Going through the files. Thinning out the archival preponderance of endless photographic stuff that most likely would never see the light of day again....

It's always interesting to see just how many photographs one has taken over the course of both a business career coupled with having the same pursuit as a passionate hobby. We're well passed the million photo mark over here. In fact, just in Blogger's attached galleries for this blog site we've got stored away 36,363 images. We've used most of them over the course of the last 16 years to populate the visual component of the Visual Science Lab. There are about 700,000 more files sitting in various galleries on Smugmug. And on 30+ different hard drives (migrating constantly) we've logged another 1.1 million images. And none of this counts the black and white and color negatives, as well as the various format transparencies that exist as film. That's a lot of stuff to store and keep track of and the sad or emotionally debilitating aspect of this mass collection of work is the fact that only the barest fraction of it will get re-seen, re-purposed or re-used. It just won't. 

So, year by year I resolve to winnow out everything I won't mess with ever again or even look at ever again. The easiest way is to go for the low hanging fruit. If we shot headshots for a tech company 20 years ago and that company has either gone away or shuttered it makes no sense at all to keep thousands of files of people who are now 20 years older (if they are still with us...) on my hard drives and in the cloud. It's a clean sweep. Everything in those folders gets trashed. Same with client files that aren't very creative and which were done 20 years ago. And in my personal work if I didn't enjoy a photo shoot I'm dumping all the original files as well as all the finished files. If I didn't like something the first time around chances are I'm not going to like it after the passage of time. If I was to ever get around to looking at the work in that category. Into the void it goes.

Some work gets a pass and will be around (hopefully) until such a time as I am no longer functional and the big dumpster comes to clear everything out of the office. These include most of the work I did on film, all the family photographs. All the beautiful photos of beautiful girlfriends. All the vacation photographs. All my favorite models' photos. And the photos of eccentric trips to places like Rome or St. Petersburg. And these already make up quite a big stack, metaphorically speaking. 

I'm getting to the same point with cameras. For some reason I keep buying extra copies of my favorite Leicas but now I don't have any compelling reason to sell off the older ones I purchased four or five years ago. I like having a bunch of spares around but it's totally illogical. Someday I'll figure out how to let go of most of them but right now there's no pressing motivation to do so. I'm good at getting rid of lighting gear and studio support gear but less able part with cameras and lenses. There's gotta be a good therapist out there somewhere...

I photographed the model above as a test. I had just read Leonardo da Vinci's daybooks and loved the idea of huge, top mounted diffusion between a model and the light source. So I tried to replicate the look in the studio. I think the experiment might have worked better in color. But it is a very different look for me. 

Staying cool and finishing up post processing on projects today. Mostly for friends and family. Shying away from accepting new work stuff that will lock in my schedule too far in the future. I'm booked for the 1st of July for surgery on that pesky skin cancer on my left cheek. I've been through this before and I'm pretty sure I'll be more or less useless for the first couple of days, post surgery. Not because of anything physical but from the emotional stress caused by the idea of surgery. Then it will be at least ten days out until I can get back in the pool. And then there is the healing after removal of stitches. So, basically, half of July is shot to hell. It seems obvious to me that there are many long walks in my future as well as much Netflix and Apple TV binging in my near future. That and learning how to effect food deliveries to the house....  Maybe I should take up golf. Or, God Forbid, pool.

Speaking of food, B&B took me to a restaurant called, "Carve" for Father's Day yesterday. It was a very large space and, given the holiday, it was filled to capacity at 7 pm. It was loud as only restaurants on holidays and special occasions can be. Lots of small children. Amateur restauranting at its finest. 

But the restaurant amazed me. They handled so many parties and, at least in our experience, never dropped the ball. And, finally, I have found a restaurant that does flaming desserts, flamed and finished table side. So much fun. Hello Cherries Jubilee! I can hardly wait to go back on a quiet Tuesday evening and see how much more aurally calm Carve will be then. But it's a comfortable spot. Not snotty or pretentious. Geared to the middle class. Something we find comfortable. 

A fun and happy Father's Day celebrated at the end by a viewing of the movie, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" which is in fact a sweet and endearing look at the last days of Life Magazine through the movie magic of Ben Stiller. It's an amazing movie that gets better with every viewing. Ah.

Monochrome all around us. My Leica "Monochrom" camera. It's really "dual use" capable.

 

Enchanted Rock State Wildlife Area.

Fourteen miles outside of Fredericksburg, Texas.

I'm not a big fan of black and white landscape photographs ---- for the most part. There are too many shortcuts in most image processing for the genre. I nearly always see increased contrast, "amplified" sky tonalities and very high sharpness as part of the mix. But sometimes it's fun to play with files on has shot in color, in raw, just to see what they might bring to the table as black and white images. 

When I went to Enchanted Rock to hike and photograph on Wednesday last week I knew I wanted to start with color raw files no matter which direction I might finally go in. There is just so much more potential to play with the files than when one shoots solely with a monochrome camera or when using monochrome file settings in combination with Jpegs. 

There was no question that the files would end up being very sharp and noise free. After all, I was shooting in Texas daylight which meant I could keep my chosen camera for the day at its lowest ISO (200) and I could use one of my sharpest and best corrected lenses for the M cameras; the Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO. For the majority of my photos I used f8.0 and a shutter speed of either 1/500th or 1/1,000th of a second. Not likely to be affected by user inflicted vibrations and nothing within the frames was moving.

While the lens is extremely sharp the sensor in the camera is reputed to use a very thin filter stack which translates again into even more resolution and sharpness. Very much a win, win.

When it comes to monochrome landscape shots the nature of the sky is important to the overall look. An overcast sky with no differentiating details usually looks dead in landscapes. But worst of all are the bald, white skies one sometimes gets. I felt lucky that a storm had moved through hours earlier and the sky was constantly changing which gave me a range of looks. The third and fourth frames were done early in the day when more rain was threatening. The top two images were done later in the morning as the skies started to clear. 

All the files were processing in Adobe Lightroom using a simple conversion to black and white. These may be your cup of tea but they may not and that's okay. I don't profess to being a master landscape shooter nor a post production genius. I just had fun shooting the images and playing around with them in post. 

Shooting landscapes from the hip. Shooting everything from the hip. Oh, my mistake, I actually looked through the finder. It just made more sense.

 

A few more images from my hiking adventure yesterday at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, outside of Fredericksburg, Texas by about 14 miles. Wonderful place for a rock climb or a challenging hike. Bring a camera, there's a lot to see....

A lot of vlogging street shooters are presenting their arguments these days for shooting from the hip. In other words trying to be a furtive and secretive about taking photos of people who are unaware they are inadvertent subjects of the photographer. Okay. So I tried the same thing with landscapes and all I got were crooked horizons and misplaced focus. Fair enough. It seems like the same problem one sees with so much street work. 

I will say though that none of the landscapes I saw yesterday were intimidated or made to feel awkward and abused by my camera's shoot from the hip gaze. The hills and rocks and flowers just took it in stride. 

While I have not had much practice shooting from the hip I have found, in the short term, that I'm not comfortable with the practice --- when it comes to landscapes. It's the ole Heisenberg Theory Catch-22. Observation changing the object. Or maybe it's Schrodinger's Cat all over again...never sure if I'm getting a great shot or a dead cat.  I'm no physicist so I don't know. Or, perhaps I can't know...

I also tried to hold the camera at arm's length and squint through the bright light at the screen on the back of my camera. The way a man might hold a really stinky diaper as far from his face as possible while running to place it in a bucket of other stinky diapers. But that didn't work well either. 

The optical finder at the top left of the camera (as you correctly hold it) was a much better option; at least for me. But regardless of approach or technique I certainly had fun shooting Not Mannequins yesterday. It was just different enough to feel novel to me. Maybe camera makers designed eye level finders because they work so well for so many of the conditions under which we find ourselves taking photographs. Or maybe they just like including unnecessary features...  I love my Sigma fp. I just wish it had come with a very small, very easy to use, EVF. But then again, that's why I use rangefinder cameras and EVF based cameras for so much of my work. 

Going all "Stinky Baby Diaper" hold just doesn't hold as much appeal for me. But YMMV.  

The branch that looked like a snake at first glance...

I stopped here to drink water from one of my three water bottles (all reusable, none disposable).

I stopped here to eat some trail mix. It was good. Little pieces of dried mangos, walnuts, almonds, peanuts and dried pumpkin seeds. Instant energy with a long energy buffer built in. 

I stopped here to finish drinking my coffee from the coffee shop in Fredericksburg, Texas.

All photos produced with a Leica M240 ME and the Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO lens. The VM.

The backpack. The Rock.

Three or four years ago I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket and B&H was having a sale on these Gitzo photo backpacks. Couldn't help myself so I bought one. It came with lots of padded, velcro panels inside. Way too many and way too padded. Enough protection even for the most frightened of camera packers. I used the backpack a couple of times and then relegated it to shelf duty. Where it sat vigilantly for the past few years. 

When I decided to make the trek to Enchanted Rock to hike the "mountain" and the trails I glanced over and saw this poor thing languishing on the Metro shelving and thought to resuscitate it and rehabilitate its inner workings. By which I mean I pulled out all of the pillow like dividers and left only the padded shell of its sides intact. It felt much better and it because much, much more useable as a day pack for climbing and hiking. It packed more.  And it weighed less. 

Inside I packed three one liter bottles of water, an extra shirt, extra socks, a small first aid kit (happily, not needed), a bag of trail mix, a big bottle of SPF 50 sunscreen, a couple of hand towels, a Leica DLUX8 camera along with its companion spare batteries, my phone, a nice Kershaw lock blade pocket knife, a small notebooks and a couple of pens. 

You can strap lots of stuff to this backpack but all I carried on the outside was a big kerchief for sweaty hand wiping. I kept one of the bottles of water shoved into a side pocket. I came to like this backpack a lot of hiking because it has a waist belt and if you adjust it property it takes some of the weight off your shoulders and puts it on your hips --- making it all feel as though it has a lower center of gravity.

I'll definitely keep it handy in the future. I just won't put those damn dividers in again. Now it's just right. 

When climbing steep rock make sure your shoes have great, grippy soles. Shiny soles on the shoes just means you'll slip and slide all over the rock. Especially the parts that are still damp from the rain.

A good backpack is one that just becomes invisible and well balanced. 

"Be Prepared." 

 

Every so often it's nice to unplug, pack a camera and some water and go out to revel in the endless fractals of nature. A day trip to Enchanted Rock...

 

This was my last photo of the day. I'd finished climbing the "rock" and I'd done the

five or six mile periphery loop around the park (some of which is described by the park service as "difficult" other parts, "challenging"). I was walking back to my car when I saw all of these people in red t-shirts coming up the trail. They had just climbed the rock. They were an ROTC group. I chatted with their leader for a minute. I said, "Now that the young folks are all warmed up it would be a good time to run the loop trail." He looked at me like I was crazy. I walked away thinking there are some things old 69 year olds do that young people don't.

I know it sounds impossible but I was getting a bit bored with life in Austin and needed a quick getaway. I decided it was time to go back to Enchanted Rock Wilderness Area and climb the rock. Maybe get in a long trail hike. Eat trail mix. Drink coffee on the summit. Get hot. Cool down. Get exhausted and then get a second wind when you realize you're halfway out and you need to get all the way back to where you started the hike. And the trip to the wilderness area is just a little over 1.75 hours from Austin.

Planning is good. Sometimes you can plan too much. I thought it was going to be hot yesterday so I packed three liters of water, an extra pair of socks, my trusty, small first aid kit, pocket knife, and even tossed a pair of Birkenstocks in the trunk of the car for aprés walk. We had a big storm overnight as a cool front blew in across the hill country and when I started out it was 68°. I thought I was in heaven.

It was dark outside at 5:30 but that's when my brain woke me up. I ate some breakfast and drank some coffee and then I followed my own pattern of being too prepared and meticulously checked and optimized the tire pressure in each tire of my car before setting out. I sometimes think that makes me special but then I realize that all of you have an electric tire pump in the trunks of your cars. Right?

Everything packed down into a Gitzo backpack that had been modified by taking out all of the Velcro, padded dividers. I thought about making a hat decision before leaving the HQ compound but looking in the back seat of the car revealed a dozen or so different hat choices so I decided to wait until I arrived. 

There was a stop in Fredericksburg for additional coffee and one of the most sublime almond croissants I have ever had. Amazing. And the drip coffee was in the top ten of cups I have had in the last year. A great way to greet the sunrise.

The road from Fredericksburg to the Rock is a twisty, wind-y, two lane road with lots and lots of nicely banked curves. I rarely get out of town with the (relatively) new car but seeing as how there was zero traffic on that 14 mile stretch I got to drive my car silly fast and feel the turbo-charger push me back into the driver's seat. Exhilarating to drive faster than you should. But best to do it when nobody is around. 

The park just opened when I got there so I hit the big rock first. It's the steepest climb and it's a treat to hit it on a morning with some cloud cover and 68° in the middle of June. As a photographer I have to say that it's anticlimactic to spend the half hour of steep grade climbing only to realize that the thing you want to photograph is actually the thing you are standing on, which limits good photographic options of the very thing you thought to photograph. 

So I hiked back down, took a look at the park map and headed for the trail head for the Loop trail. It goes around the big rock and also a giant secondary rock called Buzzard's Roost. The actual loop trail is "only" five miles but I like to add on Turkey Pass trail for another mile and a half because when you hit the summit of that trail you get great views of Enchanted Rock on one side and then Turkey Peak and Freshman Mountain on the other. These hikes are not for casual walkers or beginners, especially in the heat of Summer because they have lots of quick, steep elevations, the trails sometimes get lost in flood water, and they are not navigable by any sort of vehicle so if you get into dire trouble you'll either have to get yourself out or hope that you are light enough that the park rangers can extract you --- by hand. 

Add in various poisonous snakes, coyotes (watch your small children at all times) and plenty of skunks of you'll need to be vigilant while you huff and puff. Makes it all the more exciting!!! 

Add to the perils of wilderness hiking the fact that there is NO (zero, zilch) cellphone service in the park and you'll probably layer on an extra amount of caution. Oh, and no place to refill a water bottle either.

The rewards? The positive benefit of nature's never ending fractal show, some great exercise, interesting and beautiful views, and a chance to tell your friends that you survived. While the trail up and down the rock was crowded by the middle of the morning (a climb also rated by the rangers as "challenging") I ran into only five people on the entire loop trail ( which is labeled by the rangers as "difficult"). It's nice to be alone in nature but hiking experts would be quick to tell you NOT to hike alone and to always tell someone where you are going and when you expect to get back.

The soft cloud cover stayed over me for about half of my time there. I spent an hour on and around the big rock and three+ hours on the various trails and by the time I got back to the VSL all terrain vehicle I was properly knackered. Ready for a fun 14 mile drive to Fredericksburg, and just lackadaisical about the rest of the return trip home. 

It was nice to be totally unplugged for the whole time out. I guess if I had an iPhone 16 Pro and was faced with an emergency I could have used the satellite feature to call for help but...what is the fun or challenge in that? 

Also, interestingly, trail mix tastes better when consumed on an actual trail. Just an FYI. 

I meant to use my new(ish) Leica DLUX8 for the hike and I packed it into the backpack but at the last minute I decided to take along the Leica M240 M-E, the one with the gray metal finish, and the 50mm APO lens for it and I ended up using that combination for everything. The DLUX never got out of the backpack. 

When I got back to the city I got a call from the dermatologist's office to schedule my upcoming surgery. I'll probably be out of the pool from July 1st to the 15th so the sutures can mend and do their thing. It will be torture to be sidelined for so long but perhaps larding in a couple more big hikes near the rock will take the sting out of the enforced swim break. We'll see. 

Captions below for bits and pieces.

Lesser hills. The "rock" itself has an elevation gain of 423 feet and sits about 1,850 feet above sea level.

near mid-frame, that's not a dust spot, it's a buzzard, just looking for unprepared hikers....

In all the years I've come to hike in Enchanted Rock I've never seen it as green.

There have been three major storms rolling through in the last three weeks. 

One storm during the early morning yesterday left behind two plus inches of rain and flooded the trail completely in a couple of locations. Crossing meant wading through knee high rapids. The water rises quickly. And wading through stuff? That's where the extra socks come in handy...

Buzzard's Roost.

This was where the trail should continue. It does, if you are ready to wade across at three different points. Be sure not to drop your Leica....

I added a third trail at the end and it had a nice crossing area that the others lacked...

Granite as far as the eye can see. 

I like this little cave in the rocks. When I got here, about a third the way into the loop trail, there were two hikers standing back fifty feet or so and watching the entrance. They had just seen two coyotes slink in to hide out from...us. Lots of deer tracks around as well but I didn't see any, in person. 

They hide well.

A nice, comfortable trail to scramble over. 

Since I started early I was able to get back to Austin before the late afternoon rush hour reached its daily, fevered pitch. I love being out in the wilderness. I love using all those walking muscles and I love the way my car drives when I push it. Now I'm back just moving money around and trying to figure out when to apply for Social Security. I'll be 70 in the Fall. I think it's about time to get it worked out.

The fresh, dry Birkenstocks were a treat. Couldn't wait to get out of the wet hiking shoes and the socks. Planning ahead can provide benefits.

Hope you had a fun, happy day. Can't wait to get back to the Rock. 

Now it's Monday and I got to play with the compact, mini-cam all day long. Leica D-LUX8 photos.

When it gets really hot and uncomfortable outside the idea of carrying a big camera and a heavy lens starts to sound more and more... masochistic. Better on the days when it's over 100° to carry along the smallest camera you own. Something just a bit bigger and more capable than a phone.

I pursued a lazy and sybaritic day today. I walked the hills of the neighborhood with B. for a good hour and then I fired up the VSL staff car and headed over to my favorite car wash to spray away a couple of weeks of accumulated grime and random bird droppings. I used the foaming brush, then the high pressure soap spray, then the high pressure rinse. Then the spot free rinse. And for a couple hours, at least, I had a relatively sparkly and teutonic-ly clean car. Since it was already hot outside I did spray the high pressure rinse water up into the air every once in a while so I could walk through the mist and cool down. 

Task #1 completed I headed over to the First Light book store to see if they had any depth in their collection of Billy Collins poetry collections. They have the current book but I've already purchased that one. I was inspired to look for more Billy Collin's books of poetry because B. and I had lunch on Saturday at the New World Deli, which is next to the Livra Bookstore (collectibles. very, very good stuff. Now saving up for the very limited edition "Dior" by Richard Avedon. Slip case and all...). After lunch we browsed and B. found a signed copy of Collins's "Nine Horses" which I promptly bought. It's wonderful. 

I didn't find what I was looking for at First Light but I did buy yet another of the slender, Japanese, fine point pens the shop stocks, and a little notebook to accompany it. I had in mind taking the pair next door to Bureau de Poste as a distraction (doodling, brief observations, etc.) while having breakfast. So I did.

I ordered the egg, bacon and cheese sandwich on a freshly made biscuit ( too good to be healthy !!!) and a cup of drip coffee. And I spent my time eating slowly, drinking even more slowly, and listening to marketing people at the next table (three very beautiful young women) talk seriously while glancing over and over again at their individual laptops as they figured out how to sell more Texas seafood via "public information" outreach on the web. They obviously have some part of the Texas Ag. Dept. account to work on and it seems pretty obvious that this dept. relates directly to....seafood. 

I found it funny that each of the participants came equipped with Yeti water bottles which sat on the table next to the laptops. The Yeti-s got more attention than the coffee drinks but I think the coffee drinks were just purchased to assuage the trio's implied guilt for Bogarting a comfortable table in the chilly air conditioned dining room. The egg sandwich was superb. A gustatory triumph. 

After car washing, book searching and a very late breakfast I dropped back by VSL headquarters to change cameras. I tossed the Leica M 240 M-E onto a chair and grabbed the D-LUX 8 from its perch. Said "Hi" to B. and then headed over to South Congress to take a stroll in the growing heat. Mondays are always "people quiet" on South Congress Ave. One restaurant doesn't even open on Mondays. Most of the retailers have "done the math" and stay open because the accounting breaks in their favor. Even if only by a little bit.

I walked for a while until the heat became uncomfortable and then I ducked into Jo's Coffee and, for the first time ever, ordered an iced coffee. Just the right thing to cool one down mid-walk. Delicious. Zippy. And, to placate my French and Canadian readers, I sat nearly motionless and endeavored to "enjoy" my coffee without ambulation. I hope this makes them happy....

And now, back to the office to see what the images look like from the Lilliputian camera. I was experimenting with intentionally using the widest focal length settings where possible and also leaning on smaller apertures for less of that soul sucking bokeh everyone seemed to lust for five years ago...Oh, and I added some color saturation --- just for fun. Modernity. It's all over the map.

Here's what I got: 

No clue what Fable is selling. Wait. I'll check Google...

Okay. See if you can make heads or tails of this:

https://fable.co/

Close and wide. 

Now very gun shy about hat buying. I'd hat to look dorky.

I'm wondering if my hat consultant, J.C. would approve of this one 

for casual wear? Just asking for a friend....

Chair-itable?

A very large umbrella for a very, very large tropical themed cocktail?

Old guys drinking coffee in the heat with a dog. Jo's. Of course. 

Not just for retired people in Florida anymore!

Will people migrate from Pickle Ball to Shuffleboard? 

I think so.....

furniture for aprés swim. At the Austin Motel. 

Didn't feel the urge to give it a try. Not today...

This is Joann's restaurant's outside patio. I'm presuming the flock of 

owls is there to dissuade the grackles from their usual customer vexing 

hijinks. Or maybe the owner is just a big fan of ceramic owls...

Something blue. 

My take on the DLUX 8? Pretty much the perfect carry around 

camera for a hot, sweaty day. Love the EVF. It's really, really good.

Wish the diopter wheel had a firmer detent. The friction between my shirt and the wheel always seems to change the setting. Frustrating. Gaff Tape to the rescue?