Late in the afternoon, fishing at the old Perdanales State Park.

A few years back there was a magazine in Austin called, Texas Life.  It was a bold upstart that intended to go toe to toe with the heavyweights like, Texas Monthly.  They ran out of money and in a matter of months were gone.  But while they were rolling we did a lot of photography for them. At one point we did a fashion-y piece about the outdoor life in central Texas.  Fishing, hiking, taking a long swims in cool streams...that kind of thing.

I photographed these two models using my favorite camera and lens of the moment.  A Leica R8 with a 180mm Elmarit Lens.  These are from e-6 slides scanned on the Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner.  It's a different look...

The Leica R series cameas and lenses never got the press that the M series does.  Probably the more conservative and traditional body put it directly in competition with the much less expensive Canon and Nikon flagships.  Kinda tough to justify spending twice as much for the tool...unless they are better.

Looking forward, Looking back

Right now I have a living room full of teenage boys playing some video game with great enthusiasm.  My son is now almost 15 years old, and yet,  it seems that only a few months ago he looked liked this and smiled like this.  I'm lucky.  I have photos from every stage of his life.  Photos taken in the stream of living and not just at "special occasions".  What was this special ocassion?  Nothing more than a mid-week lunch together in the Summer.  We'd gone to Hilbert's for some old fashion, Texas burgers.  Grilled.  Mustard, lettuce, tomato and onions.  And fries.  We sat on the stools that spin around.  The yellow light came through a yellow shade on the window and I haven't corrected it because that would change what it really was.

Ben's mom is in the background.  It's hot outside but our car is parked in the shade with the windows open.  We went home after this and Ben and I sat on the floor of the living room with the ceiling fans twirling overhead and the air conditioning pumping out cool, clean tasting air.

I remember exactly how I shot this.  Almost as if the exif info was embedded in my brain:  Leica R8 camera.  50mm Summilux as close to wide open as I could get it.  And I can see the film in my scanner:  Kodachrome 64.  The camera doesn't matter.  Only the presence of mind to shoot while the expression presented itself.

Isn't this one of the rewards of photography?  To be able to look backward as the whole world moves forward?