Have you been to there Paris fashion shows? I was there in 1994 for the Atusuro Tayama show and the Lagerfeld show. It was fun. Robert Altman was there doing research as well.

 One of my favorite Robert Altman movies is "Prét a Porter" which was released in the USA as "Ready to Wear." It's Altman's take on the fashion industry and it stars an amazing number of "A" list Hollywood movie giants like Kim Bassinger, Julia Roberts, Tim Robbins, Terri Garr and Linda Hunt. It also starred a number of internationally renowned stars such as, Marcello Mastriani, Sophia Loren, and Stephen Rea (The Crying Game). They even had an appearance in the movie of a notable Texan; Lyle Lovett. It's a scattered film but very, very entertaining. It was filmed mostly in Paris, and mostly in the Fall of 1994.  Prét a Porter shows played a large part in the movie. I remember. I was there. The shows were everywhere. So were the movie cameras. 

In the Fall of 1994 my wife and I decided to treat my parents, who were then in their late 70s, to a trip to Paris. October always seemed like the best time to go. We had a couple of hotel suites near Les Halles and we stayed for ten days. We'd take my folks around to see things like the Louvre museum or the Eiffel Tower and when they got tired we'd leave them napping back at the hotel and explore the parts of Paris that we loved best. Then we'd all meet back up for dinner.

The big fashions shows were happening while we were there. Hotels were full. The Magician, David Copperfield, was staying in a room just down the hall from us. I know this because the management left a note on his door imploring him to pay his long overdue phone bill. And the note was none too private. 

One day I put my parents on an American Express tour to go and see Monet's garden and house. Belinda went off to her favorite obscure art museum. I headed to the Louvre Carrousel to see what all the fashion fuss was about. I had a small camera bag with a Contax Aria camera, and 50mm and 135mm Zeiss Contax lenses in it, along with ten rolls of Agfapan APX 400 film. 

When I got to the lobby for the exhibition area, outside the fashion shows, security was tight and there were many, many people with cameras milling about trying to figure out how to get into the shows without press credentials. I was one of those people. The young lady pictured above was covering the shows from a Japanese fashion trade magazine and we chatted while she waited to get in. I was about to leave, having given up the idea that I could somehow talk my way into the shows, when a nice young lady walked up to me and introduced herself. She was an editor for a huge fashion magazine (Elle), headquartered in NYC. My assistant, Renee, and I had done the photographs for the editor's story on Richard Linklater, the film director who lives here in Austin. Just down the road.

She asked me which show I was shooting and I came clean and told her I was in Paris with my parents, not working. She asked me if I needed a pass to get in and "look around" and handed me an all stages show pass. I could walk through the security portal with impunity. 

I started with the Atsuro Tayama show and stayed around for the Karl Lagerfeld show. One of the UK photographers I was bunched in with in the press scrum looked at my pass and said, "Mate. You know that kind of pass will get you backstage!!!" He was both impressed with my pass and at the same time amazed at my lack of savoir faire. I headed backstage after the Lagerfeld show where a heady party with free flowing Champagne and chain smoking super models awaited. I stayed for a while and snapped some pix but I had promised to be back at 6 pm to take my parents to the Jules Verne Restaurant in the Eiffel Tower for dinner. It was my first experience with a Michelin starred restaurant and it was, actually, amazing. 

We would never have been able to secure reservations if it hadn't been for the machinations of a French friend who I met when I was in school at UT. Turns out his father had been the CEO at one time for Peugeot and it was his father's ongoing and regular patronage at the Jules Verne that secured us last minute reservations at a window table for four. His father made a call...  Good to have friends with connections. A nice way to spend my mother's birthday.

The fashion shows were a blur. I'd never thought to shoot one before and I was working with a basic film camera. I still have the press credentials in a box in the studio. 

Of all the images I took I think my favorite that day was of my fellow photographer. The one from Japan. 

Later, when I finally saw Altman's film I noticed B-roll from bits and pieces of the shows. It was fun to see it in reverse. 

By the way...my parent really enjoyed their trip and the extensive scrapbook I made for them is like a masterclass in intimate, black and white travel photography. I inherited it back when they passed on. 

The memories are enchanting. Just sharing a few warm remembrances from a time before lockdowns, when we could all travel freely and with pleasure. Hope you don't mind. 

Portrait of a hat taken while thinking about the existence of pool tables.

Value is in the eye of the user. I like this hat.

Remembering the charm of portraits printed on Kodak's Ektalure paper. In G surface. A very popular paper for use with Marshall's Oil Paints.

 Portrait of an artist in a striped shirt.

Portrait of a young artist. Copied from a print.

 Yeah. It's all about the eyes. 

Anonymous Photographer with View Camera...

 

Is Panasonic the most responsive camera maker today? Or did they just scramble to fix a big mess up? Hmmmm.

 Back on November 22nd (2020) Panasonic rolled out firmware upgrades for all three models of their S1(x) cameras. Along with the assortment of added features such as 5K video in the S1R, they made major upgrades to their auto focusing capabilities which were intended to make the cameras much faster and better at all manner of AF. But there was just one teensy-tiny problem; the upgrade basically broke all of the cameras' autofocus when used in non-continuous lighting ( LED, Fluorescent, etc.) which manifested itself in a dramatic way. 

When you attempted to focus a scene lit by those light sources the view in the EVF was a bright, flashing mess and the camera basically gave up focusing entirely. At first I didn't experience this because I was mostly shooting in daylight where there was no issue. 

I was made aware of the problem on the L-mount forum on DP Review. Once informed I walked into a fluorescent lit environment and was instantly able to duplicate the issue. A few intrepid camera testers discovered that having the 120 fps refresh rate set in the EVF exacerbated the problem and that reseting the refresh rate to 60 fps was helpful. But the problem was still there, even if diminished a bit. 

The same bug in the firmware hit all three of the camera models; the S1, S1R and the S1H. As I'm not booked on anything for paying clients right now I didn't descend into sheer panic mode but I've been carefully watching to see when Panasonic would rectify this really huge stumble. The cameras were rendered almost entirely unusable by this flaw and I think anyone invested in the system and heading into any mix of holiday projects must have been sweating bullets. You might be able to "get by" with the 60 fps "fix" but if you've spent well over $10K on Lumix gear I don't think "get by" is much delivery on the promise of the system being a "professional" tool set. 

A glance through the inter-webs this morning let me know that now, one month after their catastrophic misstep, Panasonic has delivered newly updated firmware. It's 1.7 for the S1, 1.7 for the S1R, and 2.3 for the S1H. I've done some preliminary tests with some old and nasty fluorescent fixture I have on hand and it looks to me like the issue is resolved. More testing will be required so I'll make a point to go back this evening to one location I stumbled across that made my viewfinder flicker and pulse like strobe lights at a bad night club. Only then will I give my final stamp of approval. 

So, is a month fast for an emergency firmware update? Was it a laudable effort at fixing something? I guess so but I can't understand how a firmware update that breaks such an important feature got out of the lab in the first place. I guess the intern who tests these things was on vacation...

Just wanted to let everyone know who might be affected. Hopefully this new update will fix the flicker without taking away the two steps forward we got in our camera's focusing speed and accuracy. 

If you have an S1 then this is a good place to start: https://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/dsc/download/ff/dl/s1.html

If you are looking for the S1R or S1H update then just use the link above and add the correct letter to "S1" near the end of the link. 

Back to work on the Fuji X-100 V. Much to learn.

Okay. Let's give this popular camera a run through. X marks the spot.

Shooting into a convex mirror out on the streets late at night. So, I've opined for years about how I'd love to use a Fuji X100 xx but I could never get past the 35mm equivalent focal length lens bolted onto the front of the camera. A friend reminded me that I could always use the "digital tele-converter" that's in the menu to get either a 50mm or 70mm frame and I thought that might be cool, especially since the sensor is now 26 megapixels instead of 12 or 16. 

Anyway, fate interceded. I was munching on some great sourdough toast this morning when a dental crown became dislodged from tooth #15 (upper left, back molar). The crown came off at 9:30 and I was on the phone to my dentist by 9:32. The crown was re-acquainted with my tooth and I was out the door of her office by 11:15. I'll need a new crown because this one was just worn out from 30+ years of chewing stuff. But we'll take care of that in mid-January. Anyway, my dentist's office is just around the corner from my favorite camera store and I already had the idea of dropping by to pick up a Zeiss 50mm one of my photo friends had seen on the used shelf and dropped me a note about. 

But for some reason I've been compulsively reading about the Fuji X-100 V for the last couple of weeks and when I walked into the camera store I took a cursory look in the used mirrorless camera showcase and there sat a mint, almost unused, chrome version, X-100 V. I forgot all about the Zeiss lens and fell into bargaining for the best price possible on the Fuji. By lunch time I was back at my desk with the Fuji reading the owner's manual online. Yes, I picked one up. I couldn't resist. The price was right. The timing was good. And I know the boss at my company would be more than happy to give me this camera as my year end,  Christmas bonus. After all, I've been good and have written many blogs for the company this year...

I thought I might be a little lost with a new camera but I have owned a huge part of the Fujifilm camera and lens catalog from time to time, including the short-lived ownership of a brand new Fuji X-100 T. 

( which I was not too fond of ). The menu is not much different from that of the XH-1s or the XT3s I was playing with a couple of years ago. But still, every camera has it's idiosyncrasies so I thought I should take it out and play with it. 

Accounting obligations got in the way of a daytime shoot. The post office was murder. I should have stayed in my pajamas and just wired everyone their cash instead of being such an old school, check writing buddy-duddy. But around 5:30 I closed the lid on the accounting laptop, grabbed the new camera and a fully charged battery and went for a walk through downtown. 

It's early times with the X-100 V but I can say that I really think I like this model. We'll see after some good light and good weather shooting. Here are a selection of photographs I was able to grab before dinner. All very strange images but I seem to be stuck in an obscurity loop lately. I'll work my way out of it. That's something for tomorrow.