The Khushfest Gallery. From downtown Austin. No mannequins were harmed in the making of this gallery. A Leica came close to peril.

 

Next time I'll just take a phone.

Ready for the after party.

When I left the house I had no clue that I'd stumble across an event which celebrates Indian culture, in Republic Park. I just grabbed a camera and lens that seemed to be appropriate for testing out my new VF-2 EVF. But I did find the park, and the event, and within minutes I had passed my initiation and my camera and self were covered with brightly colored powders. Once you've been "dusted" you might as well just let your hair down and photograph to your heart's delight. I did. Everyone was kind and in good humor. The powders were flying. The D.J. was blasting music. People were dancing, eating food from various authentic vendors and generally having a great time. 

The camera, and my clothes, cleaned up just fine. It was really just f8 (or f11) and be there. And that's when it's the most fun. Glad I didn't have time to "prepare" and fret over what gear to take. Anything would have been just fine. 

ON TOPIC: What camera do you unwittingly take to Khushfest? And what the heck is Khushfest 2024? Why...it's a celebration of color.

Camera post Khushfest.

I finished my chores early so I took myself out for a Sunday afternoon walk. I got a package yesterday and it contained a VF-2 EVF for use with the M240 cameras. I figured a walk through downtown would be a really nice way to check out the new (to me) finder. I finished out the outfit with a 28mm lens. 

I did my usual route and everything was pretty routine until I got close to Republic Park, between 5th and 6th Streets. Just west of Guadalupe St. Then I heard loud music and happy voices. There was an event this afternoon in the park. It was billed as "Khushfest 2024. A Celebration of Color." I couldn't resist. A celebration of the Indian "Holi". 

I waded into the crowd of people who were happily pelting each other with packets of brightly colored powders. I had a blast photographing and the 28mm lens just happened to be the perfect choice since I could easily use it at its hyperfocal distance, f8 or f11 and blaze away with Auto-ISO. 

I did not know, but strongly suspected, that anyone in the midst of the crowd was fair game to be powdered --- and powdered well. And yes, I was. I worried about the camera and lens for about twenty seconds and then decided "the heck with it." They came through with flying colors. Ha. Ha. 

I handed off my camera to a nice person, a father whom I had watched taking photos of his own family, and asked if he would take a few shots of my finely decorated self. He did a nice job. At least I thought so. Especially considering the model he had to work with.

Notes for future Khushfest activities: Bring along a change of clothes in the car. Bring a hat. Put a filter over the front of the lens. Bring a second camera with a longer lens for some variety. Put a filter on the front of that lens as well. DO NOT CHANGE LENSES in the middle of the crowd. Or at all. Until you've dusted and cleaned your camera rig. Have fun. Be happy. Don't worry about stuff.

Today is also the first time I have dropped a Leica. It was in a half case. I tripped over something and lost my grip on the camera. It hit the ground. It still works fine. Normal breathing quickly restored to the clumsy photographer. Note for future use: The strap goes around my neck when actually shooting... duh.

 

One of my favorite short poems by Shel Silverstein. Seems like a moment for it.

 

My God, people love to complain. I'm beginning to feel that some would complain about free money. Or the Fountain of Youth (not cool enough, wish it were carbonated....). I guess it's a function of wishing everything in one's life was perfectly created with them and only them in mind. Not wanting to learn anything new. Resistant to change. A perennial victim. 

When I came across this poem again it made me smile and then made me laugh. There is a limit to how much complaining we're willing to listen to. Especially from those who are most privileged...

I remember in years past when someone in the family complained too long we'd all look at each other and someone would say, "I finally had to close the lid." 

Always trying to find the fun side to things. 

There are exceptions where complaining might (might) be called for. Mostly around things you have no control over, at all. Like the weather. A meteor hitting your house. Volcanic eruptions. Maybe extra long flight delays. 

A camera button in a place that you don't like? On a camera you'll likely never buy? Some poor choices you've made that came back to bite you on the butt? Not bloody likely. 

It's that time in the replacement cycle when we look at our current laptop computers with open distain.

Ben with his first Apple Computer. 

Not nearly as fast as his new one. 

I have nothing but praise for the Apple MacBook Pro 13 inch laptop computer I bought back in 2018. It's been in about 25 different airports, spent many days in various cars and trucks, been hauled around to a couple hundred photo assignments and has never so much as shown me a "twirling beachball." Zero downtime.  But 2018 to 2024 is a long, long time in computer world. 

My kid recently replaced his even earlier MacBook Pro with one of the current 14 inch MacBook Pro machines with an M3 processor, 16 GB of Ram and a 2 Terabyte SSD. We talked about the performance differences and he was a bit more animated than he usually is. And he is a paragon of calm. An opposite personality from his father... In a word, he said the speed increases all over the new system are life changing. And he rarely traffics in hyperbole.

That planted the thought in my mind. And it was fertilized a few days later when one of my nice clients got in touch to talk logistics for an upcoming multi-day event project. Would I be able to sit down late in the evening, after the social function at the conference and edit, post process and delivery maybe 100 files for the staging company to use at the show open the next morning? This is something that comes up on a lot of shows and something I've done a lot of in the past. In fact, I bought the current laptop to do fast turn images during a conference for several WP Engine showcases. Shoot and turn. On those projects I'd photograph each speaker on the stage, head out to the press room half way through their individual presentation and have fresh images of the presentation to the AV team before the speaker wrapped. Tight deadlines indeed. 

I thought back and remembered every bottleneck and slowdown in the process from each earlier show. From the slow, USB-2 ingestion of large camera files to the slow export of hundreds of files on the back end. I also reminded myself that the battery in the older machine is also starting to show its age. As is the screen and the keyboard.

I checked the pertinent reviews and one source indicated that my older i5 Intel processor in the 2018 laptop runs my favorite photo applications about 15X slower than a new M3 processor machine. Not 15% but 15X. They had me at Space Gray. 

My biggest  project of the quarter is just a bit less than a month away which should give me ample time to get used to the new machine and to test it out with my various favorite Adobe software apps. The machine will see most of its use alternating between simple tasks at the dining room table (paying bills, reading the news, watching interviews on YouTube) and fast turn photo editing and file delivery logistics in Hotel ballrooms hither and yon. With a few instances of tethering on slow moving advertising shoots.

I know a fair number of you would rather cobble your own machines together from scratch in your workshops but maybe that's not such a good idea for a portable computer. Also, I couldn't find any Windows laptops with M3 processors in them. I'm sure the Windows world will catch up in a couple of years. Maybe even quicker. But most of the charm of staying in your lane, OS-wise, is the profound lack of learning curve. And I'm all about taking advantage of that. 

I ordered the machine from one of my photo retailers. They had a better price than I would have gotten ordering direct from Apple. And they've always done a great job with delivering exactly what I've ordered. 

I can't wait to get the new laptop. My fear is that it will be so much faster than my iMac Pro that I'll get sucked into ordering a replacement for that machine as well. 

Sadly, JC, that Rolls Royce might have to wait for next quarter. 

Oh the Zany things some photographers do when they have money in their pockets and spare time...

I used to go through life thinking I was the only one afflicted with the tendency to go shopping for stupid stuff when work slowed down and I had enough cash in my pockets. The wiser ones amongst you would probably take the opposite tack. You know, you'd look ahead and think "where's that next job going to come from? Batten the hatches! Circle the wagons! Break out the ramen! Lock down those resources!"  My first thoughts?  "Oh goodie! downtime. What's missing from my collection of gear that might be fun to shop for? And maybe useful on some project?" Followed by, "Ready-Set-Go!"

It turns out the I am hardly an anomaly amongst the professional photographers I know. Well, to be fair, the lines are pretty well drawn between the two types we've described in previous posts: Those who try to get through an entire career with the first system they invested in oh so many years ago, and those who live for today and rarely have met a lens, camera body or accessory that they didn't think they absolutely needed. At least in the moment. 

While I am not a hopeless case; I do have my lurking retirement taken care of, I found myself yesterday filling in the odds and ends that I MIGHT need to/want to use on a couple of upcoming projects. Projects of the type I have done many times before with any number of combinations of gear I already have in hand. In stock. Already nicely depreciated. Already broken in. But in the back of my mind is always the thought that there might be some new way to do the work better. Or at least in a more interesting way. And that would be interesting to me. Maybe this habit of mine is why one of my best friends drives an exciting sports car while I'm puttering around in a small, highly affordable SUV... albeit a reliable one!

But, I've had coffee with two different photographers this week who do the kind of work I do. And guess what? They have soft spot for almost reckless gear acquisition that mirrors mine pretty closely. Not always big and expensive German cameras but they little hesitation at picking up a new and curiously compelling flash trigger or a special filter. Sometimes a shift lens they coveted in the part of their career when money was tight and there were lots of more practical and immediate things to spend it on. Food and mortgages, for example.

They seemed to have no more hesitation about roaring forward with new purchases even though each of them is in the process of slowly disentangling themselves from day to day client work and casually strolling toward closing their businesses. Businesses which are almost impossible to sell to anyone else. 

One friend is in the midst of tricking out a complete Fuji medium format system, part of which he's owned since the day the new 100 megapixel camera became available but which he still hasn't quite gotten around to using yet. He's currently in Paris with his....iPhone 15 Pro. The other friend just took possession of his new, Leica M11P and a couple of choice lenses. Why? Because he was bored with his current equipment. Will he use the M11P for work? Probably not. He's an architectural photographer and mostly works with big MF cameras and shift lenses...

My case in point would be the tool I used to make these photographs. A 90mm Voigtlander APO lens on a Leica M body. Purchased just after the purchase of the 75mm lens for the same system. A system which I find less optimal for longer lenses than other camera systems I own. But...why not?

I talked about some of these new toys to another photographer friend who is on the opposite end of our buying spectrum. He's the guy nursing a 1998 Ford Explorer toward retirement. I'm not sure but I think he's still doing most of his commercial work with a Nikon D3X and a couple of the Nikon zoom lenses. He rolls his eyes whenever I say the word, "Leica" and sometimes breaks into a little speech about being "a responsible adult." I'm not sure either end of the spectrum makes more sense but I thought I'd mention this here because I seem to mention everything else here. 

I was inspired to write this because of a flurry of small purchases I made yesterday. I'm not sure I'd use it for my event projects (upcoming) but I thought it would be cool to have a Leica dedicated flash trigger so I ordered a Godox model made expressly for the current and recent Leica cameras. It's the first dedicated flash trigger that works directly with the many, many different models of Godox flashes which I already own and like. And while I was on the retailer's website it dawned on me that I might also want a Nikon off camera cord which, I am told, matches the pin configuration of the Leica flash stuff. All done, I thought. 

But I made the mistake of navigating to one of my favorite Leica dealers' websites and was so happy to find the Leica branded EVF accessory that works for the Leica M cameras I've recently picked up. It was used and in good shape so, of course it triggered the, "Might need in the future!" response and it too is coming across the country via one of the big delivery services. I hope it arrives quicker than last week's impulse purchase that came via the same transporter. 

Today's good news (non-photographic) was a fun and happy visit to my dermatologist. We did the full body inspection --- looking for lurking cancers of all kinds. Well, as they relate to my epidermis. He proclaimed that I won't be dying of skin cancer in the near future and made a future appointment for me six months from now. I was so delighted to not be on the edge of death that I rushed to my computer to try to better understand what I might desperately need in the near future from one of the alluring adult candy stores out there specializing in photography gear. 

While I like the look of these images (one above and more below)  I could have substituted the 90mm Sigma Contemporary lens and the SL2 camera and gotten images at least as good. But where would the fun be in that? Maybe that knowledge lays hidden in something penned by Roland Barthes... but I doubt it. He was not known as much of a camera aficionado. Not at all.

Note to anyone who might need advice navigating life and products: If it breaks twice just replace it.