My weeks start on Tuesdays. It's a swim thing. I've made Monday the recurring "day off." I hope my boss is okay with that...

A Portrait of Suzy W.

It's the start of the week for me. It's Tuesday. We normally swim Tuesday through Sunday each week and then the pool is closed on Mondays to "rest" the water and chemicals, and so the staff can do maintenance without interference from pesky and demanding swimmers. Since I'm up pretty early (for me) most mornings, in order to hit the 8 a.m. swim practice, Monday is the only day of the week I can sleep in, eat a leisurely breakfast and sit in the backyard reading novels. I guess everyone needs a day of leisure and rest.

The 7 a.m. practice was packed today and the 8 a.m. practice was near capacity. If you count me then there were four people in my lane today but all of us in lane four have swum together for at least the last ten years so we fell right into a good order and circle swam without a glitch. Up on the right, back on the other right. Yeah. Okay, just imagine the lane as a circle and imagine us swimming it counter-clockwise and five seconds apart (which translates into a little more than a body length between swimmers). 

Our lane "leader" was Matt and he's the kind of swimmer that never slows down, always chooses the tightest intervals, and keeps the pedal down throughout the hour. That's why we like to swim with him. There's no chit-chat, we just get to work and follow the leader. It's a maximal workout.

This morning was beautiful in Austin. It was 55° when I rolled into the pool and the sky was crystal clear and untinged blue. We cheated and stayed in the pool at the end of workout to get in a few extra yards and to finish up the workout the coach had written up on the pool side white board. If you did the whole workout you made it through 3400 yards; that's about two miles. Not a bad way to start the day.

According to my Apple Watch health app my maximum heart rate during the swim was 154 bpm and my minimum heart rate during the workout was 88. Ten minutes after the workout, sitting in my car checking messages, my heart rate dropped back to 68. My VO-2 max was 38. I'm pretty sure I burned up some calories on this one...

After a quick shower at home (the showers at the pool are off limits during the pandemic) to rinse off the chlorine or bromine or whatever with a product called, ThinkSport Body Wash and Shampoo (which is supposedly formulated to remove chlorine and other chemicals that make skin itch) I put on some decent shoes and walked up to the end of the street to Trianon Coffee where Emil made me a cup of Kenya coffee and I bought an enormous apple danish from the pastry case. 

The weather was perfect so I pulled a couple of chairs into a shady spot to drink coffee, eat a pastry and read articles on my phone. It was a great way to savor 45 minutes of happy down time. 

I'm waiting for Jason from the Subaru dealer to deliver my new car to my house around lunch time. He'll also pick up the loaner car I've been using and take it back to the dealership. Once I've accepted delivery I plan to drive downtown and head over to Whole Foods for a slice of pizza and then I'll take a walk through downtown with one of the Fuji X100Vs. Of the cameras I've mentioned in the blog lately it's the model that most people have requested I write more about. I thought I'd shoot it some additional frames just to stay fresh.

Once I get all the fun stuff out of the way I'll start packing for tomorrow's shoot down at the Esther's Follies Stage on East Six Street. Yeah, the seedy part. 

We've done rehearsal shoots there for years and I have a really good idea of what to pack as far as lighting goes. Unlike the giant organization of Zach Theatre, with its $24 million main theater and acres of computer controlled lights, Esther's Follies is pretty bare bones. And the lights they have are a jumble. I usually default to setting up electronic flash and trying to freeze as much action as I can while letting some of the stage lighting bleed through. 

Tomorrow I'm going to drag in four 300 W/S Godox flashes, put small soft boxes on them, arrange a couple as side lights and a couple as a main and fill light. We're not trying to be fancy here and I generally need to shoot groupings of at least two actors and sometimes up to ten people on the stage at a time so I try to get f8.0 if I can make it work. I'm trying to keep everyone in focus. Much as I'd like to use one of the Leicas to shoot with I haven't really mastered my flash techniques with either the SL or the SL2 and I'm not even sure if I have a flash trigger that will work for them so I'll choose the Panasonic S1 (with the newest firmware update) instead. It hardly matters since the lenses would be the same. 

When I'm making images on the Esther's Follies stage I usually like to work with the 24-105mm lens. At f8.0 I'm pretty sure I wouldn't see that much of a benefit trying to use a bunch of prime lenses and we tend to go through the skits and routines at a pretty fast clip so using the zoom helps keep the flow running smoothly. Since I'm a bit rusty (we haven't done one of these in more than a year!!!) I'll shoot raw+jpeg just in case I trip over my own two feet (metaphorically). 

Once I get everything packed and ready I'll take some downtime to walk over the the neighborhood Ace Hardware to look for lawn sprinklers. They seem to die off every year, no matter which ones I buy. Cheap or dear.  They just stop doing whatever it is they are  supposed to do. 

And that should be enough to get my week started. 

Apropos yesterday's post about the Mac OS...

My first experience with computing was in a calculus class in high school back in 1972. We had a small office on our campus dedicated to telephony and some students were allowed to use a modem connection to a mainframe computer at Trinity University. It was punch card days. And the padded cradle for a telephone hand set was always a strange part of the set up. I don't remember the baud rate but I'm guessing it wasn't very impressive. We all got assignments to do some simple programming that would require main frame access. It wasn't until I got to the University of Texas, College of Electrical Engineering that we really had to start a serious engagement with computers. 

Now, where did I put my circular slide rule?

Ah, to channel my inner nerd.

 

The scary process of changing something vital to your business. Something which already works "just fine."

 I am not a particularly brave person when it comes to technical "progress." For many years most of us were in the position of being our own I.T. Directors and the experiences seem to have left many psychological scars. Some of my son's early memories of his dad with a computer come from the times that he would venture into the studio only to find me down on the floor, under the desk, with the chassis of some tower-type computer wide open and me muttering and swearing under my breath trying to track down SCSI conflicts or issues with aftermarket memory modules. 

In the earlier days of "computing" there were no real resources to consult on the web because the web didn't really exist for normal people back then. There was no recourse to go online and watch a video on YouTube because.....same. We learned by trial and error and via articles in printed magazines devoted to computing on various platforms. During the pre-historic days of computing the machinery was expensive and there were few people who could clearly claim to have "grown up" with the technology. In fact, there were far, far fewer people around who actually owned personal computers!

In those days new operating systems arrived on multiple floppy disks or, a few years later, on CD-ROMs. The process of updating a dodgy system was anything but straightforward and each upgrade came complete with incredibly frustrating, new incompatibilities. Many days of real work were sacrificed in the pursuit of just having a machine that would turn on and run with acceptable stability for even a day or so. In many more ways even the applications were fraught with perils galore. Imagine trying to figure out layers in PhotoShop for the first time after having used the program for several years before layers were even introduced! And no documentation. The book would come out months later...

Many machines were temporarily or permanently bricked after unsuccessful update attempts and no one was around to revive them. They sat as slowly deteriorating fossils of a time before ... support. 

Damn. Those were bleak times. At various junctures I am amazed that we didn't toss our hands up and decide not to embrace the demonic compromise that was....computerization. It's not as though film didn't work!

But I mention all this so you'll understand that those early memories, like some childhood trauma, haunt me to this day. I've been running an iMacPro for about 1.5 years and it's been remarkably stable. It never crashes. But I try never to give it any reason to crash. I try to make sure than only the most pure electricity is introduced to its power cord, even if that means the children go shoeless and hungry. I never turn the machine on without touching the rabbit foots dangling next to one of the hard drives; just for luck. I talked to one of the product engineers and wrested from him information about optimal performance temperatures and so for the last 1.5 years I've tried to keep the temperature around the computer at 66° Fahrenheit. Plus or minus half a degree. Once a week we burn sage outside the studio door and chant positive mantras to the computer. And all this is part of our effort with an Apple computer product. Can you imagine what we'd have to burn to keep a Windows machine even marginally usable? It boggles the mind. 

At any rate, last Fall Apple announced a big operating system upgrade. You could take your machine from "Catalina" to "Big Sur." Most of the benefits clustered around better security and better rejection of trackers and other forms of unwanted surveillance. Stuff/features that I value. I wanted to update right away but my computer therapist, my analyst and my psycho-therapist and my attorney all dissuaded me from the horror of being an "early adopter." 

Stories were seeping onto the web about updated computers slowing down to a crawl. Or of updates just failing altogether. Most stories recounted what seemed like a dystopian landscape of disappointment. Centers opened up to deal with SUD (system upgrade depression). Expert Counselors from the Windows world could only suggest their favorite remedies to Apple users: Cold Dominos Pizza and Mountain Dew.

Since my wanton attraction to cars tossed my work schedule into a deep fissure and diminished my work reliance on my desktop computer to nearly nothing last week I decided that I'd take the leap. I would either end up renouncing the bane of the 20th century (computers) or be elated by new capabilities and speed. I didn't even want to consider that there might be middle ground. That the update might work fine but there might be no discernible performance differences. 

I backed things up. I ran disk repairs on all hard drives. I pulled tons of trash off my internal SSD. I formatted a new, external SSD to run Time Machine and backed up all my critical files....again. And then, early Saturday when the bandwidth hog family was still slumbering away, dreaming of massive online multi-player games, I snuck out to the office and, making the sign of the cross over my heart many times (even though I am not Catholic) I pushed the right buttons, on screen, to begin the process. The upgrade to Big Sur. AKA: MacOS 11.2.3.

My anxiety was apparent from across the street. Dogs howled in fear. Birds fell dead in the street.  I put down my mug of hot but un-drunk coffee and grabbed a handful of Xanax instead. And then I spent the next two hours blearily watching the little "progress" bar slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, make its way across the center of an otherwise black screen. 

But....it was successful and everything is fine now and even my passwords and junk made it across the void. I'm breathing a sigh of relief and will probably have to take the rest of the week off to recover. 

Maybe a retreat to one of those places where everyone meditates all day and no one speaks for a week.

Naw. I'd never make it.

Around Austin with a comfortable camera and lens.

Stay human. Stay.

I was certainly out of sorts yesterday. Probably not enough high intensity billiard workouts. Or too much pondering about cars. So, when I feel drained and directionless I think the best thing for me to do is to grab a life-affirming camera and lens combination and go for a long walk. Lately my walks have been getting longer and longer. Not the length of time but the distance. I'm averaging about 4 miles now and I blame my Apple Watch for that. It keeps track of my activity and my goals and I'm always trying to beat its expectations. Yesterday I gave up and strapped on a cheap, dumb, Timex. It has three functions. It keeps track of hours passing, minutes passing and seconds ticking by. That's about it. And it's an old one; I have to wind it if I want to use it. 

I brought along an SL2 and a Contax 28mm Zeiss Distagon that works on the L-mount with an adapter. It's such a pleasure using a manual focus lens if there's no pressing schedule or breathless assignment. You can kind of wing it if you want to. I set my manual 28mm to f8.0, focus it to about six feet, and just assume that most of the stuff I point the camera at will be in focus. If it's egregiously mis-focused I might intervene. But sometimes I might not. 

Austin was an odd mix yesterday. Half the people were masked and half were not. There was no really logic or rationale to the distribution of maskers to non-maskers; certainly nothing by age or any other demographic that I could divine. Just a random distribution of human data points. A stochastic mix of lip and non-lip people peppering the urban landscape.

There is a large art work downtown called, Tau Ceti at 2nd St. and Brazos. It attracts photographers and their "models." Today it was busy. People were lining up to photograph their loved ones against Austin's largest piece of outdoor art. I don't have a photo to show of the whole work but it's pretty easy to Google. 

I loved the image of the guy with his dog. And then I looked over to my right and saw that he had a whole pack of very, very obedient dogs just waiting patiently on the side lines waiting their turn on "stage." 

Phone-tography assessment at Tau Ceti art. 

These guys were having a blast photographing each other in front of the soaring, painted mural. I saw them checking stuff out on a phone and went to photograph them. They looked up and smiled but I wanted the shot where everyone is checking out the results of their "shoot." I shot some frames and then asked them to replicate their stance the way I first saw it. They were incredibly cooperative and one took the time to ask, "Is that a Leica?" I should have hung out at Tau Ceti longer because people were getting really creative. And everyone had such a nice vibe. But I like to keep moving so off I went. 

Now that's a tagline you don't see much. 

If you get nervous about the safety of your camera gear, or if you are uncomfortable with combative street people and people who are addicted to alcohol and drugs (and therefore not very predictable...) you might not want to walk down East Sixth St. You will be accosted for money and occasionally you will be the target of some loud and aggressive verbal abuse. But as the story about the Dalai Lama goes, you should run toward the snarling dog. (metaphorically). If fear keeps you from taking your camera somewhere that fear shows and I think it creates a victim persona that actually attracts unwanted attention. My attitude is that if you fear for your gear you probably shouldn't take it to the places that cause you that kind of duress. 

My take is that the camera is part of me and it goes with me everywhere. If keep track of my personal security correctly it's rare that anyone hassles me. If someone asks me a question I always answer. If someone greets me I always return the greeting. It seems more dismissive to ignore someone than to answer them honestly. And directly. 

As the weather warms up more and more people are out on the sidewalks and some small number of them are just relentless about making trouble. But there's a difference between people who unfortunately find themselves temporarily homeless, and people with addiction and/or mental health issues. It's the unpredictable people what you need to keep track of as you glide through the space. Being confident and at ease seems always to be the best strategy. You should always know where everyone is around you. And be alert. Calmly alert.

But East Sixth Street is part of my walking route and I don't plan on changing it. Even if it does get a little uncomfortable from time to time. Dicey areas are a great argument for keeping your gear minimal and portable. No big camera bags (do people still walk around with big camera bags? I don't see people doing that much in Austin now...) and just one camera + lens and you'll be quicker and more agile. But the fear of loss? Naw. That's not really a concern.

Austin has now been officially overtaken by scooters.

By the time I finished my walk I was refreshed and ready to get back to business. Just finishing up some job details here and working through some routine document shredding. Tomorrow the new car gets delivered, swim practice happens, blog writing continues and preparation for a photo job at Esther's Follies (comedy theater) gets done. Wednesday is a "shoot day" with a super talented troupe of actors and I'm so looking forward to it. Something new to think about and write about.

 

My original goal was to write and share photos on 5,000 blog posts. We have about 55 to go before we hit that number.

First blog image actually saved on the server.

First, an apology. When I started writing this blog I was focused on writing about cameras and lenses, and how the nuts and bolts of the photography business worked; at least for me. Over time I moved from writing about the gear to writing about "how I felt about the gear." and from there, recently it seems, the writing has become about  "how I feel about everyday stuff." In this transition I've unintentionally minimized the experiences of others in this incredibly trying time and become somewhat blind to my own privileges. That I let my own hubris and (misplaced) sense of entitlement come through in my writing is regretful and insensitive and for that I am sorry. 

A blog about photography should be a respite from the angst and trauma of life; especially during a pandemic. My insensitivity is a result of too much isolation and not enough empathy for those who haven't been as lucky as me over the last year. It's also "off message." 

In the next 55 blog posts I'll try to make amends, or at least keep from going off the rails. No more posts about politics, cars or swimming. No more emphasis on luxe camera brands when an article on the actual operation of cameras is more relevant. But I do reserve the right to discuss stuff like...raccoons. 

I'll try to make the next 55 posts well worth reading for my core audience: photographers. 

Not sure what will happen when I hit the target of 5,000. We'll see when we get there.

Sorry for mucking up some of the posts. 

It was Black and White day today. I Celebrated the occasion with a black and white walk.

 

News that's largely meaningless to you but significant to me: 

Raccoons. AKA: Trash Pandas. Humanely removed by nothing more than a smelly rag. An interesting and low impact solution for my chimney dwellers. The chimney got two layers of heavy duty, metal mesh masonry-ed into place along with the regular top-of-chimney cage, also cemented in place. 

I now believe that raccoons are smarter and stronger than humans and can really only be stopped by half inch steel bars but the current construction is a strong deterrent. I now worry that the baby raccoons will not have as nice a place in which to grow up...  Not that I'll be inviting them into the office.

Cars: I was roundly pilloried by an anonymous commenter whose mission seems to be two pronged: to attack any post I make with which he disagrees and also to force everyone with whatever pressure he can exert to only buy electric cars which you will then be required to drive for the rest of your life. No replacements and no exceptions. I've had my fill of asshole commenters so from now on when I come across a petulant post from an anonymous commenter I will discard it post haste. Now, this doesn't mean that my loyal readers who are also brave enough to leave their names will suffer the same treatment. You are almost family and can slag me to your heart's content, as long as you stay away from the ad hominem stuff, and continue to take credit for your brutal critiques. I would not want to rob friends of the opportunity to tell me how wrong I am. That's what friends are for. 

I'm currently driving an "undercover" looking sedan from the dealer. My new car, prior to wreaking unbelievable havoc on the environment, is traveling to Austin on a car-carrying truck and will be here to begin its destruction of all we hold good and noble by, maybe, Wednesday. Just look for the black clouds of smoke over the '46 zip code. That'll just be me starting up my new, 4 cylinder, low emission, inexpensive car for the first time. I'm pretty sure I'll keep the new one for a much longer time frame. I hope that makes him/her/us/them happy. 

Here's what I'm tooling around in for the rest of the week: 

I swear to God that it doesn't run on coal...

Cameras and stuff: I'm pretty happy with the stuff I've got in-house. But you know how that might go. Still... we're entering what I usually see as a "breathing spell" after a period of rapid acquisitions. I'm already planning an out of town foray when the new car arrives. I'm heading to San Antonio to photograph out on the street. I'm going to get back into the practice of making portraits on the street. I plan to spend at least one overnight there. Since I no longer have parents with nice houses in that city I'll be booking my overnight at one of the nicer downtown hotels. I can't wait to get out of the city. It's been over a year since I've been to San Antonio and I've missed the way it looks, smells and feels. I hope it hasn't been damaged too much by the pandemic. 

Current lens crushes: I'm very attached to the 65mm f2.0 Contemporary lens from Sigma. Damn. It's very sharp wide open, improves a little bit as you stop down, and just makes images that sing beautifully whether I use it on a Leica or an S series Panasonic. If I didn't own one I would be sitting at the computer with my favorite credit card in one hand, ordering one right now. I'd even pay for the expedited shipping. 

Camera crushes: While I own the Leica SL2 it's the SL that's got me wrapped around its right hand grip. I can't put my finger on it exactly but the camera just feels perfect. I paid about $1990 for the camera, used, and it's right in line with the same price as an entry level, full frame, Sony, Nikon or Canon. But it's worlds more luxe when it comes to the body design and construction. The colors coming straight out as Jpegs are stringently neutral and the hand feel is almost so good as to be illegal. I've been shooting it in the Jpeg+DNG mode but I keep using the Jpegs, being satisfied and the then trashing the raw files. I wish the batteries lasted longer and, as an adjunct to that wish, I also wish the batteries were about a third the price. But everything else makes me smile so big I could rival the Cheshire Cat. If you've always wanted to play with a Leica get an SL and a Sigma 45mm f2.8 and go to town. It's one of the most fun combos I can think of. 

Camera crushes continued: Get a Fuji X100V. They are just really, really good for the price. I fall in love every time I shoot with mine. 

Finally, I used the interval shooting feature of the Leica yesterday. It was so simple to set up that I thought I might be doing something wrong. I was not. But it allowed me to get a funny photo of myself that I put up on Instagram with an appropriate caption. Here's the pic: 

It's my "Senior" portrait. I can hardly wait to see it in the yearbook.

It was shot by S. Tymer. 

Daylight Architecture at f2.0. Now that's different. At least for me.

 

I never thought to photograph a building at f2.0 in broad daylight. Logic would tell me that I have lots of light, could use a modest ISO and still be able to get a shutter speed that would freeze any camera motion at a range of apertures; any of which might get me deeper depth of field and greater lens correction.

But today I was exploring the edges of the gear. What happens if we shoot everything at ISO 50? How do the files look? Are they very different than all the stuff we usually shoot at ISO 100 or 200?

What happens if we photograph buildings with an aperture of f2.0 instead of f5.6 or 8.0? Will the entire building be in focus? Is the lens sharp enough when used at its maximum aperture? 

After working with both the Leica SL and SL2 I have a small theory about sharpness and image stabilization. I think it may be a good idea to turn it off when you don't need it and see if that actually improves the work you might be doing at 1/1,600th of a second or so. Surely, with a static subject that's a fast enough shutter speed to freeze just about any camera movement or shutter shock. And an engaged image stabilization feature in combination with high shutter speeds may create more problems than it solves. If you don't test it you won't know, right?

This was f2.0, 1/1600 shutter speed, and ISO 50. Jpeg with a little saturation boost in the shooting. Click on it and look at it bigger. See if I learned anything or if it's just another building shot.

That's Scott Newton's Photo of Leon Russell Behind Me. It's over at the W Hotel. Which is connected to the Austin City Limits stage.

 

I'm enjoying doing self portraits with my new Leica cameras. I think I do it to see what I've looked like for all these years to all the thousands of people who waited patiently for me to get my shit together on the other side of the camera. It's also a learning process but it's a small one. It's mostly how to get the camera hold correct to be able to get sharp photos without image stabilization.