Warning. Don't approach before this photographer has his first cup of coffee... Unless you are bringing coffee.

 

Expression before the first sip of coffee....

Photo by: Henry White

At Sweetish Hill Bakery, Austin, Texas

Camera: Pentax 645N with 75mm. Tri-X. 

A long, long time ago.

Sorry not to have posted anything about swimming yet.

I've been told that no one would see it because everyone everywhere

is watching football on TV.

Here I thought watching American football was a "last century" thing....

And... people have told me... that football is just for people who can't swim....

Revisiting the Fuji Tri-X formula in the GFX50Sii. I still like it. It works well.

I keep coming back to the Google building as a subject because of its odd, curved architecture. It's different. And in different light it reveals different personalities. I was using the GFX 50Sii yesterday along with its 50mm f3.5 lens. The custom setting was my recently concocted Tri-X formula which was provided by the iPhone app, "Fuji Weekly." I also dialed in a yellow filter setting. To my eyes the images that come from these settings are a very close approximation of the Tri-X film, dosed in D76, that I remember from the 20+ years I spent in my darkroom. Making prints for clients and for myself.

The Google building has become a regular subject for me. I know many people can only photograph well if they are constantly in new locations. Basically, they love to photograph things that they've never seen before. I find that early shots of a stationary subject are more of a scouting exercise and that repeated exposure to a subject reveals it, and me, in a progressively different way. 

I am currently reading biography of Josef Koudelka and he suggests that he worked best in his own home country and in areas he returned to again and again. He likened the process to distilling a subject down to its essentials. 

I have the same photographer relationship with the building most Austinites refer to as "the Jenga Building" named so after the game in which players attempt to remove blocks from a stack without collapsing the stack. I have photographed it in all weather and all different times of the day and I keep coming back to it because I find the design both novel and intentionally humorous. The butterfly bridge is a good foreground frame. It's nice that an architectural team can, in this day and age, embrace a certain whimsy to some projects. It would be sad if all our new buildings were strict, rectangular boxes stood on end. 

As I am sure you are aware by now I enjoy photographing store window mannequins. They are a breed apart from the more introspective in store mannequins. This one in particular is a current favorite mostly because some crafty window designer decided to construct a risqué pose with the exposure of the plastic breasts being central to the display. I find it both funny and charming. I had a friend who was visiting earlier in the month from some smaller city in the midwest. His remark? "This would not fly in _______." 

Whether or not one enjoys the mannequins I have to say that the camera and lens do a great job showcasing detail. The braided strap on the purse of the mannequin is wonderfully detailed. It adds a lot to the blandness of endless white plastic. 

Actual, human window designers. Caught in the act of planning and measuring. 

I love being in Austin between Christmas and New Year's Eve. Downtown is uncrowded. The weather (especially this year!!!) has been almost exactly perfect. The days start out in the mid 40s and are quickly warmed up by the nicely angled Texas sun (as opposed to say...the UK sun. Only recently became aware that so many different suns rotate around the earth....) and by noon it's in the 60s. The strong but slanted sunlight, coupled with clean, clear skies, makes all the color pop. Which is kind of an odd thing to write in a blog post about black and white photography. But even in "monochrome" the special sunlight of mid-winter makes a difference. The skies are bright until about 5 or 5:30 in the late afternoon, and only after the sun sets does the temperature start to drop back down. 

I also love this week because traffic more or less disappears, lines for the hot food bar at the flagship Whole Foods Store disappear (which makes lunch much more enjoyable...) and reservations are not required everywhere. (I wonder, if Austin keeps growing and people continue to abandon home cooking, if we'll need reservations at places like McDonalds and Starbucks....?). 

I used to feel that the Fuji GFX 50 might be a smidge too big to drag around and make photographs out in the street with. If people would find it odd or intimidating. But no one bats an eye anymore at someone with a camera. Essentially they seem to see it as either a new and fun hipster thing or, if you are over 40, something their crazy uncle does because he never graduated from the last century. Either way it's become non-issue. Might be the invisibility conferred by age-ism. I don't care any more since I discovered I can also wear whatever I want.

"clue." Written on the envelope. 

Mindscape Capital. Made me think for a moment that all wealth is just made up and 

mythical. Not sure about Unknown Ventures but I think a lot of us depart on them every day.

With mixed results. 

You can always tell when I am serious about taking a photograph because I'll have the camera up to my eye. You can't imagine how insanely dorky I think it is when I see a person holding the camera out in front of themself with one hand while studying the screen on the back and waiting for the AF to lock in. Same folks who walk  around with their lens hoods put onto their lenses backwards. Don't like your lens hood? Just leave it at home. 

One of the few downtown mini-murals that has yet to have been destroyed by unwanted graffiti. It's been there since long before the Covid years. Elegant, but more so in color. Silly me. 

This steering wheel was on a matte black golf cart that was parked in front of Shiner's Saloon. It was parked on the sidewalk just off Congress Ave. I don't understand the allure of a customized steering wheel on a golf cart but I am neither a "car" guy nor a licensed psychiatrist... To each their own? Maybe. 

Not sure I'd get my hair cut and colored at a place called "Ceremony" but I'm a sucker for neon lighting on signs so I gave them points for that. Ceremony connotes lots of steps, lots of ritual. Seems like adding a lot of expectations for something as routine as hair care... 

There are a number of things I like about the Fuji medium format camera and its lenses. The format adds details to images that seem a bit more shy with smaller sensor cameras. Then there is the ability with the bodies to use hundreds of different film formulas people have created to match films you might have loved or looks that resonate with you in a good way. The lenses are very sharp and contrasty and, in concert with the IBIS of the 50Sii you can handhold them down at ridiculously slow shutter speeds. 

I love this Tri-X film formula because it adds filmic grain, gives a nice, contrasty look but still maintains a long tonal scale and well defined mid-tones. After some recent camera scans of actual film I now want to experiment with other favorites like Ilford PanF formulas. Can't images working with a monochrome only camera where the one formula for black and white imaging is baked in. But whatever floats one's boat. 

I also like the viewfinder, the rear screen and the top dials and top data window. But vis a vis the data window --- the always on nature of it is at first disconcerting. Eventually you get used to it. At least I did. No "deal killers" with this camera.

I spent most of last week swimming, walking, photographing for myself and, together with my wonderful partner, having great dinners with friends. Nice time to be alive, at least for most of us.

It was a fun holiday in which I added another Leica M240 to the mix (cameras should travel in pairs) along with a Voigtlander 75mm lens for the M mount. All good, all fun. More to come.

Hope your holidays were great. Welcome back to the blog. 

No New Year's Resolutions. Just a Continuation of "Best Practices."

I learned how to scan color negatives over my holiday break. 

It's fun. Only a quarter million negatives left to go....

I have a friend who, last year, had a near death experience after getting lost in the West Texas desert while on a hike during the Summer heat wave. He was hiking with his daughter and they became lost, ran out of water, and he started having  crippling leg cramps from dehydration. His daughter surged on to find help and, eventually, nearly 24 hours later he was helicoptered out of an endless maze of arroyos and barren canyons and into the closest emergency room. It was touch and go for hours and finally the doctor in charge of the tiny rural facility decided that, if the patient was to survive, he needed to be air transferred to a bigger and better equipped hospital. He was on the verge of kidney failure, had several broken bones from a fall and his electrolytes were .... not optimal. Modern medicine saved him. He's made a good recovery. 

He came by the studio a couple of weeks ago to get a new portrait. He'd lost weight, looked good and, at nearly 60 years of age he wanted a record of his current state. It was in the lead up to the session that he told me the detailed story of those grueling 24 hours. 

As we wrapped up I asked him if the event caused him to have any big epiphanies, and sudden revelations that changed his life. He gave it some thought and then said something I found to be pretty profound. "No. I reflected on my life and I didn't find anything I felt that really needed to be changed. No big changes, at any rate."

We kicked around the "why" of his answer. It was simple. He lives his life well and honestly. He owns a company that employs nearly 100 talented people. None are minimum wage workers. They are all very well compensated and do really good work. So about 100 families are elevated by his vision for his industry. In his "spare time" he is the board president of the biggest food bank in central Texas. He guides the mission and helps raise prodigious amounts of money for the charity. He has two wonderful, adult children who are smart, resourceful and well launched. He has been happily married (only once) to his wife of 34 years. He's not addicted to any particular vice. He doesn't gamble, drinks alcohol only sparingly and has never smoked cigarettes. He's honest in his business dealing. He's a generous mentor. He and his business give amply to all manner of good charities and causes. "What?" he asked me "do you feel I need to change?" 

I couldn't think of a damn thing. So I won't be looking for his list of resolutions. Nor his New Year's Eve promises to himself to be "better." Life is too short to try finding stuff to change when it's only applicable for social posturing. 

While he's in good standing I am sure there are a few things in my life I can improve but none requires a hard core resolution or a self promise. My self-critiques are more apt to elicit suggested improvements instead of ponderous resolutions or promises I might not be able, or want to keep. 

I'd like to get faster in the swimming pool but at 68 years of age I think I can settle for maintaining the current status quo. I could pare down the number of cameras I own but, really, I don't think eight or nine cameras of various ages is excessive. And I know myself well enough to understand that any cameras that are shed are really just creating space for replacement acquisitions. The cameras are all paid for. And most of them were used to turn a profit. No, I'll keep the cameras.

If, after 38 years of a married relationship you still love and respect each other I'd say not to monkey around with any new resolutions that might upset the proverbial apple cart. If  you really exercise, have no chronic health issues, and still sleep through the night, I'd suggest not changing much in the fitness and nutrition categories. If you still love what you do even after you've decided to jettison the clients who paid you to do it, and you just do it for yourself, I'd say you should count yourself lucky and not go looking for self-inflicted trouble. Or misguided forays into "new" careers.

My friend, the desert survivor, seemed to distill the idea of resolutions down to a simple thought: if you are making other people's lives better and working hard at not doing anyone else harm you might already be doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing right now. No changes needed.

As I have said before, I think Happiness is Self-Inflicted. Victimhood is passé. And most of us are living well and have much to be grateful for. It doesn't always take a near fatal episode for us to realize that change is only really necessary when things are NOT working out. When we KNOW we're on the wrong path. Or an unsustainable trajectory.

So. After saying all that I do have some things I think I will do more of and some things I will do less of. 

Everyone tells me I should volunteer. All my friends and colleagues who actually work in non-profits say they'd much rather have financial donations than having to train yet another retired executive who "already knows the best way to do......" So, I'll up my charitable check writing as I well as I can. 

I've probably worked enough. I'll try accepting fewer assignments this year and spend more time on my own art. 

I do NOT trust anyone who does not like to read fiction so I will continue to plow through both good and bad novels with right good passion. There's a bunch of really interesting stuff out there to choose from. I'd hope more people try to find a balance between reading fiction and non-fiction but my bigger hope for most of humanity is that they just find the joy of reading ---anything.

Walking is good for your balance, your distance vision, your cardiovascular system and your mental health. If I did not already walk X miles per day, at least five days a week, I might resolve to walk more but....as my friend says, "If it's already working you don't need to fix it." 

I guess if I had to choose one thing to make a resolution about it would be to eat more fresh fruit. Yeah. Okay. There's a resolution!

I hope everyone had a nice break, got good socializing done, hung out with good friends and kind family members. I'm back to the blog and writing more each day. If you want to join me that's great. If you want to instruct me about what to write then.....be prepared for more two week hiatuses. 

As much as possible we'll keep our content as much about photography as possible. That includes cameras, lenses, books, shows, photo walks, and random philosophy about all things photographic. We'll only occasionally stray into swimming or other non-controversial and proven health topics. We won't be mining fads, miracle cures, or strict diet regimens of any kind. 

Resolutions? maybe just tweak the stuff that needs some adjustments. maybe don't take up skydiving or jump into something that's ultimately not much fun for you. Make your tweaks manageable and effective. Little stuff. Don't fix what's not broken. 

And consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed a post. It makes it nicer for me. And I promise to moderate them almost instantaneously. No problem.

2024....here we go.

 

Did you ever photograph portraits with 4x5 inch sheet film and a view camera? Did you do a Polaroid test? Did you keep your Polaroids? I did.

 

Clients loved 4x5 inch sheet film. Not just because of the amazing detail, amazing depth of field control and the ability to make geometric corrections in camera, but also because a commercial shoot involved the use of 4x5 inch Polaroid test shots. It was a format art directors could really come to grips with. The Polaroids were big enough to see clearly without having to use a loupe. They could be written on for note taking. The clients could sign the backs of the prints so photographers could prove later than the client really, really did approve the shot before final film was exposed.

I loved the results of Polaroid's 100 speed, black and white test materials. A lot of people used Polaroid Type 55 which also produced a printable negative but for me the Polapan Pro 100 was the ultimate. 

A lot of people back in the 4x5 inch film days used color Polaroid test materials but I hated doing so because temperature controls were important in getting anywhere close to a representation of the color that transparency film would finally deliver. People spent way too much time on set trying to get "perfect" Polaroid colors apparently not realizing that there was no way (other than luck) that the color of the test prints would end up matching the transparency films. 

Polaroid tests were my favorite way to test out new lighting set ups and the relationships between background levels and foreground subject levels. 

This is a Polaroid test I made back in the late 1980s. B. was the art director on the shoot and she graciously agreed to stand in during the lighting design so I could see what was good and also what might need to be changed.  She was a patient subject because it was her project on the line... And because she's by nature quite patient. 

The image was made with a Linhof Technika 4x5 camera and, obviously, a Rodenstock 210mm lens with no filters. 

Now, if we needed big test shots we'd just tether a camera to a computer. But what's the fun in that?

I love my collection of old test shots. I only kept the good ones. 4x5 shooting was time consuming but really it was easy and fun and offered so much control. And, as I've written, clients loved it. Put a four inch by five inch transparency next to a 35mm slide and it was laughably easy to know which one the client would pick. And once addicted to large format it's very rare that they ever went back to 35mm...

Last post of 2023. Stay safe tonight. Come back tomorrow. 

Goodbye 2023. The year in review.

 

2023 was a crappy year for a lot of the world. Wars, poverty, economic downturns, rampant inflation and climate issues galore. But for those lucky enough to dodge most of the sad and desperate things happening in the world many days worked out well. Some were great, and a few were superb. I count myself as one of the lucky ones -- to be alive in this time, in the this location, in my local economy. 

This was the year I came to grips with the idea of slowing down the business or retiring altogether. In all, I did sixteen days of work out of 365 days in the year. That's not much of a workload. With this kind of trajectory I'll probably slim down the commercial engagements to six or maybe eight in 2024. Actually one a month sounds just right.

I dreaded turning down work at first but after I did so, in most cases, I felt a sense of relief. Of being unburdened.  A sense of having more finite control over my own time. With the exception of two days no other obligations to any client intruded or interfered with my daily morning swim workouts. That's an exceptional achievement for the year.

Of course declining work means that one source of fee income that I've gotten used to over the past 40 years became pretty much non-existent. You have to get used to changing your financial perspective if you are going to turn down paying work. You take money from different pots instead of living via business cash flow. It's a psychological reset but you get used to it over time. Repetition goes a long way toward instilling comfort. And, I've had good mentors show me the way to do good financial "wing walking". The secret is to not let go of one strut until you have a good grip on the next one. 

One would think that after jettisoning a previous source of income that my passion for buying new cameras and lenses would have abated; or at least slowed down. But that wasn't the reality of 2023 for me. If anything I stayed at par for fun expenses. I dipped a toe into M mount cameras and lenses and then, after some testing and shooting, I dove in with abandon. In fact, my last purchase of the year was another Leica M 240, acquired just last week. The M mount stuff joins the Fuji GFX 50Sii stuff as the "big" acquisitions of the year. 

The end result? The new gear is fun and interesting. I used the GFX for two big assignments so I made some money with that system. The M cameras, not so much. But they were really fun to photograph with. In fact, I took only an M240 with four M mount lenses, and a Leica Q2 with me on a seven day solo photographic vacation in Montreal. One of my favorite cities in North America. The combination of the M camera and the Q camera was great and helped me be productive while not dragging around huge camera bags full of stuff. I loved the vacation. More like that....

Everyone in my nuclear family weathered the year with very few bumps in the road. No health scares, no job loses and no big personal losses to speak of. 

One thing I took up late this year is "camera scanning" of last century black and white and color film negatives. Being able to access those old negatives is like having access to a time machine. Only with new PhotoShop features and camera capabilities you can pull so much more out of the film. I'm actually looking forward to cold and rainy days so I have a good excuse to stay in the office and go fishing for images I overlooked before. This will, of course, necessitate the purchase of ever more hard drives for storage...

Looking forward.

I'm committed to blogging for at least another year. Unless my readers get all judgmental about me being judgmental and start opening their comments with the phrase: "you should....." There are so few blogs left that actually discuss photography without heavy doses of malaise and moroseness that I sometimes find I write just so I'll have something to read later....

With all these wonderful M series Leicas and lenses at hand I'm ramping up travel. I don't want to go anywhere during high travel seasons when all the fun venues are crowded to the max ---- and hotels and plane fares are exorbitant --- since I have the flexibility to travel in the off seasons. And I'll be taking complete advantage of that. 

Ben had a great time in Japan so that's got to be my next adventure. Dates pending. He's a great source of logistical info. Istanbul is also near the top of my travel radar. I was in Istanbul many years ago and I'm curious to see how much has changed and how much stayed the same. 

2024 is an election year so I'll make sure to avoid all exposure to Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and most of Instagram. Spam filters on high!!!  I'll donate as much $$$ as we can to our candidates and hope for the best. But I'm not willing to carry around any of the rancor that so many seem to embrace. Almost like a hobby. And I'll work at keeping politics off the blog. If you come here to drop political comments into the mix they will most likely be expunged ---- even if I agree with your position 100%. This blog is supposed to be about a life in photography. Not the collapse of modern civilization...

I'll probably get a new phone this year and it will most certainly be an Apple iPhone. I'll piss off my video production friends by making wonderful videos on it. Ignoring their investments in "state of the art" video gear. I might even reawaken my YouTube channel which currently has no videos and 25 followers. But it's so obvious that video is the future of communications. Maybe not the future of art but yes, the future of advertising and communications. You know it is --- even if you lie about it and claim never to have watched a tutorial or review on YouTube. Or watched a movie...

2024 seems like a good year to maintain a commitment to staying in good shape. After all, if you are going to travel you may as well be comfortable walking ten or fifteen miles a day in order to find the photographs (and experiences) you want on your journeys. No "couch potato" travel here. No shooting photos through the green tinted windows of a tour bus. No skipping a great view because it's off the beaten path. No heading to the bar instead of moving forward. 

As usual, my commitment to myself is to make it to five x one hour swim practices per week. To pay attention to the swim advice and coaching of my highly professional and insanely good swim coaches while having fun and being mostly out of breath the whole time. Let's get those exercise heart rates up to 160 and move some blood through the systems. Few interesting things happen while napping.

Will also continue some cross training by doing resistance exercise at the gym two or three days a week as well as walking three or four miles per day. I knew the spare time freed up by turning down work would be good for something....

And...I will continue to eat whatever I want and enjoy every freaking bite. 

I have no advice for anyone else. And most of my audience believes so strongly that they are imbued with incredible amounts of knowledge already and so wouldn't listen if I did give out advice. That's why we make this blog about the day to day life of an average person engaged in photography and not an advice column. Use whatever camera you want. I don't care. It doesn't matter. As long as we're still having fun. 

Photography has changed profoundly. I don't have all the answers to any part of it. There is no "right" way to do it. There are few to no rules. The next big thing is the next big thing and I have no clue what it will be or where it's coming from. Mining the past is nostalgia. It's addictive but there's so much left to do in the future. Let's go.

A Recycled post from 2012. I liked the photo. And I liked being reminded that it was made with a Leica SL2. Not the digital version... the film version.

 

Kissing the last days of Summer goodbye with a yellow flowered dress and a floppy straw hat.

We spent a few days up around
Fredericksburg, Tx. and around Enchanted Rock shooting a fashion 

spread for a magazine. We were taking a short break on an ancient front

 porch attached to a grand, old, Texas wooden ranch house. I looked

 over and saw my model's look of quiet (tired) repose and I pulled up

 my camera in order to catch not just her youthful beauty but also the

 warm and unhurried feel of the day. It was near the end of September

 and still in the mid 90's. We were all warm but not glistening. I was

 drawn to the line of the young woman's jaw, the tranquility of her

 expression and the little wisp of dark hair sweeping down in front of

 her ear under her light colored straw hat.
Not lighting trickery here. Just the open shade. No post production

 elbow grease here just a curve adjustment in the scanning and a tiny bit

 of sharpening in Snapseed. No Promethean camera here, just an older

 Leica SL2 and an older, used 90mm Summicron. 

Fuji ISO 100 slide film.

Just dropped by to see if the VSL world HQ is locked up tight and bolstered with sandbags at every window. New Years Eve in Texas can get... rambunctious.

 All good here. Nothing to see until the 31st. But mostly from January first onward. Have fun out there. Don't get hurt, or arrested. Just remember what my favorite CEO's body guard used to say to his protectee when we traveled for work:

"Sir. Please be in your suite by 10 pm. Nothing good ever happens after ten."