A photo from the ancient Leica CL. The non-digital one. From about 1980. Maybe 1979. Who took accurate notes back then? Not me.

 

B. and I went camping at Bastrop State Park a long time ago. About 45 years ago. I brought along a camera that I was having fun with back then. Might have been one of only two cameras I owned at the time. It was a Leica CL film camera. I bought it used from Capitol Camera in Austin, Texas. It came with a 40mm f2.0 Summicron C lens. I was relatively new to photography back then but the learning curve on a camera with only three exposure controls and one focus control was pretty darn short. I'd already learned to process Tri-X film, make contact sheets and also make black and white prints. 

B. and I remember that camping trip as the first time I made a hollandaise sauce over a campfire for the poached eggs and steaks I was also cooking. Increasing the level of difficulty was the fact that we forgot to bring a flashlight and by the time I started cooking it was already getting dark.

Two pieces of advice to pass on to a younger generation: If you want to impress a woman you have recently started dating try making a perfect, smooth hollandaise sauce from scratch over a wood campfire. If you pull it off you will find your relationship off to a good start. Second, and this advice comes from decades of life, Always marry someone smarter than yourself. It works out better that way. (At least for you....).

That's the only worthwhile advice I can offer. 

I was being nostalgic about Leica rangefinder cameras today and went looking for this photograph. I think it speaks to the underlying belief we all have that a successful photograph depends about 95% of the time on having a subject you love to photograph and less than 5% of the time on which camera you end up using. 

Two keepers. 

Made it to swim practice today. The coach asked me if I'd be at workout on Tuesday. When I said yes he offered to host a special workout for my 70th birthday where we would swim 70 x 100 yards on 70 second intervals. That's a 100 yard swim every minute and ten seconds. I gracefully declined as I could not cover 7,000 yards in an hour and ten minutes even back in college...  It's good to know your limits. 

Now a bit frightened about going to workout on my birthday... but I'll get over it.