All the photo bloggers have gone "OT" or Off Topic!!!! I don't give a hoot about Electric Vehicles so I decided to write about my new shoes...

 

These are my new, Hoka Stinson 7, trail running shoes.

In 1976 I bought my first pair of Nike Waffle Trainers. There were a revolutionary new running shoe. My girlfriend and I were seriously into running at the time. It was easier, we were 21 years old; almost bullet proof. Most days, after class at UT, we'd run several miles down to the hike and bike trail that ran around Town Lake, do the five mile loop and then run back to campus. Rain, heat, even snowy days didn't feel like an impediment. The shoes helped. And in the next few years we'd wear out a pair about every six months and go back for more. It was delightful. And shoes seemed cheap then...

Now I am 69 and I've spent the intervening years mixing up swimming and running. I'm a better swimmer now and at the same time a much worse runner. It's probably because I swim six days a week, have much swimming social support and the guidance of world class coaches. When I run I mostly go out by myself and am most motivated when the pool is closed or my schedule mercilessly precluded making it to swim practice. The horror!

Over the years I've tried a lot of different running shoes. I don't run on soft tracks, I don't run long marathons anymore. Most of my running is a really a slow slog around the 4 mile loop at the lake. I mostly run around the lake because the trails are well maintained, there's a lot of shade from big trees, and if I misjudge the heat or my ability to handle the heat I can hop into the water at the first sign of weakness/distress. Plus, the trail is always well attended so if I do get into trouble, say on a 100° run, there's always someone running by with a phone who could call 911. But it hasn't happened yet so I think I must be a good judge of my own limitations. 

My last pair of running shoes were Asics. The one's before that were Nikes. But recently it seems that every single fit person in Austin is sporting a pair of Hokas. And in so many colors. I swim a couple times a week with a guy who is just turning 62. He just came back from climbing yet another 14,000 footer in Colorado. A couple years ago he did the Alcatraz swim. Last year he and his sons climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. He's something I am not. He's a hard core triathlete. So, when I decided this morning that I needed a new pair of running shoes if I'm going to continue the twice weekly schedule of running, I asked his recommendation. For competition he recommended Hoka Bondi 9s. For trail running (my speed) he suggested Hoka Stinson 7s. 

My friend runs the five mile trail at least three times a week and his mile per times are something like eight minutes a mile. My times are on the other side of ten minutes a mile. Memory is a harsh bitch as I can still remember clearly, in 1976-77, being able to hold a six minute pace per mile. Not anymore. Not by a long shot...

After our Saturday morning swim workout I went to our local REI with a pair of old running socks shoved into the pocket of my short pants. Gotta have familiar socks if you are testing new shoes. I tried both of my friend's recommendations and settled on the Stinson 7s. They have a wider toes box and a larger heel spread along with ample shock absorption. I put on a pair and walked around the store. They are definitely a different concept than I am used to with a higher arch and heel cup but they were comfortable from the get go. 

I think running shoes are like swim goggles in that everyone has a different favorite. Everyone is configured differently so trying stuff on as opposed to mail ordering stuff blindly is usually the best way to go. Ditto for the feel of cameras or the welcoming or dis-welcoming nature of a camera interface. 

The price at REI for the Hoka Stinson 7s is $175. I'm sure I could have spent precious time "researching" (which in this context means "price shopping") the best offer on the web but I think REI should get the sale since they had the shoes in stock to try out and to wear around the store. I think it would be despicable to try on the shoes at REI and then to duck out and order them online to save a bit of cash. But that's just me. 

Saving money buying cheap running shoes is a false economy. Your feet will punish you for your parsimonious behavior!!! Tighten the belt and choose the good stuff.

The Hoka shoes have a lot of shock absorbing padding in the heel area. It's nice and comfy. It's too hot for me to go out and run this afternoon after lunch. It's predicted to be 98° with a heat index of well over 100° Fahrenheit. I'd need to be running from fountain to fountain with a stop at the showers at each far point of the loop. I'm not up for that today. I've already done my yardage in the pool and I'll be out for a walk a bit later. But tomorrow morning, after swim practice, I intend to give the new shoes a test run. Just three or four miles and nothing fancy. But enough to see how I like the new shoes. 

When you stop moving you start accelerating the aging process. Not something I want. 

Rather read about EVs? MJ has you covered. And he'll explain to you how you can get your own "gas station" at home. And, theoretically, how much money you can save.  I think I'll stick to the shoes...   Tomorrow maybe the spirit will move me to discuss various hiking boots I've bought recently. It's surely a universal topic amongst photographers. After all we're always going somewhere. 

Why would I care one way or another about footwear? Because I spend a lot more time using shoes than I do using cameras. I might as well get the gear side of shoes down just right. Your mileage WILL vary. 

The blog is back and I'm back at work. "They keep pulling me back in...."

 

The best, and cheapest photo backpack I have ever acquired...

From Bagsmart. Via Amazon. 

Info here!

By the first of July I'd pretty much decided that I was finished working and that I'd settle into retirement with a heavy dose of swimming, walking and traveling. I knew I'd be out of the pool and sporting a dramatic bandage across my face for the first week of the month or maybe two. Not the look you want to be sporting if you are still interested in attracting and maintaining clients in the advertising field...

By the end of the two weeks, after the stitches came out and the bandage was gone, I got back in the pool with a pervasive sense of euphoria washing over me. But I realized that I could only get in a couple hours of swimming each day and needed to do something additional to fill the time. I was getting....bored. 

So, when one of my clients called and asked me to come over and make a portrait for a new hire I reflexively said "yes." The client is the big law firm I've been making environmental portraits for over the last ten years. Dozens and dozens of them. Why do I like making portraits for them? Because unlike the "cattle call" mentality that many clients seem to have this client calls me when the firm adds each new associate (about one or two per quarter) and has me come over and do a session just for that one new arrival. It's become a welcome and leisurely paced project. Added bonus? No one is art directing me besides me.

I schedule each one to happen about an hour after swim practice, in the mornings. That gives me time to grab coffee, check emails and make an unhurried trip into downtown. The is firm has two floors in a high rise building in downtown and there is a connected parking garage, the elevators of which empty into the lobby of the actual building. It's an easy ramble with gear and the client always validates my parking. 

I spend anywhere from twenty minutes to half an hour deciding on an interior location and then lighting it for the kind of portraits I like to take. The new hire generally shows up right on time and we spend about fifteen or twenty minutes conversing, getting to know each other and then making the actual photographs. I generally fix poorly knotted ties, pull wrinkles out of dress shirts and otherwise fine tune the subject's appearance. 

The photo of a new hire named Patrick was my first job back after my insanely truncated attempt at retiring. And I was happy to do it. It provided a nice anchoring for the day. And I enjoy my visits to this particular client because they handle my own legal stuff so the client/artist relationship is bi-lateral. 

After the process of getting the latest portrait the office manager let me know that they are planning to redo all the attorneys' photos for the website and P.R. applications. Sometime in the near future. As I was leaving my portrait session she asked me to put together an estimate and some style ideas for handling the photography of the 34 people the project would entail. I had to think about whether or not I would "pass" on the project and cling to the idea of being retired or to go ahead and stick around for at least one more project... I went ahead and presented a proposal...

But later that same day one of my favorite ad agencies sent along an email. Could I work with them next weekend on a real estate development project? It's the same agency I did the fun Hill Country wine stuff for two or three years ago. An agency I've worked with since their inception decades ago. I'd be working with a videographer as part of one team while two folks from the agency would make up a second shooting team. The next day I had lunch with the creative director for the agency. I was waffling about taking on a project that was mostly exterior, in the first two weeks of August, in the middle of central Texas. He suggested passing but again, I was already feeling bored and restless so I sent along an estimate. Which the agency team gleefully accepted. 

Today we had my first "Teams" call (like Zoom, but from Microsoft) with the producer for the project and the three other members of the creative teams. It went well. We'll be out in the middle of a big development making photographs and interviewing some early residents. And that brings us to the rationale for the camera backpack I stuck at the top of this post. 

When I pack for this (mostly) exterior photoshoot I'm taking along two Leica SL2 cameras (both black), several Leica zoom lenses (both black), Some flash gear (all black) and some batteries for the cameras (all black). As you know black stuff tends to do a stellar job at soaking up heat. And the weather people are expecting lots of heat on the shooting days. It dawned on me that I'd be carrying around heat magnets for hours at a time. And even the best of cameras, lenses, and flashes aren't really at their optimal performance parameters once thoroughly heat soaked. So I started looking around for camera bags or camera backpacks that are anything but dark gray, darker gray or jet black. And I had damn little success in my initial research. 

Most of the options were small bags that might hold a pixie camera or something from Sony. But a bag that would hold two Leica bodies, two lenses and some flash gear seemed kind of unicorn-ish. I found an Oberwerth bag that might work....for $1200. But I'd didn't want to part with half my fee for a one time bag experience... 

I finally lucked onto this backpack from a company called, Bagsmart. It was $45. And it is, as far as I can tell, absolutely perfect. So, why? First of all, it's a good size. I can fit all of the camera kit and one of the flashes inside. Second, it's made of thick, very light colored canvas so it breathes and reflects IR energy. Third, it has a well padded pocket for a 15 inch laptop. Fourth, the part that resides next to my back is very well padded. Fifth, the shoulder straps are wide, comfy and highly function, with additional anchoring points for stuff. Sixth, the top compartment, where I would put a camera, is very accessible! Seventh, bottle holder pockets on either side for hydration during hot days. And Eighth, it was so incredibly cheap for the quality and usability it provides.

I am smitten with the backpack. 

Now back to my truncated and premature retirement: After the call from the ad agency and the confirmation on the job, I got an email from the V.P. of the big infrastructure/engineering company I worked with, extensively, in 2018. Back then we did 18 days of work and 12 additional days of travel over a bit more than one month. It was a fun project which had me making environmental portraits of engineers and construction supervisors at locations from the depths the Everglades (super hot and humid) to the top of some small, snowy mountains in very rural Virginia. And to the wildfires in California. Would I be available to do another project for them in September ? --- details to follow... Sure, why not?

A couple days later I got a call from a small college I've worked with a bunch in the recent past. Could I come over in the second week of August and make portraits of their new faculty members? They are such nice folks, how could I have turned them down? ... Those portraits will be done against a neutral background in the (well air conditioned) studio over on campus and I'll drop in appropriate backgrounds that we shot around campus last year in post.... 

I guess what I am trying to say is that I'm not quite ready to retire from the field of photography. But at least when I go out to shoot in the next few weeks I'll have a really nifty backpack to cart my black/heat sink equipment around in. That's gonna be good. 

Hello again. If you are reading this we must have survived the page view nightmare of 2025. Welcome back.

Observed while walking past the JW Marriott Hotel in Downtown Austin. 

It's been a while. I've been chilling here in Austin waiting to see what's going on with the blog over in Vietnam. I guess whoever was responsible has scraped as much information as they needed in order to feed their large learning modules for A.I. for the moment. The "visits" have slowed down. But in truth it was nice for me to take the time off from the blog and think about what I should be posting here. 

If you've visited my Instagram feed you'll no doubt see that I've been on a tear with the little Leica D-LUX 8. It's a swell camera and I've been getting really groovy photos with it over on S. Congress Ave. I don't think anyone else should buy one right now. Why? Because I'm trying to source a second copy from one of the trusted dealers and they seem to be in short supply. No, I won't buy one on EBAY for twice the retail price. No, I won't buy one from someone on Fred Miranda's site who might want to sell me one without a USA warranty, etc. etc. 

Why do I want a second one? Hmmm. I guess because the files coming out of the one I have are really wonderful, the form factor makes it almost transparent to carry around and I've always believed that if you are traveling with cameras you should bring them along in exact pairs. Duplicated batteries and accessories and if one goes down there's no readjustment or renewed learning curve. Besides, it's barely more than the cost of a lens cap for one of the more esoteric Leica lenses, or a Billingham camera bag. So, why not?

It's finally gotten really hot again in Austin. And the heat didn't come alone. It brought its friend, humidity along for the fun of it. Today I really wanted to go out for a long walk and when I looked at the "feels like" temperature I decided to pair down the camera load to something rational. I grabbed the Leica Q2, plugged in an SCL-6 battery and found a hat I liked from the ever growing pile of hats that's been accumulating in the studio. Twenty or thirty at last glance. A lot of duplicates that are only differentiated by slight differences in color. A hat emporium in the making.

Since I've attracted the attention of a dermatological surgeon I took the precaution of slathering every square centimeter of exposed skin with sunscreen, including my lips. Which most people forget about. 

Just saw Dave Herring's YouTube video about his Leica M11 P Safari getting stolen at a UPS Store and the implications for insurance, etc. Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syjw0oZ078c He's smart. He had a professional insurance policy through his membership in the PPA. Some try to push their homeowner's policies to cover business losses. Not the best plan. Biggest takeaway from Herring? "UPS Stores" are not actually affiliated with UPS the company. The stores are privately owned and operated by third parties. UPS's (the company) liability starts once the packages are loaded onto the trucks, not before, when using a third party vendor. 

As a professional photographer I don't try to leverage my homeowner carrier into insuring my business cameras off site, or providing the liability protections for my business via my homeowner's policy. I carry a separate policy for those business needs. That's the way I understand that it's supposed to work. How would it be logical for my homeowner's insurance to cover damage to a borrowed camera at the hands of a third party in a non-specified location? Not very. 

Satisfied that my house and business are well covered I got into my car and headed into the big heat sink we call downtown. The walk was interesting. I hadn't been all over downtown in about a month. I documented some of the demolition of our convention center. We won't have an operating convention center here in Austin for at least the next three years. A really goofy decision on the part of our city council... With big income producing properties as with wing walking on a biplane, one should not let go of one strut until one has a firm grasp on the next strut. SXSW should be interesting next year. And the next year. Something unpleasant about an event dispersed over multiple, small locations. 

When I got to the seedy part of East Sixth Street I happened upon a nice thirty-something couple desperately looking at menus for the few dive establishments in the near empty neighborhood. They were obviously from out of town. They seemed so lost I had to stop and help. They were in town on a short vacation and had heard about Sixth St. but sadly, the buzz about Sixth St. was more relevant back about two decades ago before other parts of town stole the thunder, and the clients, and the decorum. And the pizzazz. Now East Sixth Street is mostly seedy bars, empty rental spaces under construction, and lots of unhoused people. 

I walked them over to Congress Ave. and Sixth St. put them in the shade and suggested that they go to the center of S. Congress Ave. which, on a Sunday afternoon, no matter what the weather, is crawling with tourists and locals, packed with much, much better (nicer, more upscale) restaurants and bars, and completed by the presence of almost endless high-end shopping opportunities. And much safer. They thought they might walk it until I showed them on a map how far they would have to go. We collectively decided that they should go over in an Uber. Having done my good deed for the day I trudged on, heading back to my car. With a pit stop at Whole Foods for a muffin and a cup of coffee. 

With the convention center deducted from downtown attractions there is NO foot traffic on the surrounding streets and no customer traffic in that neighborhood to speak of. But it's still interesting to get out and walk it, if you know what to expect... And a three mile walk in blistering heat is the perfect adjunct to this morning's swim workout. Pretty much a perfect Sunday. July 27th. 

Next up? I need to borrow my friend's Fuji Half camera and play with it. It's interesting and I have a long history of owning and using half frame cameras. Almost totally with cameras from the film days. The Fuji Half is small, light, cute and inexpensive enough digital camera to buy as a diversion or as a go anywhere pocket camera. As long as you have a jacket or very loose pants pockets. It's on my list to try. 

Hopefully nothing else will go amiss with the VSL blog for a while. It's a new age. Everyone I speak to who blogs is getting content scraped. Sad but true. 

I've been back in the pool for a week and change and I'm so happy. I missed the routine, the comrades and the exercise so much. Is there a twelve step program for swimming addiction? If so I don't want to know about it...

The camera I'll be working with in the coming week? An old Leica SL with a Canon 50mm f1.4 FD lens on it. Thinking about covering all the parts and spray painting the body bright white. It might be fun. On the other hand it might destroy the camera. But I've always wanted a bright, white Leica SL. This may be the Summer of experimentation. 
 

I get asked all the time if the lens in the Leica Q2 is really sharp or not. Is it really 28mm or not. Are the files worth the high price of the camera?

 Yes. Yes. And I have no idea if the value proposition of a five year old camera that's still selling new for roughly $6000 is worth it to you. To me? Sure, otherwise why would I have purchased one brand new in a box, at full price, from a local Leica dealer nearly five years ago?

But here's a fun image of an older, historic building on Austin's much maligned East Sixth St. Taken with a Q2: 

The first image is the full frame, reduced from eight thousand something pixels on the long end to 6000 pixels. So it fits on Blogger. And then there is a second image, just below; a crop from the same photo at 100%. Look for yourself...

100% crop. 

Yeah. It's a brick wall test. But you have to cut me some slack I'm out of practice writing this blog. We had a lot of downtime this month....

I like my Q2. It's a really well done camera. And the images out of it work really well...

Wrote this in 2015. I mentioned, in detail, that consumer drones would eventually be weaponized and used for war or terrorism. I got lots of "Freedom" push back. Now? Drones are mainstream weapons of choice. Read it for yourself.

 https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2015/06/can-we-talk-about-drones-and.html

My friend, James, is brilliant and has created a huge gallery of A.I. assisted images meant to be an "answer" to the idea and practice of social media influencers.

 Go here: https://jameswebb.smugmug.com/GenAI-Images

Look at the work. 

Laugh, cry. 

But look at the skill with which James conceives and then produces the images. It's absolutely the perfect use of A.I. tech combined with sharp and incisive social commentary. 

Wow!!!