A Favorite Photograph of my All Time Favorite Muse... B.

 Just looking through old negatives and realizing why I chose to become a photographer.... 

.... it was all about the privilege of proximity to beauty.

There are days when, even if it's too hot, all I want to do is walk around with a camera and take photographs. Not on a schedule and not for any specific reason. Just to see what I can see.

 

Once in a while I'll wake up and think to myself that I don't really want to go to swim practice today. When I was younger I was more strict with myself and I would go anyway. But on Wednesday last week I woke up not thinking about a wet workout but about really getting to know the Leica Q2 better. And there's generally only one way to get to know a camera better; that's to charge up a battery, insert a good memory card, format and head for the car. Lately I've been obsessed with the idea that the Q2 is the perfect 35mm camera. Really perfect for that focal length. 

If you find yourself shooting Jpegs, which I do more and more, then setting the camera to work in a specific focal length sets the stage for shooting that way more organically. Sure, you can shoot in raw and even with the camera set to show 35mm frame lines you still have the option, the fallback plan, of shooting to the frame lines in the moment but keeping the potential of choosing that old 28mm frame after the fact. In post.

In my early years as a photographer I spent a lot of time shooting with various Canon and Leica rangefinder cameras. One of the charms of most rangefinder cameras is the fact that, with medium focal length lenses (35 &50mm) you get to see what's beyond the presented frame lines. You can compose and then see what you might be missing in your composition because the subject is sitting there just past the frame lines.  Just on the other side. And seeing something that might make a better photo if it was included is a very good thing. 

When I have a Q2 set in Jpeg to take 35mm frames I get to see what's in the rest of the finder image. What's outside the demarcation of the frame lines. What might have potential for additional inclusion. I am incapable uncomfortable not interested in shooting ultra wide and then cropping afterwards. I am not gifted with the desire to think of an image in my mind, shoot it surrounded by unneeded clutter with the idea of cropping it later exactly as I saw it in the moment. And if you really believe that this is how you work best you are deluding yourself. Or you have way too much time on your hands while contemplating the taking of photos....

I love to bring the camera up to my eye and look into the bright line frame and see a composition that I like. And then, if needed, fine tune it just prior to the moment of capture. I always have the option of cropping into the 35mm frame but I don't have the option of de-cropping to a wider composition. And not having that option is actually comforting.

Some might say that I'm wasting resolution by setting an "in camera" crop instead of using the full frame that I paid for. I disagree. When a Q2 frame is cropped to 35mm, whether in the camera or in post, one still ends up with a 30 megapixel file and, for most work we do this is more than enough resolution. Need more? Start with a Q3 file and set your camera to crop the frame into a 35mm angle of view. You'll end up with nearly as much resolution as you would if you were shooting a 42+ megapixel camera. More usually isn't better. More is usually just more.

I usually park in the same place and walk variations of the same route. It's easy that way. And my end point is near both a favorite restaurant and a favorite coffee shop so it's very logistical. I wear comfortable shoes. I've been wearing long sleeve pullover shirts from REI that claim to have a 30 SPF equivalent UV resistance and also wick moisture ( aka: sweat) effectively which keeps me cooler than the times when I wear cotton shirts in the hot weather. I have three of them. They are all the same color. They are light gray. I usually wear a medium size shirt but I buy these in a large size because I believe that looser clothing is more comfortable in the heat. When I find a particularly good piece of clothing I tend to buy at least three identical items. I have found over the years that as soon as I find a shirt or a pair of pants or shoes that I really like the manufacturer changes the sizing, the style, the materials or the quality and I am saddened by my perception of loss. Loss of access to something I find valuable. 

The week following the coming week will be the second time I have surgery for a pesky cancer on my face. It's the result of a life time of aquatics, outside, in Texas with insufficient sunscreen. I get it. And part of my penance now is being sentenced to wearing very, very dorky hats which cover my head, the tops of my ears and, with their wide and floppy brims, my face. There's no way around it; they look dorky. Doesn't matter if you spend $400 on a hat or $25 on a hat, if it's effective at blocking the max sunlight it will look dorky. Dad-like. Overly practical. But lordy, lordy, I love a great bucket hat...(not). 

I walk pretty briskly. Not on purpose but mostly because I don't see anything worth photographing and I'm anxious to walk ahead and see, immediately, what's around the next corner. What's the next trigger for the photo gland in my brain. 

When I'm walking in dangerous heat I try to limit myself to just a couple of hours before heading home. Three or four miles with lots of short stops to look through the camera and see if what I've stopped to look at has merit as a photography subject. Once I feel hot, thirsty or bored it's time to pack it in and move on. Time to test the immediacy of the air conditioning in the car and time to find the right spot for a big iced coffee. The endpoint for the walk. 

Out of habit I always take a second battery. Lately I've noticed that the combination of the Q2 and the newer SCL-6 battery means I very seldom whittle down the power in the battery to anywhere close to one half. I might play it more dangerously and head out sometime with just the battery in the camera. With 256 GB memory cards I never take a spare with me unless someone is paying me to work. It's just so rare to have a contemporary, premium SD card fail... (Now having jinxed myself.... gulp!). 

I have the idea lately that once I have surgery on my currently movie star quality face I'll be required to spend at least 10 days out of the pool. I won't miss the routine but I will miss the fitness benefits. Ten days away and you feel like you are starting over from scratch when you come back. Because of this I'm walking even more than usual with the idea of starting at the cool part of the morning and getting in more miles during the swim hiatus. That, and ramping up the strength training. As one of my trainers says, "If you can do as many pushups as your age you can consider yourself out of shape..." Very strained logic. As a 25 year old I could push through that without missing a beat. At 69 it's a daunting task. But since I'll have nothing better to do....

Speaking of better stuff to do I have been inviting friends of all ages and genders over to the studio to have their portraits taken. All in black and white. I've cleaned the place up and I'm in the process of "death cleaning" the studio so it has more room and a lot less clutter. I have a big octa-bank (120 cm) set up and either a white or a black background (mood dependent). The only other addition is a hunk of white foamcore to provide opposite side fill. I don't want people to linger after I've photographed them so I concoct some excuse in advance for why we are "time limited." I see most of these folks enough so that we don't have a lot of catching up to do. 

So far all of the photos have been done with the venerable Leica SL2. Mostly because I like the way it makes black and white files and it's got enough resolution so I can print big....if I want to. There are three lenses I've played with more than others. The Sigma 85mm f1.4, the Sigma 90mm f2.8, and the recently acquired TTArtisans 75mm f2.0. All, in their own way are good. 

Can't wait for Monday when we undertake the big air conditioner install at the house. So much fun.

Walking North on the pedestrian "side" bridge at First Street. 

A new construction at the Long Center for the performing arts.

Something for evening performances out on the lawn...

The Long Center. A public/private renovation happened about ten years ago.

It's a really nice space for concerts et al. And it looks so "jet age."

the now abandoned HQ of the Austin Lyric Opera. 

They've moved on. The building (mostly the valuable land under it..) is now for sale. 

I don't get the joke. I mean, who puts this on their car? Really?

And, by the way, see the hat? Dorky. 

Golf in the middle of town. Just South of Lady Bird Lake. 

Eccentric enough to make me want to take up golf....

The Good Kind. Nice and Cold. Not...Grabby. 

the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge. Over Lady Bird Lake. Joining North and South Austin.

Gateway to a good, long walk with trails going East and West in a loop. 

Three different loop distances available. From 3 miles to 12 miles.

Bring your biggest water bottle in the Summer...

Down by the railroad tracks.

the beginning and end of most walks. 

The VSL Blog was offline for maintenance. We're back---- but on a more limited schedule. Photography is quickly becoming less and less interesting to write about...

It was interesting to read that this will be the first year in which over a trillion images will be uploaded to the web (See M.J.'s column from yesterday). 94% of which are either being done with cellphone cameras or created out of the ether by artificial intelligence. When you consider the dilution of individual photographic work it's beyond daunting. It's demoralizing and seems to make individual efforts like those of current VSL ramblings mostly pointless. 

In the first two thirds of VSL's tenure many of the posts were written about day-to-day jobs that I had undertaken. I discussed what the goals of the jobs were, how we planned them and what gear we used. I also included descriptions of the processes. Most popular of the posts seemed to be the one's where I wrote about photographing theatrical dress rehearsals for marketing. And what made those articles interesting had a lot to do with the evolution of digital cameras from noise rich solutions to, progressively, low noise champions. The upgrade to a new camera or a new camera system was more important than it might be today because one could see the progress of new sensors as we were able to shoot at higher and higher ISOs with relative impunity. Theater documentation was a small niche but it was interesting to the people considering upping their camera's game for low noise performance. And people look more fun in costumes and under stage lighting.

So much changed in my practice of photography back in 2020 when Covid hit. And when we started ramping back up it became apparent to me, and a large number of my peers, that the game had changed profoundly. Companies were reticent to spend the same kind of money they had before. Quick videos took over a lot of the heavy lifting in online advertising that had been the broad-based bread and butter of our photo industry. By 2023 A.I. was starting to make inroads in a way that was not unexpected. Ad agencies and typical end users of photography could use a phone photo as a template for a full on post production production and create their own work to use for clients. They were no longer constrained by usage fees, copyrights etc. 

I've spent a good part of the last two years backing away from the business of photography entirely. I still enjoy taking photographs but I am not longer as connected to the paradigm we worked under in the "old" days ( Pre-2020 ). Back then we were still pursuing the Boy Scout theory of the craft in which we owned a whole tool kit of different kinds of lighting, cameras and lenses. We owned specific stuff for specific kinds of projects and never thought that one set of gear could do everything generalist photographers might need. And in most cases we had duplicates or back-ups for each piece of vital gear. So while we might not use longer zooms for much else I did depend on them for theatrical production photographs--- live on the stage in front of me. And since we were committing to that practice we owned (at least) two. Always being sure to have a redundant back-up on hand. We were...Prepared.

Same with lights. Flashes for some work. Continuous light for video. LEDs for a hodge hodge of situations in which we wanted to use cool running continuous sources. And then support materials (lights and modifiers) for every permutation. There was a certain amount of churn in the gear as battery powered flashes got smaller and lighting solutions got better. LEDs improved by leaps and bounds from the time I wrote the original book about LED lighting. And, as we touched on above, camera performance kept improving. 

Now all of this redundancy and inventory for specific types of photography seems a bit pointless. Most of the projects we undertake are simple portraits or running documentation of processes or events that can be handled by any number of inexpensive cameras and a small selection of lenses. As clients clamor for more and more "authenticity" we have come to understand that authenticity really means less polish, more available light, and a general disregard for noise in an image. Gone are the days when we did lots of day long, week long or month long projects like annual reports which required a big hunk of planning and logistics as well as travel and days spent working to shot lists of things that art directors might want to include in the final brochure. The kinds of jobs I now get are more along the lines of a law firm or medical practice asking me to photograph one subject and sometimes get fancy and drop in backgrounds that we might shoot separately. The most recent job done for an oral surgery practice was done completely with a basic, full frame camera and one 50mm lens. Most are jobs that could be done in several hours...

But doing easy-to-produce jobs like these is hardly the material for exciting writing and riveting reading. And I can only walk through Austin looking for good coffee and different images for so long before it becomes old hat for everyone. The push back on mannequins is already disheartening...

While some bloggers need to keep writing, and pretending that this is all fun and vital work, to make a living I've never depended on the blog for any income. Or future jobs. But I can't think of any of my art director/ad agency friends even read the blog --- although they all like to see work on Instagram --- for the moment.

What exciting thing did I do today? I went to swim practice and then came back home to deal with the death of our home's central air conditioning. It's fixed for the moment but I decided to go ahead and drop $15K on a new system (includes the heater...) since the old one is going on 20 years of service and that's a long and rewarding tenure for an air conditioner in Texas. The $15K didn't come from affiliate income or Patreon members, I wrote a check for it. (Yes my UK readers! People still take personal checks. For cars and air conditioners. Amazing!!!). No big excitement. No thrills or spills. After the current AC got a few bits of maintenance today I feel like it will keep running until Monday. If not, I have an office just 12 feet from the house that's well air conditioned as a .... back-up. Or maybe it will be time for a stay-cation at one of the glorious hotels...

With nothing fun or exciting to work on and write about, and nothing really happening on the streets of Austin in the dead of Summer, and my general laziness, it seems rather silly to continue trying to find reasons to keep blogging on an earnest and every day schedule. 

I have surgery for the cancer on my face scheduled for July 1st. I have several trips planned for post suture removal and general scar recovery. I have way too many cameras begging me for attention. And I'm unsure that there is even an audience for the kind of work I'll want to do on my travels. 

I think we'll just coast for a while and see what happens. Usually I like to be binary and when I decide I am finished with something I shut it down and walk away to start something else. But many of my readers let me know that they value the archive that exists here. Out of 6053 blog posts I do get things right every once in a while. So I'll leave the blog as it is for now and maintain the right to come back on my own schedule and add things as I see fit. Check in and see what's new when you have a chance but be forewarned that the days of a post or two a day are coming to an end. Jeez. I'm gonna to be 70 in the Fall. I've got some other priorities to get to. 

The blog is here if you want to re-read some old stuff. There might be new stuff from time to time. That's all I've got for you today. 

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And no! I won't be documenting the air conditioning install or writing about it. That's just boring. I'll have an assistant here to shepherd the project through but I'll be out having a fun lunch somewhere and hitting a gallery or two. I expect to come back home to a chilly house served by a more efficient and "green" unit. 

Bored just writing about air conditioners. And heaters. And installations. Now heading out to give one of the rangefinder cameras some love...

 

Juliet. In the studio. Photographed with a Fuji GFX 50S.

 

I like working in the studio and I like working in black and white. It's fun. 

This portrait was a "non-work" portrait in that we did it just for fun. I used to swim with Juliet but she moved to pursue a career in the arts. The photograph is a fun memento. 

Photographed earlier this year.

Yeah. Now it's getting hot. So photographs of swimming are just the ticket. Dive in!!!

 

This is the Prince Rainier Memorial Swimming Pool in Monte Carlo. 

We did a corporate show in Monte Carlo for Tivoli Systems. I had most afternoons off 

so I made daily use of the pool for the better part of a week. 

Tip: Always pack a swim suit and goggles in your gear bag.

50 meters. Salt water. Bonus: it's right next to the bay so you 

get to watch all the big yachts come in to dock...

I swim but I also photograph. This is Tyler showing perfect backstroke form 

for an article about how (Olympian) Whitney Hedgepeth coaches backstroke 

for the UT Austin Masters Group. From the UT Swim Center.

Perfect freestyle form...

Ben tearing it up at Emma Long Park. He's brave. He'll swim anywhere there is water.

Valet/personal assistant/social secretary/mom in the background. Carrying all the stuff. 

Contax G2 with a 21mm Zeiss lens. 

Sarah. Post swim. 

For about ten years I was the "official" volunteer photographer for our swim club's summer swim program/team for the kids. "The Rollingwood Waves." I covered every swim meet and made photos to share with all the other parents. I never missed a swim meet with my kid, Ben, participating. 

The parents wrote the kid's events with a Sharpie on the kid's hands. Event # and heat #. That way the parents running the ready bench could tell which event a child was supposed to swim by a quick glance at their hands. The ink generally wore off by itself before the next meet. 

Saturday morning swim meets were a huge social event. With 200+ kids spanning 5 years old to 16 years old there were always groups of same age kids having fun, chilling out with Nintendos together and eating all kinds of brightly colored candy before their events. The parents were required to volunteer and keep the wheels turning. We counted three different gold medal Olympians as coaches during the ten years Ben swam on the Waves.  He did learn his four strokes very well. 

It's always social hour at the swim meets. 

Some kids make friends for life there.

Ben swimming breaststroke at a Saturday morning meet. 

Amazing what you can do with a long, manual focusing lens on a Kodak 

DCS-760 camera. If you anticipate the location and the phase of the stroke.

cheering on the team mates. 

A calmer pool at Balmorhea State Park out near Marfa, Texas.

A wonderful, cool, spring feed pool that's rarely crowded and open late. 

Swim to your heart's content. About a six hour drive from Austin.

Kirk's shoes at Balmorhea Pool. Circa 2010.

Ben coming off a wall at a night time meet. Sony RX10mk2.

He could have tucked those elbows in a little more for a better streamline...

Just sayin.

A swim meet at the country club where the pool is 50 yards from Lake Austin. 

Swim your event then jump off the pier. Unfettered fun for swimmer kids. 

Coach Ben in charge of the six and unders. His incorrigible dad embarrassing him 

by setting up a soft box and an 1800 watt battery-powered flash just to take yet 

another swim photo at the pool. Growing up surrounded by endless competitive swimming.

Is it any wonder that he's now a runner? Kidding a bit; he still swims.

It's Summer in Austin. Most other adults I know and hang out with are somehow connected to swimming. I start every morning with a pool full of them, swimming workouts written and coached by 

a professional coach. Or two. Or three. It's a cool way to start the day.

And, if you are coming home from a location shoot out in the heat it's even better to stop by the pool in the evening and plunge in. It rearranges your brain. And makes you happier.

Ambient temperature today? 98°. Water temp at the pool today? 79°. 

Heavenly.

Can a 50mm lens be.....too big?

Five years ago I bought a 50mm f1.4 S-Pro lens made by Panasonic. On the bottom side of the lens (when mounted on the camera) it claimed to be "Leica Certified." That 50mm was the biggest, heaviest and least fun lens to carry around that I could imagine. My memory of it is that it outweighed Leica's own gargantuan 24-90mm zoom lens for the L mount cameras --- and that lens is legendary for its bulk and weight. 

The Panasonic 50mm f1.4 was, at the time, the best "standard" or "normal" lens I had ever used. When one put it on a tripod and paid attention to technique the lens delivered an amazing performance. But in less than a year I sold it and never looked back. Mostly because I came to realize that the price/performance/handling equation was fatally flawed for most users. Myself included. 

 When I tried to use the Pana 50 monster for street photography it was perhaps the least discreet prime lens I had ever used. Less subtle than an 85mm f1.4. Less visually unassuming, almost, than a typical 70-200mm f4.0 zoom. And it dwarfed even the full size SL bodies and Panasonic S1R bodies on which I tried to use it. Made those cameras part of a package that was on the outside of the curve of happy use.

So even though it was the most amazing optical performer I'd ever come across it pushed me to look for much, much smaller options. And it helped me realize that once I stopped down just about any 50mm lens to f4.0 or f5.6 any visual differences were truly masked by expediency of actual use and/or the fact that great 50mm lenses aren't always just about micro contrast or edge performance. In fact, the first lens I bought after selling the Panasonic was a Voigtlander 50mm APO for around half the new price of the former. It is about 1/5th the size of the Panasonic. But even wide open, at least in handheld camera photography, it is competitive. Stopped down to f2.8 or f4.0 there's no discernible difference for most users. Myself included.

And I bought the Voigtlander 50mm to use on a Leica SL type camera even though that lens is made for native use on an M series rangefinder camera. The reason? Because it delivered high quality images while making the SL2 camera seem almost agile. It lowered the weight of the whole package by a lot. The camera and lens didn't strain at the strap. It was a nice package. It's still a nice package.

Since those experiences with the Panasonic 50mm f1.4 I've shied away from buying "ultimate" performance lenses or lenses that are tweaked without compromise for optical performance over handling. I own Panasonic's wonderfully cheap and lightweight 50mm f1.8 and I find it to be a great lens. Especially so since it's nearly always available new in the US for under $400. It's a delight because it's mostly made of high quality plastics so it weighs next to nothing (comparatively speaking). It's the handling that makes it worthwhile but it's no slouch at making great images...

I also picked up a Carl Zeiss 50mm f2.0 Planar for the M mount and I use it occasionally on the bigger cameras for the same reasons as the VM Voigtlander. Small, light but effective. The Zeiss and the Voigtlander lenses each have their own looks. Both are delightfully uncomplicated and robust. I bought the Zeiss used for around $500 and if it gets damaged from accidents or overwhelming user error I would be less sad than if a similar fate fell to a $2200 Panasonic 50mm f1.4. So much needless cost.

There has been a trend among companies that make lenses to build no hold barred, optical masterpieces without regard really for price, size or weight. The trend might have started with the original Zeiss 50mm Otus f1.4 from Zeiss. It was huge, dense, massive and priced outrageously. Then came the Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art lens. Slow to focus but super sharp and contrasty and equipped with a complex optical formula that perhaps goaded other brands to start responding in kind. I owned the original Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art series lens for the L mount system and while its optical performance was something to write home about it's focusing performance was horrible and, again, it weighed down a camera bag like an anchor. 

Now it seems that everyone's high speed 50mm lenses are endurance tests in a lens mount for photographers who have to carry gear all day. Is the trade off of high performance enough to justify high prices and possible hernias? That's something every photographer must decide for themselves but if I was about to walk through a large city to take photos for 10-12 hours a day, weeks at a time, I know I'd rather have a most humble, old Canon 50mm f1.8 FD manual focusing lens on an adapter than an Otus or an Art. But only if those were the only choices. 

My first grab for a lens on the mirrorless SL cameras is the Voigtlander APO, followed by the 50mm M Zeiss, followed by a 50mm Zeiss Planar f1.4 ZF (manual Nikon F version) on an adapter, or the Canon 50mm f1.4 FD also on an adapter, or the smaller, cheaper, lighter Panasonic 50mm f1.8. You can keep the big ones. I don't see enough difference to put up with the overkill lens design philosophy. It just doesn't work for me. 

Yes. A lens can be too big. And too big will slow you down, tire you out and make for a miserable shooting experience. Unless you can relegate it to tripod use but.....really....a fast 50mm stuck on a tripod? Just doesn't make much sense. 

Caught out in the rain with my camera. Not a problem. Jo's Coffee to the rescue.

Coffee in focus and taco out of focus.

New café at the downtown library.

It was "Austin Summer Hot and Sticky" when I left the house this afternoon around 2 pm to go and take some random photographs on South Congress Ave. A sweaty Father's Day walk with that new 75mm f2.0 lens I picked up a week or so ago. As I walked north on South Congress I was already starting to perspire. By the time I got to Jo's I was hot. 

I ran into my friend, David, there and we chatted while live country dance music played in the background and people with lots of tattoos drove by the front of the coffee stand on loud motorcycles. All of a sudden the sun dimmed, gray clouds rolled in accompanied by stronger and stronger wind gusts. The sky to the north turned dark gray. Zone 2 or 3. Seconds later the rain got into the act and for the next half hour we had an amazing storm complete with near horizontal rain and wind that dispersed the rain under all the sheltering roofs and soaked the assembled crowd with mist. 

The band unplugged their electrical instruments and amplifiers and rushed to get their gear out of the downpour. I instinctively covered my camera and lens with my hat --- just to minimize droplet fear. 

And then, an inch of rain to our credit and twenty degrees cooler temperatures  with it, the rain stopped and the winds died down. Of course David and I were shooting photos with water resistant cameras but old habits die hard and my gut reaction to rain on cameras is always to cover them up. Especially if I'm just out having fun and a client isn't there as a rationalization to power through a storm no matter what. 

After the atmosphere settled down I headed home to play with photos and then clean up and get ready for a Father's Day dinner with B&B at a new (to us) restaurant over in Central Austin. We have high hopes....

So pre-rain and post rain images below. Click on them to make them bigger. 

Rain drops in the pool at the San José Motel.

A MacBeth color chart painted on a wall for the convenience of photographers

and cinematographers in the area. Gotta nail that white balance. Right?

And then? Back home.