! That was a close call.

Update: A sigh of relief. While I was sitting in the titanium and kevlar lined conference room of the VSL HQ I finally heard from the boss. Seems I missed the recent blog post in which he more or less announced his retirement from commercial photography work. He swam early this morning, had Chip fire up the back-up Gulfstream (an older 5 series) and met an old friend for coffee at an undisclosed location about 760 miles from here. He should be back to write about his adventures sometime tomorrow; Sunday at the latest. 

An added note from him: "Move 100 million into Swiss Canton bonds. Stock in some more of that wonderful Parisienne Sourdough bread." 

Followed by: "Success! we've now cornered the market on Leica SL cameras. The 2015 era model. You may now announce that it is, without a doubt, the best consumer camera ever made. Make room in the warehouse for another shipment. And order another one of those darling DLUX8s." 

I did some more busy work. Archived some files. Tossed out several tons of transparencies and negatives that KT went through last week...and found wanting. Carefully polished the front and rear elements of a couple of those lenses we bought from the NSA GeoSpatial division (remounted for the SLs), and called it a day. 

Running a commercial photo business can be complex and daunting. On the other hand, why would anyone who had a choice pursue anything else? Baffling....

Now heading back home to prompt my favorite LLM app to write a series of detective novels. Easy pickings. Most of the content is already pre-scraped. 

Gold watch? Or just another camera?

 

I've made a conscious effort this year to reject all the work I no longer want to do and to say "goodbye" to clients who are less than big fun with which to work. This past week I finally hit an inflection point and started turning every "work opportunity" down. On Monday I finished the post production on the last commercial obligation I had in progress. I have added no new jobs to the calendar and have, instead, been lining up trips to fun locations. Next week I'll be in Chicago and in late October I'll be spending at least a week in Montreal (my all time favorite city in all of north America). 

It was scary to stop working for clients. Note that I said, "for clients" as I want to make the distinction that I won't stop taking photographs or undertaking challenging projects, but I won't be doing any more projects that have as their impetus commercial success. It's scary because for the first 30 or so years of being an "adult" and being the owner of my own business my attention to work, details, billing and investing was crucial to provide for my family. To buy houses, pay for the kid's college, save for retirement, pay taxes and buy food. 

A number of years ago I hit a point, financially, at which I could retire but was too anxious about the future to do so. Now I have no reservations about discontinuing the money making part of my life and concentrating on doing stuff either because it's the right thing to do or because it's fun. 

I have shifted gears, mentally. It took a lot of time but I think I've finally learned to be comfortable flipping the switch from saving money to spending money that I've saved. It's a harder lesson to learn than one might think. Many people with a higher than average net worth actually have difficulty spending in retirement and often leave this world with far more money at the end of retirement than they had at the beginning. Hence the popularity of books like Die With Zero. 

The goal of many people is to retire while they are still physically fit enough to enjoy themselves. To take trips that involve walking and other forms of mobility. But sadly a huge percentage of people over 60 arrive at retirement with one or two (or more) long term health issues. And a list of pharmaceutical prescriptions. Problems with joints. Problems with blood sugar. Problems walking or standing. And far less energy than they thought they'd have when they were young and chained to a desk.

One of the fortunate things about owning one's own business and having a commitment to a particular sport is that one's odds of hitting retirement with knees, hips and lower back fully functional and pain free are better than average. I've been a life long competitive swimmer and unless I was out of town on business it was rare for me to miss a day of masters swimming. If we had jobs with early start times I tended to adjust and go to earlier practices. For a while, during the first year of the Covid epidemic I was hitting the pool at 6 in the morning. There is even a masters practice here in Austin, at another club, which starts at 5:30 a.m. and I've hit that practice from time to time when a schedule conflict arose. 

I'm heading into my 70s (a little over a month away) weighing about five pounds more than I did when I was in college ( Or, At University, for our UK readers.... but I always want to ask: which university???) and with the same blood pressure, energy and daily discipline as well. My energy levels don't seem to have fallen and my mental acuity seems intact (critics might say the jury is still out...). As many coaches and swimmers have said: Swimming is the Fountain of Youth.

But more than that staying healthy and feeling young is undoubtedly a state of mind. A point of view. A philosophy of intention. 

Resigning, "Acting your age", taking it easy, deserving a rest, and all the rest of the bad platitudes and advice about how to "gracefully" give up are incredibly ageist and self-debilitating. Sure, you can give up, pad around the house in slippers and sip Sanka but it's a trap and an ever shrinking cycle of defeat.

I prefer to think of "retirement" as being the next stage of potential accomplishment. Fewer distractions. More resources. And a life time of training. 

Here we go.

A favorite post from 2018. A busy and pivotal year for me. What is Happiness?

 https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2018/10/how-to-be-mostly-happy-photographer.html

Backtracking a bit and reading Sally Mann's autobiography: "Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs" Which was published in 2016 but oddly, overlooked by me.

 

Blogger in Paris. At the Eiffel Tower. 1978.

I have known of Sally Mann's work for decades now and always thought of her as a gifted photographic artist. The fact that she is a writer; and a damn good one, was never on my radar. Recently there have been announcements everywhere about her newest literary work called: "Art Work. On the Creative Life."

I suggested to my family, who are always asking what I would like for my birthday, Christmas, Groundhog Day, or flag day, that they could do worse than getting me the new Sally Mann book. But the birthday is a month away and being newly captivated by the idea of famous, contemporary photographer as literary ace, I decided I should do some homework while waiting for the upcoming volume. 

I sat down with her 2016 book, "Hold Still" just yesterday morning, after swim practice, and I've been swept in by not only her writing but also her amazingly dramatic and ultra-Bohemian existence. Now less that a quarter of the way through the book I am riveted and even when turning on a sprinkler in the garden I come rushing back into the house to take up where I left off with the book. 

If you don't like strong, smart, eccentric women you might not like this book... but for all of us normal, well-adjusted folk it's a treasure trove. And an interesting read.

Since it's peppered with photo references, photo stories and even ..... photographs I can't really label this post as "OT." Read the book, don't read the book, whatever. But I think, now at the quarter way mark, I can pronounce it great reading. 

Finishing up an assignment that may be my last commercial work of the year. Or the decade. Or...whatever.

Stephanie. Faculty at the Seminary.

I wrote recently about a client I did portraits for on what might have been the hottest day of the Summer. The thermometer hit 105° that afternoon with a heat index of over 110°.  During that hellaciously hot day I did portraits of seventeen people. No one was affected by the heat. No one sweated. No one's checks flushed bright red. And we got the work done with no lasting ill effects for the photographer. 

Here's how I proceeded: Based on outside portrait attempts for the same client in Summers past (beginning of the Fall semester and mostly roasting), we totally changed our approach last year. Instead of scouting multiple locations around the campus and then scheduling people to meet us outside and be photographed in the blistering heat I was able to schedule all seventeen people to come into a cozy and well air conditioned studio located in the campus library building. Coffee available just down the hall...Lunch delivered by the client.

The studio we used is fairly small but big enough in which to shoot portraits. The back wall is a white cyc. There is existing lighting on a set of ceiling grids/rails but I nearly always want to use my own lights. More control. More familiarity. 

I used LED lights from Nanlite. They are the Compac 100 series of light panels which are 16 by 24 inches, have good front diffusion built-in, and are fixed to be used in a vertical orientation. I used two of these at the front of the set up and put fabric grids on them to control light spill around the small, white walled space. One fixture was used as a main light from camera left and the other as a fill light from camera right. I added a third fixture with a slightly warmer light setting in the back, as a back light. I usually set backlights to be on the opposite side of my subjects from my main light. Seems to work better that way. 

The final light was a small panel, a LumiPad 25, also from Nanlite, used as a direct light onto the background to keep the illumination level commensurate with the front lighting.

The camera of choice for the portraits was the Leica SL2-S which I like for situations such as this where a 47 or 61 megapixel camera file is overkill and the fewer, 24 megapixels of this camera are more than adequate. I chose to use a TTArtisan 75mm f2.0 AF lens (for the L mount) because I didn't want to crop too tightly; I needed "air" around my subjects in order to have flexibility in compositing the portraits with exterior background images. I stayed right around f5.6 and 1/100th of second shutter speed, using ISO as needed. Raw files to start with...

We did the same kind of shooting for last year's images so I already had put together a catalog of pre-un-focused backgrounds from all over the campus. I was thinking about who I would composite into which background as I was photographing the people, trying to predict how each person would fit into a given background. 

Back in the office I took the images selected by the subjects, and approved by the marketing people, and did a bunch of color matching, retouching and all the usual things you might do with a portrait image, in Lightroom. Once I had the images retouched and enhanced the way I liked them I exported them to PhotoShop for a final bit of trickery and then separated each subject from their neutral background and dropped them into appropriate exterior backgrounds from around the school. There is nearly always some fine-tuning to be done. 

I use defringing in the layers menu to get rid of hard edge outlines where the images meet. I try to match color and contrast between subject and background without going overboard, and I try to remind myself that viewers of the website will be able to see many of these images side by side and so I took post production steps to try to homogenize the overall look for the sake of continuity. When I finally flatten the layers before saving I generally add a bit of noise to the overall file because I think it helps harmonize the foreground and background layers. 

I'm halfway through the composites right now and I'm aiming to finish everything up before the end of the day tomorrow. 

When we wrap up the project I'll bill them for my day of shooting, a set cost for each composite, miscellaneous post production costs and also a usage fee for a five year license to use the images on their website and also for public relations as it relates to the Seminary. 

I just thought you, the reader, needed a change of pace and I wanted to remind long term readers that  the whole reason the blog exists is to explore and share the real world, day-to-day machinations of a professional, freelance photographer. And yes! We still exist in 2025. 

Go Photography!!!

 

In other breaking news. I got the flu shot yesterday and ... no side effects. Important for photographers since you have to be able to move around, stand up and engage.

 And that's hard to do if you come down with the flu. It also screws with your travel plans and could even kill you. So, Flu Shot = Photo Accessory. My reward, besides continuing good health? Yeah, that big, juicy croissant in the image just below...

Rejected outtake. Anesthesiologist forgets to put on gloves for this set up shot...

Later fixed by.... reshooting. 

Might be the 2025 flu???

Waiting for more flu victims...

Really bad case of the flu requiring helicopter transport...

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...

Maybe get a flu shot. Sure, why not? 

Images taken with cameras. 

A Michael Johnston Update. Save that original link to his site on typepad. He's up and running currently and posting new content.

 https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html

While he's struggling to get posts up he is persevering. And today, successful. Well, except as regards posting featured comments. 

He's also posting updates on the progress of his new site construction. So, go check it out. 

A random image as decoration for this post; just below:

From the Battle Sculpture Collection at the Blanton Museum in Austin, Texas. 

Taken with...a camera.

We pay a lot of lip service to the idea that we support art but do we really? Or do we (collectively) spend more time and a lot more $$$ streaming crap?

 

Artist at work.

If we write about gear on the blog people jump into the comments and take me to task for concentrating too much on the mechanics and not enough on the "art" of photography. At one level that's fair. I should write more about the art of the art. Like K.B. Dixon does in his book about photography, "Too True." But the problem seems to be that so many people who are enamored with photography lack the educational background that provides us with a commonality of information needed to share ideas about pure art. Though everyone assumes they are experts about technical parameters of camera equipment they frequently fail short when it comes to art history, photo history and the role of criticism.  I'm not going to make much of an argument today about gear versus art, as regards photography, but I would like to broach the subject of actually supporting art and art venues. 

As a point of reference the average U.S. family spends about $70 per month on streaming services. That's about $840 a year to stream mainstream programming, etc. But the average U.S. family that actually pays for a museum membership ( a tiny, tiny percentage of the general population) spends less than the equivalent of one month's video streaming charges on a year's worth of museum membership fees. About $65 per year. 

An interesting fact is that the majority of budgets for most museums goes to educational outreach which is mostly aimed at K-12 students. We talk a lot about supporting the arts but really, when it comes right down to it, those "classy" shows on Disney Plus and those "riveting" action movies seem to mostly take precedence. 

B. and I are members of the Blanton Museum and pay $100 a year for the privilege. It's a great museum. Not quite world class but an above average regional museum that brings in great traveling shows and wonderful off the beaten path exhibits. The same for UT's Harry Ransom Center. The same for the Art Institute of Chicago. The same for the Austin Contemporary Museum. And Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum (Thanks again for the groundbreaking original presentation of Richard Avedon's show, "In the American West"). We spend a lot more on museum memberships than we do on any combination of streaming services. Is there a direct, financial benefit to us for memberships? Only if we attend often instead of paying as we go. 

Are there intangible benefits? You bet. There is something completely different about seeing art face to face, well displayed, intelligently curated and highly accessible to our individual experience. Different than seeing small scale reproductions on a video screen. Or worse, on a phone screen. And quite often the act of curation provides us, the audience, with an introduction to an artist or their work that we might have never discovered on our own. 

But in addition to museum memberships there is the opportunity to support art in other ways. I recently got a note from a small, local museum that is hosting a show of an old friend's photographs starting January 2026. Most shows in museums are financially supported by philanthropists in the community so it's not unusual for a small organization to send out a request for individual show funding. I like the artist's work. I like the artist. He's got three kids in college. He's a life long artist. His show can use a financial boost to pay for things like framing, the logistics of artist talks, an opening reception. 

We decided to become supporting sponsors for his show to support his work and the work of a very accessible venue in the community. Our donation isn't much in the grand scheme of things but hopefully our early infusion will prod more people to support the show. But it feels good to know that in some small way we are helping make a really good show of photographic images, by a life long, dedicated artist, come to fruition. 

Maybe more concrete support of the arts should take pride of place in our plans over just arguing about some aspect of "Art" on web fora and blog commentary. It sure would be different...

Just a thought as B. and I head over to the Blanton Museum to savor the Baroque Art show this afternoon. 

Since we're talking about "art."

A moment at the Children's Museum. Just for the fun of it.

 

What's it like when an artist retires?

CFO. Calculates the return on vacationing...

I'm working on the last two jobs in the docket. For the year. Both of which follow one version of my interpretation of Murphy's Law. That clients who invite you in to make portraits of their key people, and who want to book right away, will then take a month or so to get back to you with their final selections. Yeah. About an hour apart two different clients for whom I did dozens and dozens of portrait sessions for over the course of a couple of days have now, nearly a month later, finally sent me the selections to retouch and composite. That's fine. These are the last two jobs I have to mess with for the rest of the year... Or longer.

I've gone to my website and removed all the contact information that lived there. Sure, it was there so that potential clients who wanted to find me and get in touch could. But what the website contact page has mostly done since it was uploaded in 2017 was provide a rich target for spammers to daily deliver dozens or even hundreds of unwanted emails and texts. And in those past eight years the vast majority of clients who did get in touch were already clients and already knew my phone number and email address. 

By jettisoning contact information I've been able to leave up a convenient website that works as a ready portfolio, keep my email addresses functioning and hopefully, with some other behind the scenes machinations, will also declutter a few mailboxes and text reservoirs. If someone doesn't know how to get in touch with me already I'm pretty sure I'm not the photographer for them. 

I've winnowed down the work load by not doing any marketing or advertising to speak of for about two years now. It's a nice glide path away from commerce but it comes with the burden of now having to both self-assign fun work and also self-finance that fun work. And I'm fine with that. 

This basically means that the times which I will have to skip swim workouts or fun lunches to accommodate client schedules is quickly approaching zero. There's still a lot to get done. Archiving of sorts. Filling last minute I.P. requests from nervous clients. And the mental exercise of changing direction after 40+ years locked into a strange commercial/capitalist paradigm. Also, flipping the switch that converts priorities from saving for the future to dipping into those savings. Thank goodness my spouse/CFO is brilliant. 

today's schedule: I hit the pool at 7:45 this morning, did a long distance warm-up and then swam with my masters group under the watchful and critical eye of coach Jenn. She's just back from a trip with her husband where they participated in a competitive swim race across the Bosphorus at Istanbul. Today we worked on all four strokes nearly equally. Going from butterfly to backstroke to breaststroke to freestyle with individually medley swims (all four strokes continuously) between each set.  If you haven't tried swimming a 400 IM and think you are in exquisite shape you might want to revisit your fitness plan. That first one hundred butterfly in the IM, at the end of a long workout, is killer. (But not literally...). 

. ...they make it look so easy at the Olympics...

After a quick shower, I ate an apple I'd brought along with me and drove over to my favorite car wash. There's a reason I drove halfway across town to the car wash. It's because my physician has his office a couple blocks away. 

I wanted to wash the car to get all the road dust and tar smoke off the paint; the result of my failed photo foray to Pedernales Falls State Park on Tuesday... I also needed to vacuum up the leaves off the floor mats. The mats are black and show up everything. I must confess that I did have fun driving out and around the wide open parts of the Hill Country on Tuesday. It's been a while since I channeled my teenaged alter-ego and drove my car too fast. I figure it's okay to redline every once in a while if there are no other vehicles for as far as the eye can see. Besides, I've been so well behaved for so long.... it's nice sometimes to cut loose. Four lanes. No cars in sight. Vroom.

After I washed the car I presented myself at my doctor's office to get a flu shot. I'd emailed earlier in the week to confirm that they'd gotten the more vicious and powerful version for seniors. Almost guaranteed to elicit some sort of side effects (not presently felt). My doctor runs a concierge practice. I pay him quarterly for an "all you can bear" access to top flight health care. But other than being able to set my own time for shots and vaccines my general health has thus far made my ten year relationship with the concierge practice less profitable for me than him.  He is, however, a great source of referrals. Loved my Mohs surgeon. 

I had to wait two minutes in the empty waiting room before being collected by the practice RN. I was going to be miffed about the delay but decided to let it go (just kidding). Maybe my watch was running fast... I walked down the hall with the RN to an exam room where she took my blood pressure and other vitals. Then she gently and deftly injected the vaccine and placed a Pokemon bandage on the injection site. She knows my taste in bandaids.

Since it's a concierge practice there is no paperwork for me to fill out and no insurance nonsense to deal with. I keep my doctor current with an email or two after I've seen a specialist --- he's already got the baseline. The front desk person made me a cappuccino to go and offered me snacks. I took the coffee but resisted the urge to eat a granola bar.

I was hungry though so I headed back to my neck of the woods, drove past my street and headed to TacoDeli for a couple of bacon, egg and cheese breakfast tacos. Yum. Then, with a happy stomach, I turned the car around and drove back home. 

When I walked into the office I saw the two emails from the two clients who had been delinquent with the image selections. I sent a brief "thank you" note to each and let them know when I could effect delivery. Then I got to work editing my current website to take off all my contact information. I also checked on travel plans both domestic and international. Two trips upcoming. All good. 

I handed off all the microphones and mixers I'd accumulated over the last ten years to a videographer whose work I admire. The office felt lighter.  I hope never to work on a video project or film project again unless it is as the still  photographer. 

I'm feeling a bit unleashed. For the first time in a long time I have no real, fixed schedule (other than six days a week of 8 a.m. swim practice), I have no debt. I have no obligations other than the classic domestic ones. I have no worries about how to make the ends meet. The kid is launched. The parents gone. Now I just have to make sense of how I got myself into this "predicament."

Ah well. It could be worse. 

PSA: don't smoke! It will kill your 100 fly times at the pool...

That's all I've got for today. Now out looking for a perfect dessert for after dinner...

 

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Kirk goes all "Thomas Heaton" and makes landscape photographs. Daft? Like a bloody fox. Brilliant!!! Blimey.

 

I was ready to get out of the center of the city so I decided to get rid of my really nice, fast, comfy, sporty sedan and dump a year's worth of fee income into a bloody good van. Which I then spent months and untold riches into finishing it out as a traveling, three star hotel on wheels. But without a shower, a toilet, room service, or housekeeping services. Or much space. That's okay because I'm thrilled to be able to travel on my own steam to far off places and then sleep in my new van because desolate parts of Texas are so incredibly safe. A quick jaunt to the Sonora Desert? This way I can wake up in the morning, pee on the big patch of poison ivy I accidentally parked in, chew on some nearby tree bark and then use up some of the van's battery juice boiling water on my mini-burner for a spot of tea. I perform gymnastics getting dressed in the tiny space. I should have just gone to bed in my clothes but it was just a teensy bit warm last night and sweating through one's nice clothes on a 95° night, in a metal box is less than comfortable. 

Although the van works most of the time it can be temperamental and make atrocious noises, and sometimes rattle,  but a few thousand quid in repairs later and then "Bob's your Uncle!" (Whatever the hell that means...). 

So, on the road. Getting away from the stress of the city and putting some good kilometers between me and the ol' ball and chain, and the bill collectors, and the people who want to give me free broken cameras that they found in the Goodwill resale shop. Offering them up like they are gold. And the hordes of street photographers who don't get the magic and majesty of Landscape photography. the thing I love more than anything else in the world. 

I loaded up the van with the basic essentials. Some beans, some haggis, some treacle, bangers of course, and a good supply of Guiness Stout. I don't really like Guiness but since the van's refrigerator has done a runner I buy it and drink it because it doesn't want to be served cold. Right? Oh, and some biscuits to have with tea. 

Then it's on to the basics of camera inventory. Of course we'll bring the 8x10 view camera and some film holders to match. And the medium format camera of the week. And, of course, something very Sony. Or a lot Sony. Mostly Sony. And a tripod that works for everything. And lots of stuff from Peak Design.

I've packed layers and layers of down filled clothing and fleece stuff. And technical under garments. And funny hats. Like the hats Justin Mott wears --- only warmer. 

Now it's September 9th and I'm geared up and ready for my big landscape adventure. Ready to drive through slush and snow, heavy winds and those thunderstorms that come racing through the....heather? I might freeze to death in the van over night but it might be worth it if I can get the composition right just as the last good light of the day fades to night. Right? And then? Biscuits and tea. Maybe with a touch of jam stirred in to cut the vile taste of Earl Grey tea... I can already imagine the melody of the sleet slamming it's peppy cadence on the roof of the van once I get it parked at low tide somewhere...close to the shore...

But then it dawned on me that the exhaustive trip I had in mind was just a short ramble over to Pedernales Falls State Park. A short 40 minute drive from my house in West Austin. And I'd mostly want to leave after a hearty breakfast at home. And I'd arrive there around noon, hike to the spot that I was thinking of, walk around for an hour or so, take some photos and then, when the heat gets to be too much, maybe just head back home, ring up my favorite restaurant to make some evening reservations and be done with the whole undertaking. Yeah. That sounds better. And cheaper. And easier. And then I won't have to give up a fast car for a top heavy van loaded with bedding and weird wiring. And awkward smells...

Yep. that's the ticket. Forget the van. Forget the sleet and snow. Forget the icebergs sliding precariously across a mountain road in eternal night. 

Home in time for the prix fixe dinner at Chez Extravaganta. Can't wait. Oh, and here is another attempt trying my hand at Landscape photography. Doesn't work for me. But I'll keep trying. Please buy my prints and my books and follow me on .... oh, never mind...

The color version.

the black and white monochrome version.

Variation.

indecision.

Collage or hodge-podge?

Huge dust bunnies? Nah, aircraft warning buoys.

the "Terry Richardson" version. 

the Garry Winogrand version. 

the Stephen Shore version. 

The Robert Adams "study." 

kirk makes a valiant attempt to do a vertical photo. 

Got my "S" curve working. Magic. I smell a limited edition calendar in the works....

The sad camera that was forced to participate? The gun metal version of the Leica M240 (m-e). And everyone's favorite landscape lens... a 50mm f1.4 rangefinder lens... thypochke = the Russian version.