A Whole Mess of Pentax K-1 Files for Roger. By Request.

Click on the images to make them bigger.

Remember that camera you really loved? The one they stopped making? The one they replaced with something you don't like nearly as much?

There is a pattern to the ebb and flow of cameras that always seems to work against me. I'll find something I really like and it is inevitably discontinued by the maker. If it's a camera other than a Canon Rebel or one of the other widely sold models it becomes harder to get and, as soon as six or eight months later the used prices rise to the point where they exceed the last posted "new" price and the ones that are available are charitably labeled, "well used." 

One of my favorite examples of this was the Sony Nex-7. It was a great camera but it was a bit complex to use until you got comfortable with the twin dial set-up. Sure, the sensor was a bit noisy but it was one of the first really small, interchangeable lens Sony cameras with a 24 megapixel sensor that could really deliver the goods (at lower ISOs...). I went to buy one last year and found that mint versions were trading at a premium.  After a few days of looking at "bargain" versions available at "like new" prices I just gave up and let it go. 

Leica went through this in the film, rangefinder days. The M4 was widely considered one of the best crafted M cameras ever. It was made cheaper and less likable in the M4-P version, but even the P version was demonstrably superior to all of the M6 variants that hit the market near the end of the last century. Mis-aligned rangefinders, more limited fine-tuning adjustment controls and a severe, recurring issue with quality control made getting a good M6 straight out of a new box a bit of a crap shoot. Leica users in Austin were lucky to have two stores that were Leica dealers; one of which was a full service repair shop as well. If you were one of the unfortunate customers who got a misaligned camera you stood a good chance that Jerry, the owner and head repair person at Precision Camera, could fix it for you. 

And, don't get me started on the legendary Nikon D700 and all the cameras that came afterwards (600&610, we're looking at you).

So, why am I bringing this up now? Well, I do have a point but first, in addition to pointing out that some of our favorite cameras some times exit the market and become scarce, I also want to talk about the general trend in machines that combine digital technology with precision, mechanical technologies, of being made cheaper and cheaper when digital solutions are able to "replace" some aspects of the mechanical ones, but with a cost to aesthetics, haptics and some design nuances.

Coming to my point.... When I first considered Fuji products I was very happy with nearly every lens I tested. Incredibly so with the ones considered a bit "eccentric." Those would include the 35mm f1.4, the 60mm f2.4 macro, the 14mm f2.8 and a few others. I was encouraged by those lenses and decided to give the system a trial run so I bought the camera that was currently being gushed over by the largely insensate blog-press of faux-tographers; the Fuji X-T3. While it's a fine camera and creates very nice photography and video files I have never warmed up to it to the point that I'd want a second body as a back-up. In fact, even though the X-H1 is currently cheaper I'd gladly trade the almost new X-T3 for the X-H1. 

But why? My perception is that Fujifilm made some decisions a few years back to try and attack the professional market by offering two distinct cameras that, while using the same sensors as many other cameras in their line up, were built to a standard that is distinctly better than the others. A build quality that adds stability to the bodies via thicker metal structures and more advanced mechanical engineering. The metal used to make the "skin" of the X-H1 is advertised at 25% thicker than all the other models. The shutter system is more complex, quieter, less prone to vibrations. The body is bigger to compensate for the inclusion of great image stabilization capability, and the larger body also enabled their engineers to design a system that could deal with heat issues much more effectively. In short, this is an over-engineered body meant to take maximum wear and tear while delivering high reliability and offering a more stable platform for larger, high speed lenses. 

Even the lens mount was designed and made to higher standards to better support a new family of heavier, faster, and longer lenses.

But what did the average consumer see? He saw that the X-T3 has about 2 more megapixels of implied resolution and that they body is smaller and lighter. That's all. That was the litmus test for selling the product. Smaller and lighter. More horsepower.... The consumer didn't take into consideration all the tangible and intangibles of heavy duty design and construction. Longevity. A better grip. A more solid platform. Etc. As a result the X-H1, a highly superior product, languished on dealer shelves while the X-T3s flew out the door. 

I loved the lenses in the Fuji system but I was vacillating about getting more involved in the system. And then there was the day that I was buying lens cleaner fluid at Precision Camera and I spied a used X-H1 along with its battery grip and the extra batteries, all for about $850. I thought I'd buy it and give it a try. No risk as Precision Camera had a policy of taking back used gear within ten days that didn't meet customer expectations. 

The X-H1 clicked the switch in my brain that informed me that this was a camera body you could build a system around! And that's exactly what I started doing. But the more I researched the sales of X-H1s versus other cameras in the Fuji system the more I became convinced that (like electoral politics) Fuji would eventually cave to consumer culture and stop the (largely financially unrewarding) production of exquisitely engineered and manufactured cameras and just give consumers what they craved: a smallish body attached to a list of specifications that real users would find of secondary value compared to what was on offer in the bigger camera. 

The more I shot with the X-H1 the more I realized that if this model were to disappear and not be replaced by a camera similarly aimed at the professional market I'd be stuck with a bunch of really great lenses, surrounded by a bunch of decent but unexciting, consumer camera bodies...

With this in mind I set about to buy two more of the X-H1 bodies as a hedge against mindless consumer inertia and camera manufacturer common marketing sense. 

As a working professional photographer and videographer I could not be happier with my collection of X-H1 cameras, each mated with its own battery grip and extra batteries. And so far, in about eight months of use I've never been let down by this curated subset of Fuji product. 

But there is another side to being a photographer and that's the reality that it's also my hobby, passion, my art and all around focus. While the X-H1 cameras are some of the finest and best sorted cameras I could ask for in professional use, they can be large and heavy to use as daily carry ART cameras. I tried to delegate that responsibility (being the "art" cameras) to the Fuji X-T3 and the small X-E3 but they generally got left at home. After a number of false starts with them I started taking the battery grips off one of the X-H1s and pressed it into service in this other side of my photography lifestyle. All the time wishing I could find a camera that created an equally good photographic file while offering the panache and shooting style I had enjoyed decades ago with a brace of Leica M series cameras and well chosen selection of Leica lenses. 

Enter the first X-Pro2, Fuji's art camera. If you have worked with bright line finders and various Leica M series cameras it's hard NOT to love the X-Pro2. I bought a well used one and started taking it everywhere. It immediately eclipsed the X-T and X-E to the extent that the X-E is now gone and the X-T languishes in the no-man's land between the X-Pro2 and the X-H1. 

A quick read of Fuji's literature reveals that the hybrid OVF/EVF finder is a very complex and expensive to produce feature. They could have stuck a high res EVF behind the little window and been done with it at a much reduced cost but optimism springs eternal and they tossed the dice, betting there was a ready market of former Leica aficionados and rangefinder lovers (it's not technical a rangefinder camera in fact, just in spirit) who would pay a premium for a camera that's strikingly different than almost anything else out on the market. Whether they were correct is beyond my ability to suss out. But I will say that for a photographer of a certain age and background the camera is amazing and so much fun to shoot with. 

I loved the camera and, after reading the technical discussions about the finder, the shutter, and other tweaks, I loved the philosophy of the camera as well. I rushed to source a second used one in better shape (there's nothing wrong with the first one other than a few small scuffs and paint scratches. It's maybe a VG on KEH.com...). As luck would have it one surfaced shortly into my search and I snapped it up. Now I had two of the best art cameras I had owned since I last owned a Leica M4. The 23mm and 35mm f1.4, and the 56mm 1.2 APD were amazing beyond expectation as well. I added the smaller versions (Fujicrons) of the lenses for those times when I wanted to travel light and I felt I'd come home to the cameras I'd started with so long ago. Engineered for hard use. Designed to delight. Created to provide exemplary images. In short, cameras I can rely on to work they way I think cameras should work. 

Lately I've been making some travel plans and started looking closely at the way I've been working on my own photography. I'm traveling to put a coda to one part of my life and to re-energize myself for the next part. And every time I considered cameras I came right back around to the X-Pro2s and a small assortment of prime lenses. 

But just as I fear that Fuji will discontinue both the product and the idea behind the X-H1 I also wonder if they will also kill of the most expensive APS-C camera currently on the market, the X-Pro2. Will the next variation eschew the OVF for cost savings? Will the next variation be more electronic, less touch-worthy? Will the knobs still be machined from solid blocks of aluminum or made less expensively from cast plastic? Will the things I love about the camera be replaced by electronic crap that appeals more to techno-geeks instead? 

With this in mind I went searching for a third body for this mini-system-within-a-system as well. It arrived today in Like New condition and I used one of my precious Tamrac straps (which are no longer offered, having been replaced by cheaper, tawdrier and less workable straps) to make it supremely portable for my general, non-commercial use. 

Now, at least, if they are discontinued I have enough of both bodies to keep working and shooting with their great lenses until such a time as I can corner the market on shipping containers full of back up cameras. 

I know this will make sense to very few people but the tools are a vital link in the process and when you find stuff you love it just makes sense for (relatively few dollars) to ensure you can make photographs with cameras you like. Even if they are NOT Fujis. (To put all this in perspective the three X-Pro2s and the three X-H1s combined (and mostly bought used) add up to just a tiny bit more than the $6000 I spent on one Nikon D2Xs camera about 11 years ago. So there!).

Just thought I'd toss this out there. 

I got advice about aging well today. And some swimming stroke suggestions. And heard from a swim "influencer."

the stairs back up to the open air locker rooms. 

At Deep Eddy Pool. 

A cool, morning swim in a spring-fed pool, in the middle of "old" Austin, is a special treat. I head over to Deep Eddy on Mondays because my own swim club is closed on Mondays. They like to let the water "rest" but I hate to let the day go by without a swim so... Deep Eddy is my first destination at the start of the week. Especially a week peppered with heat advisories. 

There is one swimmer there who has swum just about every day of his life. He's married to a gold medal winning Olympian and has written a bunch of books about sports psychology. I know he's there when I walk down the long stairs to the pool because I can see his big, battery powered pace clock over on the side of the pool. Today I saw the swimmer but no pace clock. When he finished his workout I asked him what happened to the pace clock. 

He told me that he'd done a long swim for his 71st birthday and felt like taking it easy today; putting more emphasis on kicking and letting his shoulders rest. I asked him what he did for his long swim. 

He replied that he had turned 71 years old and it's his tradition to swim 100 yards X his age each year. Always on a tight interval. This year he swam 71 X 100 yards on an interval of one minute and thirty five seconds. That's one hundred yards in a 33.3 yard pool every minute and thirty five seconds! For you non-swimmers, that's fast. To make the swim team at top ranked Westlake High School you have to be able to do 10 X 100 yards on 1:30 in tryouts. And it's a pretty elite program. 

So, 7,100 yards in a bit less than 2 hours. Swimming. Freestyle. About four and a half miles. Swimming.

Those are tough times to hit for masters swimmers half this guy's age. Take the average 30 year old non-swimmer and make him try this and you'll probably be rushing someone to the E.R. It would be the equivalent of pulling a sedentary, overweight couch potato off the cushions and having him run a fast marathon. Not going to work out well. 

But our 71 year old knocked out the set AS A BIRTHDAY PRESENT TO HIMSELF and, at the end, pulled himself out of the pool, grabbed his swim bag and headed off to start the rest of his day. 

I asked him for advice on aging well. His response was to exercise hard every day. It's the discipline that makes it work. He has no health issues. No sore joints. No trouble sleeping. No muscle pains. He's engaged in his business and still writing books. He summed up his philosophy like this: "People get old because they give up." That's it. That's all. 

While I was swimming my yards this morning I shared a lane with a man who was faster than me. He finished his workout before me and was watching my freestyle stroke. He asked if I wanted a bit of advice. I said, "sure." He suggested that I try a higher elbow recovery on freestyle to take a bit of pressure off my shoulders. I tried it and it worked well.  I said something about getting older and wanting to save my shoulders from too much wear and tear. He asked me my age and I told him, "63." 

He chuckled a bit and told me that he had just turned 78. I asked him for advice about aging well (I thought, from his general appearance, that he was about my age....) and he just said, "Never give up. Never slow down." 

It was funny to hear all this after a spate of blogs recently from one of my favorite bloggers bemoaning his "advanced age." Turns out he is younger than me. 

My advice to people who think they are getting old? Surround yourself with the right people. Surround yourself with people who refuse to give up. Now, those are real "influencers." Add in some discipline and you'll do just fine.

Note the nice, high elbow recovery on the swim in the middle of the frame. 

Pool in the foreground. Lake in the background. 

So Austin.

Cap it off with a dose of Texas Sky.

Taking the Pentax K-1 and the 50mm f1.4 for a spin around the house.

Dining Room Chairs. 

I have a certain hesitancy about rushing outdoors and being busy when it's 105 outside and the the humidity makes it feel closer to 110. After the long, Sunday workout in an already too warm pool, I did things through the day mostly in air conditioned spaces.

I had a breakfast taco loaded with eggs, Mexican white cheese, pico de gallo, and avocado, at Trianon Coffee, along with a nice, almond croissant and a big coffee. Once back home I contemplated a long walk but decided, instead to re-read some parts of Annie Leibovitz's book and to spend some quiet, quality time with that new-to-me Pentax K1 and the older, 50mm f1.4 AF lens.

People are getting a bit tired of everyone who "tests" cameras and lenses shooting "test shots" handheld and in weird lighting, so I decided to put the K1 on a tripod and to use the live view function to accurately focus the lens I was using. Wild, huh? What I found almost immediately is that the 36 megapixels I paid for are more like the 36 megapixels I was initially expecting when I bought the camera. The combination of sloppy focusing techniques, a reliance on positioning the AF square accurately based on the finder targets and just the basic frailty of our human stability systems at first made my results seem not much better or worse than a wide range of camera and lenses. Putting the system on a tripod allowed me to see, for the first time, a bit more of the functional capabilities of the K1. 

I'm pretty sure though that I've just skimmed the surface of what's possible in terms of uncompromised image quality if for no other reason than that I did these images on a very small and thin Benro carbon fiber tripod that's probably not the best match for a bigger and heavier camera.

I also shot a lot at the widest aperture of the older 50mm lens so.... not the best recipe for critical sharpness. 

But there were some things I really enjoyed about just walking around the house making photographs with the whole combination. I liked working in live view with the camera because it's so easy to punch in a achieve very, very precise focus...which goes a long way to ensuring sharpness where it's supposed to be. I liked the implementation of the tilting and movement of the rear LCD. It was so easy to operate and, when I ventured into the backyard to make a photograph of my lawn sprinkler I appreciated an external, rear button that would increase the brightness of the screen, in two steps, to compensate for the high ambient light levels. 

Of course, not everything got the "f 1.4" treatment. The image just below was shot at f11 which is just about the smallest aperture I like to shoot at. I'm always cognizant that diffraction will begin to push down sharpness if I go past that. 

My reading table. 

Always something interesting to buzz through. 

It seems strange but I have to admit that it's nice to have a traditional camera to play with again. I wouldn't consider moving back to a DSLR system but playing around with different systems is an interesting way to keep the "playing" mode engaged. 

I was interested to see that Annie Leibovitz is also a system switcher; even more egregious than me. In an appendix to her "At Work" book she talks briefly and generally about equipment, relating that she once changed digital cameras four times in the course of one year to find the one that suited her best. She also stated that she's alway anxious to try the new stuff coming on to the market; just to see if it works better for her. Even I haven't switched systems four times in one year..... I might try that some time...

Swim towels hanging in one of the bathrooms. 

A constant rotation of soggy towels awaiting their turn.

A quick note: the dryer got fixed this morning. 

Patrick did a great job and replaced a damaged switch. 

Still considering the Australian method though.

Most of us have gotten used to the idea that we can handhold anything as long as we have a camera or lens with great image stabilization. I'd forgotten the simple joy of using a tripod instead. Being able to select exactly the aperture and ISO you want to use and still get sharp images in dim environments seems so empowering and is, perhaps, a technique that newer photographers aren't embracing. With a dual I.S. systems and a medium ISO I can shoot okay in the bathroom location just above. With a tripod I can use ISO 100 and f5.6 to get exactly the look I want. No compromise. And when did using a tripod get so difficult that people have seemingly jettisoned them altogether?

Ah. Another good place to take a nap. 

I feel so European these days. After my father's passing I temporarily stopped marketing altogether in order to deal with the grief but also to focus my full attention on handling the estate and getting through the process of probate. In effect, I've been on vacation since the beginning of June. I've just recently (finally) figured out how to relax and not worry about whether or not work will come back in the same way. Would my hiatus become more or less permanent?

I needn't have given my extended, European style vacation much thought. The clients have tired of being patient and have come back. I'm flying over to Knoxville, Tenn. on the 20th of this month to take one portrait and then zooming back to Austin to shoot a video project on the 22nd for a department at UT. I should just wrap those projects up in time to spend Sunday the 25th working with the Seminary of the Southwest for an event. I guess I'm not done with this work thing just yet...

Will I take the Pentax K1 on any of these jobs? No. I'm so comfortable with the Fuji equipment. I'm packing two X-Pro2 cameras, the Fujicron trinity of lenses plus the 90mm for the out of town portrait assignment. The X-Pro2s pack down smaller than the X-H1s. But I'll pull in the X-H1s for the two camera video shoot (plus one extra for back up) at UT. The Seminary job's gear selection is still up in the air but it will be an all Fuji packing adventure. 

And speaking of Fuji....well, more to come.

Hope all my Texas buddies are managing the heat well. There is a "dangerous condition" alert in place today between noon and seven p.m. Hydrate, seek shade, and air conditioning (or Deep Eddy Pool) is your best friend. So glad I finally opted to buy a white vehicle for Texas.....

A Quick and Happy Review of Annie Leibovitz's Book: ANNIE LEIBOVITZ AT WORK

Early in my career I was a teaching assistant for a very good photographer in Austin named, Tomas Pantin. Tomas was not only a lecturer in the UT Art Department's commercial photography program but also a sought after photographer by editorial clients and advertising clients alike. At one point Annie Leibovitz and her team of New York City assistants swept into town and needed a studio. They got hooked up with Tomas. He had a great studio on 7th Street, right in the middle of downtown. They came to town to shoot a portrait of Elvis Costello. I was impressed.

Years later, in 2001, I was returning to Austin late in the evening. I'd been on assignment for eight days in Maui and I'd taken the family along with me. Our client was gracious enough to book a suite for me and the family and to pay for them to attend and to fly there as well. I had a great, exhausting, typical dot com, over the top shoot for a company that burned out and closed soon after. We were heading home, Ben was about five at the time, and we were ragged from a long layover in Denver.

When we walked back into the house the phone was ringing and I answered it before the machine picked up. It was Annie Leibovitz's first assistant. They were all in town, in a rented studio, and Annie's Profoto flashes either didn't get there in time or they had a malfunction; frankly I don't remember which. At any rate they were calling around to see who they could rent a bunch of Profoto strobes from.

At the time we were still shooting most stuff with medium format Hasselblads and routinely used a couple of 2000 watt second Profoto strobe boxes, a couple of 600 watt second boxes, and we kept a separate store of Profoto mono-lights for smaller shoots. We probably had more Profoto stuff sitting around than anyone else in town and Annie would NOT shoot with anything else.

But her assistant was rude. Really rude. He demanded that I put the whole inventory in my car and rush it all over to South Congress Ave. to the rental studio RIGHT NOW.  I told him I'd be happy to rent the gear to the production but they'd need to send someone over to pick it up. He told me that was NOT the way it worked and I should, "get my gear and my ass in my car and get moving because.....Annie was waiting."

I gave him simple and direct advice. I told him to fuck off. Then I hung up the phone. They called back but I didn't answer. And because of that one person's bad attitude I harbored negative feelings about Annie Leibovitz for quite some time (my problem, for sure). But that didn't stop me, even for a second, from deeply admiring her work, buying her books, and keeping up with her progress as an artist.

I have collected all of the books of photographs she's put out but I missed buying the one I have pictured above because it's not really a collection of photographs, it's a writer's book about the what and why of her work and not a portable gallery of greatest hits. I didn't think I would learn anything from a "how to" book about A.L. that I hadn't already read or seen in print in various places.

Recently I had a change of heart. I'd just re-read Susan Sontag's book, "On Photography" and it piqued my interest once again in Ms. Leibovitz. When I saw the book at a local bookstore I decided to give it a go and brought it home. Funny thing; I let it sit on my desk for two weeks before I pulled off the protective plastic wrap and sat down to have a look and a read.

I'm so glad I did because it's the first time I feel a kinship, or a sense of universal, photographer alignment with A.L. The book is a series of stories about how she came to be in each different photographic scenario and about her thought processes in setting up certain shots, and cajoling celebrities into doing crazy stuff which, in turn, is the stuff of some of the great American photographs of the 1980's, 1990's, and the 2000's.

Don't be a literal, photo-geek and buy this book hoping to find lighting diagrams or gear lists; they are NOT in this book. Don't buy it hoping that you'll find Joe-McNally-Like self aggrandizing stories about cobbling together 250 $600 flashes in order to shot a bad shot in a desert which could have been done with one Elinchrom Ranger flash......You won't find much technical information at all. Actually, close to zero...

The book is a narrative about the artistic process from Annie Leibovitz's point of view. Stories about working alongside people like: Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Keith Haring, and various movie actors. How did the idea come about to photograph the Blues Brothers in blue face? How did the idea come about to photograph Whoopie Goldberg in a bathtub filled with milk? And more, and more, and more.

So, these are the kinds of books I hear most photographer say they'd really like to see when they've arrived here, mentally battered, after some tenure at DPReview. As an antidote to the compulsion to reduce the secret of all photography, and success in image making, to a catalog of gear. The antidote for yet another recitation of the merits of various, cheap Chinese flash triggers. The prescription for one burned out on reviews of.....wait for it......the best camera straps.

Don't buy this book thinking that "Annie" is going to teach you how to light wannabe fashion models with your Godox flash. Instead, embrace the book if you want to understand the yet unfinished arc of one of the great photographers of our time, and what she brings to her work BESIDES cameras, lenses and other material.

I sat down with the book this afternoon and read it pretty much straight through. I'll probably read it again tomorrow. Will it teach me to do photography better? No. Will it teach me to be a better photographer? Well, it actually might.

I liked the book a lot. I'm glad to have let go of my negative feelings about a fellow artist and to have taken the plunge into one part of her thought process. You are probably way ahead of me there.....

Adding up the numbers in Lightroom. What camera have I really shot the most frames with? Which lenses?

I've been using Lightroom for a long time. I haven't always run all my files through the application because I've also used other software like DXO, Capture One, Apple's now dead Aperture, and even iPhoto and Snapseed. But I now use Lightroom pretty consistently for all my commercial jobs if for no other reason than that I'm most familiar with it and it does batch processing quickly and efficiently. 

sometimes I make mistakes and get rid of cameras I should have kept.

One of those is the Panasonic G9. It may be the best still camera I've ever owned.

This was done in Iceland with the 8-18mm lens. Pretty much perfect in my mind. 

So, after a bunch of folks chimed in on theOnlinePhotographer to talk about which lens they shoot with the most, and someone posted a bit about how to look up your usage in the metadata, I thought I'd poke around and see what my numbers look like.

The first thing took me back a little bit. I've been accused of working too much but it was a bit shocking to see that there are 396,878 photos, total, in my libraries. That's a lot of photography. 

Then I decided to check and see which cameras I used the most. Since I have the Fujis in house right now I assumed those cameras would have fairly high numbers but that's not the case. To look at the numbers you'd think that all I do is shoot with Canon cameras. With one surprising Sony tossed in. 

It reads something like this:

Canon 5D Mk2 = 32,555

Sony A77 = 30,297

Fuji XH-1 = 25,142

Panasonic GH4 = 15,497

Canon 7D = 15,286

Canon 1Dmk2n = 15,079

Olympus EM5.2 = 14,124

Sony A99 = 13,495

There were 27 other cameras on the list, each with a representation of under 10K. The range of total lenses was embarrassing as well. 

The rest of the info shows me that while some cameras had bigger short term impacts on my consciousness they didn't have the staying power of the cameras I listed above. 

Most used two lenses? Not fast short tele primes I always seem infatuated by, but maybe the equivalent.

The #1 lens I used was the Canon 70-200mm f4.0 L, followed by

the 35-100mm f2.8 Panasonic.

My use of the vaunted 50mm was no more or less prevalent than most standard zooms (which I count in the 24-120mm range). The lens I've used most in the new Fuji system is the one I hesitated most to buy; the 16-55mm f2.8. I seem to grab for it all the time now. 

I'm guessing I should just hold onto to the XH-1s (and, of course, the X-Pro2s....) and the 16-55mm along with the 50-140mm f2.8 and put everything else up for sale.... at least it would make numerical sense. 

Funny that I always thought of myself as a resolute normal focal length photographer when in fact the range between 95 and 135mm seems to be where I gravitate.

I'd be interested to hear from y'all to see if my perception versus statistics is just an anomaly or if other people's nostalgia for popular, legendary focal lengths from the "golden" days of photography also cloud their clear vision of reality. Interesting exercise.

Digging in deeper with assignments. Sometimes you need to revisit projects to finally do your best work.

Libby Villari as Gov. Ann Richards in the play, ANN, at Zach Theatre.

I keep taking these deep dives into the theater and I'm almost convinced it's the best way to really divine the essence of a photographic subject.....the deep dive. Zach Theatre is opening the play, ANN, tonight with a big, Champagne reception and party. We'll all be there. But my contact with the play started nearly a month ago when I dragged my usual portrait lighting rig over to the theater in order to interject myself between shots of a video production (for a television commercial) in order to make marketing photographs of the play's actor, Libby Villari. 

That was followed by a session of on stage documentation of the play at the Sunday evening technical rehearsal (where I got a first look at the blocking, lighting and flow of the play) followed by yet another session of time-compressed photography at the dress rehearsal. Somewhere in this timeline Ben and I packed up a ton of lighting, video and audio gear and spent a Sunday doing three camera video interviews with writer (and the original actor in ANN), Holland Taylor; the play's director, Benjamin Endsley Klein; and the actor who will star in this production, Libby Villari. 

Following each photo session is an hours long session of editing, color correcting and assessing hundreds and hundreds of images and then getting them quickly into the waiting hands of the public relations department and the marketing department at the theater. Following the video interviews was the scrubbing through of all the footage, marking the usable quotes and stories, creating a series of multi-cam clips, assembling the videos and then fitting them out with carefully chosen music and appropriate b-roll (which came largely from the stills I'd been shooting; with a little help from the Ken Burns Effect). 

At this point I think I know the play well enough to be Ms. Villari's understudy (but that role is already filled). Tonight I'll put the cameras aside and take Belinda to see the production without the physical barrier of multiple cameras between me and the stage. 

But I will say that each touch and each intersection with the process of making the play and creating the visual collateral made each successive session better and better. My understand of how to translate the drama, and the comedic moments, was more nuanced. I knew better by the dress rehearsal exactly what images I could pull out with my cameras and lenses because they were the images that were selling me on the play. 

And I think this sort of immersion, which pays off in better and more interesting photographs, is largely missing from our current practices (collectively) of commercial photography. We are mostly given one chance, one day, one match up to get all the pieces competently cobbled together but because we don't generally have the option of coming back several times to refine our vision, or our equipment lists, or our timing and positioning, we fall back on proven techniques (which may be made boring by our need to make them bullet proof in the moment) and a hastily formed first impression of the material being presented to us. 

When taking portraits on location we are often pressed by the client's schedule to hastily decide on a location and to push through on a tight schedule. Even if we discover a better location within the location many times we don't have the luxury of disrupting a fixed schedule to stop and change lighting and location; even if it might make a much better visual outcome. By the same token we're locked into whatever outfit the subject shows up with. Even if the CEO comes with a plaid jacket and a wrinkled shirt, along with a novelty tie that has monster truck imagery on it, we rarely have the ability to demand/ask/cajole the marketing people into let us come back a second time, hoping that the CEO's handler will have remedied his sartorial suicide.....

I place part of the blame for this increasing compressed and rushed process that used to be photography. We need to push back. I've been working on this for a while and since I mostly photograph people I've started to invent ways to build in some "do over" capability, even within a one day assignment. 

A recent assignment called for location portrait photography with one CEO and four senior V.P.s. I was tasked with photographing each one individually. I asked for/demanded that we take time to scout their offices before the day of the shoot. I figured out three different locations that could be used for our portraits and I worked out how to light each of the three, making notes on gear and logistics during the scout. 

At the end of the scouting I met with the marketing director and let her know that I wanted to photograph the CEO first and also last. I explained to her that most people don't get photographed all the time and they tend to bring a lot of nervous energy into their sessions; especially if it is the first time they are working with a photographer. My strategy was to meet with the CEO and have a coffee and conversation prior to his first session. By doing this I was able to select which jacket he would wear (he brought three! Good job, Mr. CEO!!!) and which tie (6!!!). I was also able to get some insight into his personality and some of the things that most interested him. We also went over how the session would work and what to expect. We did a nice job on the first location and then I cut him free for the next few hours. 

In the interim I photographed the other executives, taking time to chat with them in their offices before we got into our sessions. Worked pretty darn well....

Near the end of the day I set up my lights in the final location and tweaked everything. Then I invited the CEO in for his second session. He was much more comfortable, less rushed, more compliant, and it felt like we'd known each other for ages. All of the images of the CEO chosen from our sessions on that day were from the final session. He was visibly more comfortable just as I had become more comfortable with him and also his staff and offices. It reminded me that we've allowed ourselves to rush even when it's counter productive and not required. Habit. But a good one to break. 

And maybe not just in our work.

This Summer I've made a conscious effort to book as much client work as I can in the afternoons. Not in the mornings. I can usually find a plausible excuse to offer a client to make this happen and the lack of booking client driven work in the mornings offers two benefits: The first is that I have not had to use an alarm clock to get up for the entire Summer. I can sleep in a bit and get better rest; especially since I tend to be one of those people who anticipate the alarm and wake up half an hour before, and then spend idle time waiting for the buzz to go off. Better to do it naturally. 

The second benefit is that I never have to miss a swim practice or give up a long walk. I usually swim with my master's team but if I want to swim at the Deep Eddy Pool it's far less crowded at 8 am, before the rest of society rises, has coffee and gets out of their houses. Not missing the exercise portion of the day is more important to me now that whatever money is attached to the jobs. I'll gladly trade a bit more excess prosperity for a cool swim in the shade of towering cottonwood trees. And I'll happily take advantage of spare morning time to read, and drink coffee.

I swam with the masters team this morning and that pool's water is heating up as the over 100 degree days arrive and linger. I'm going to start alternating. As the water in our main pool heats up we have to shorten the distances and be a bit careful about intensity. It's easy to forget that swimming in warm water can be dangerous and lead to hyperthermia and dehydration. By switching between pools I can swim hard distance in the 70 degree spring water and then work on sprint-y sets with more comfortable intervals in the conventional pool. Problem solved? We'll see. But short of everyone bringing a 100 pound bag of ice with them in the morning to dump into the pool I think we're just going to have to live with warmer water temps in the Rollingwood Pool until the Fall.

Musing about cameras. I woke up today and chose the Canon G15 as today's shooting machine. Small, agile and a good enough image for just about all uses. One of my friends called to see if I'd seen the review the Fuji GFX 100 over on DPReview.com. For some strange reason I had no interest at all. None. Not in the camera, not in the review and not even in the concept. I think I'm back into one of those cycles of trying to see just how much I can accomplish with the most rudimentary of tools. 

There is one camera that I need more of. That's the Fuji X-Pro2. If you've gotten tired of your mint condition X-Pro2 and want to trade it for an X-T3 I'd love to accommodate you. I might be negotiated into kicking in some cash as well. Let me know. Don't know why I want an extra one but I do. I really, really do. 

Hope you stay cool today, wherever you are. If you are in Austin you might enjoy the ANN play. If you are highly partisan and can't stand the thought of people liking a democratic governor in Texas then too bad but I think it's going to be a long while before you get to see a Greg Abbott play.....