Street photography tip #317: The ugly bucket hat draws all the attention away from the big bandage on my left cheek. So subtle and discreet.

There is a set of mirrors set on an A frame stand out in front of a women's clothing shop called, Sezanne. On either side of the sign are benches. If you sit on either bench you see yourself in the mirror. I sat down and photographed myself in the mirror. I just had to see how chic that faded green bucket hat looked. Impressive. I had to go out and photograph today because I'm banned from swimming until Tuesday morning and the withdrawal effects are starting to get to me. I figured that walking around with a bit, fat, heavy, Veblen Leica and an equally big lens might be a good way to vent some energy. It's rare that I go out photographing with a fast 85mm. And I think it's true what the nuns at my deeply spiritual and very prestigious photo-prep school always said: "When the Lord puts a fast 85mm lens in your hands everything seems like an excuse to put the backgrounds out of focus." 

Zen dining al fresco. With ground grid included. 

Recuperating with super models at the San José Hotel...

The washroom at Jo's is lit during the day only by sunlight shining through a deep red filter in the ceiling. I thought I should document the effect for posterity. I also had a large coffee so.....

Women being photographed in front of the famous wall at one end of Jo's Coffee. 

I don't know how this image got in my camera. Really! I don't know.

I think I was adjusting something on my camera and accidentally hit the 

shutter button. Honest. Random chance. Or are Leica cameras so

advanced they can anticipate what you might have wanted and engaged 

autonomously without your knowledge?

All supervised under the watchful surveillance of the Mannequin squad.

Discreet surveillance from under a wide brimmed hat...

 

Recuperating with coffee at Jo's.

It was a good day to be out having coffee at Jo's. Not crowded. Not too hot. No big agenda. Just me, a camera and a cup of coffee with a slug of half and half in it. Out and about with the big 85mm. Shooting everything I could find at f2.0. Relaxing. It was one of those days on which I was thrilled not to have a job.

 

Does your local museum have one of the first photographs ever taken? How about a complete Gutenberg Bible? Really? No? Well here, I'll share.

On most days, between 10 and 5, anyone in Austin can walk in off the street, go through a small lobby and step into a booth which contains one of the first photographs every taken. You can enlarge the image above to read the details. The image is in a dark environment but it's on display all the time. It's hard to make out just what is happening in the frame but I guess that's part of the curatorial fun and games. Right? It's comforting, as a photographer, to know that this historically important relic is right here in my own home town. The rest of the collection of photos is awfully impressive as well. A collection of amazing depth and quality.

And while I was in the lobby, and since I am so devoutly spiritual, I had to stop by another light controlled booth and take a gander at the HRC's copy of the Gutenberg Bible. One of only five complete copies in the United States of America and one of only 48 remaining in the world. Hard to turn the pages through the thick, protective Lexan case in which the Bible resides. I had to use all of my psycho-kinetic powers to get back to Genesis....

But I'm betting you have one of these in your local library as well....

The HRC houses literally billions of dollars of rare art, manuscripts, photos and artifacts. The building has state of the art fire suppression and maintains a net positive pressure. Higher pressure inside than out. You would too if you had collected so many fragile prizes. Right?

But my story is more about this grating you see in the image just above. 

When I first came to UT Austin in 1974 I was following in my older brother's footsteps. And two years later my sister joined us there. My parents were paying for tuition, room, board, books and fun for three children simultaneously, and did so all the way through graduate school. After my first year (and remember, this was before the discovery, or the consequences of, climate change and atmospheric temperature rises!) I decided to move into a huge corner room in the ancient Roberts dormitory. Just across the creek and a wide street from the UT stadium. The room was bigger and I had the whole space to myself --- and it cost less than the previous room I shared with a roommate. 

How could that be? Well my previous room was in the Brackenridge dorm which was...air conditioned. The Roberts dorm was completely un-air conditioned. Warmish. Thermally challenging. But much cheaper. 

The problem that cropped up was...seasonal. Even though we didn't have many hot days with temperatures over 100°, late August and most of September could be ... challenging. The most challenging aspect that I found was how hard it was to study if you're sweating and uncomfortable. One evening my girlfriend at the time, and I, were walking across campus and we stopped over by the HRC. We spied these giant grates that run around parts of that huge, bunker-like building.  The positive airflow out of that building was air conditioned. Well air conditioned. Chilly. Cool. Comfortable. On the hot evenings and nights we'd grab our books (real, physical, printed books) and head over to sit on the grates and get our studying done. It was, in a way, a glorious thing. Far less crowded than the libraries and one could be both outside in "nature" while also being adequately chilled. Climate controlled. 

As I left the HRC today I remembered (fondly) the many evenings over the course of three years that I spent comfortably ensconced in the flow of the great/grate air conditioning. For the next four years I was able to enjoy the miracle of AC. I didn't drink coffee back then but if I had I might have gotten out of UT in just six years instead of seven if I had. But you don't give up comfort just for expediency's sake. There are limits. 

I should have asked for a key to the HRC building back then. They have nice bathrooms inside. And if I got bored with Milton's Paradise Lost I could have stopped and browsed through that musty old Guttenberg Bible... 

The idea of not having air conditioning in dorms now seems unthinkable. But we made do back then. We generally always do. 

 

Abandoned Red Shoe. Now an art object. A found construction. A not so subtle reference to the disposable economy. The start or end of a story?

 I was walking briskly. Walking with purpose. Playing with Mario Street Kart diligence in the crosswalks. Paying attention to pedestrian traffic signals. Dodging the perennially unobservant drivers. And then I saw the red shoe lying in the middle of the middle of the street. I looked left and right and then stepped out to make a quick shot. I wonder who lost it? And under what circumstances? And what happened to its partner shoe? And whether the previous owner had to hop home on one foot after a late night of partying? And why no one had come back to claim such a glorious shoe?

I can't know any of these things but I know when I'm having an Eggleston Moment with my camera. Here is my "Suburban Tricycle" writ large. 

I exhaled with great satisfaction and headed over to Medici Coffee a few blocks away, on the drag across from the UT campus, and celebrated with a cappuccino. The counter help asked if I wanted to have my coffee in a ceramic cup or if I needed it "to go." I replied that while I did want it in a paper cup I was looking forward to savoring it there. They laughed. Sometimes questions feel too automatic. 

Image above, on a sure glide path to a major museum, was taken with my old, crusty Leica Q2. Cropped in camera to a 75mm equivalent. Jpeg. Vivid. All done. 

"Mannequins" go Old School. Baring All. NSFW?

Today was Museum Day for me. After swim practice and a hearty breakfast I drove over close to the UT campus and parked in the shade. You would have looked for shade too. It was hot and sticky today...

Slathered up with sunscreen and wearing my most ridiculously protective hat I walked about a mile over to the Blanton Museum of Art, nestled on the edge of the campus, just off Martin Luther King Blvd. There was plenty to see today. A great show of artists who worked in collaboration with each other. A new show of print making families' work from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Scultures and paintings by Isamu Noguchi. Along with new works in the upstairs Contemporary galleries.

But as you have become painfully aware, I am more of a sculpture fan. Precisionist sculpture (yes, there was an art movement in the 20th century called "Precisionist Art"), though I do love Noguchi's abstractions. 

After looking through all the galleries in the Blanton I was drawn back to a small room on the first floor where there are examples from the Battle Collection of reproductions of ancient sculpture. These were the predecessors of the mannequins we've come to know and love in the 21st century. Anticipated several thousand years ago by the Greeks and Romans. Cool way to channel the past. 

It was hot and I walked everywhere today so I only took along the Leica Q2. What am I saying, "only!!!"??? It's a remarkable camera to take along on a Museum Day extravaganza. I tamed it down for the ancient mannequins and shot in black and white. Or.... monochrome. 

Next up. What I saw at the Humanities Research Center, AKA: The Harry Ransom Center. 

 The ancients. Rich in art and literature but too poor to buy clothes...