A photo rich blog post. And...where do we start???

Added this morning (12-5): a really good, tangential video about this general theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QltxZ-vPMc

Good viewing.

Just a few years back. I've gotten into the habit of buying fresh flowers once a week. B. likes it and it makes the house seem more.... inviting. Shot with an older 50mm f1.4 Canon FD lens...

I just listened to a lecture about...happiness. Not from a spiritual point of view but from a neurological/pyschological point of view. Seems I was right all along. Adding friction to the modern, first world lifestyle adds more happiness. But it's more complicated than that. The premise is that life has always been hard. In the past, for millenia, the basic struggles for survival provided most (all?) of the friction of daily life. Finding enough food. Staying warm and uneaten by predators. Surviving all manner of disease. Avoiding participation in wars, etc. 

Since the middle of the last century life has remained a struggle but for profoundly different reasons. At a certain point in time,  in first world countries, most people didn't and still don't struggle to get enough food, or shelter and, at least in the USA and other prosperous countries, wars have been distant and not existentially dire on an individual level. So why is life still hard? In a word? Boredom. Most of our day to day lives, once we've attained adulthood, are...boring. Which is depressing. And since the human brain craves stasis it will push you to do what it can to counteract depression. Which, for current people, means distracting ourselves with entertainment. Virtual anti-boredom. Which mostly translates to scrolling through websites on our phones and computers, going through our daily routines and scrolling some more. While we might not be ecstatic while we're scrolling we are okay--- but the minute we stop the flow the realization of our boredom pushes us back to depression and the cycle continues. 

What's the antidote? Likely it's not to "find" meaning in life as much as it is to "create" a sense of meaning in life by choosing interesting things to do. It's likely why people attempt to climb Mt. Everest, sail across oceans, run marathons and, yes....even go out and take photographs. We're mostly attempting to do things that we can infuse with value or "meaning" that we also enjoy. And most of those undertakings are successful because, unlike endlessly watching sports on TV or the web, these activities attract us because doing them entails working against friction. Embracing friction. Working alongside friction. 

If a task is easy and mundane it's generally something we dislike. And avoid. But even if a task is tough, hard, requires increasing skill sets and also comes with a strong chance of failure it also comes with something to push against and to win against. And mostly that's the friction entailed in the process. 

Think of the happiest people you personally know. How many of them sit on a couch and browse the latest offerings from television and the web? If you really look you'll probably find that the happiest people in your lives are the ones who are busy doing work they value or which adds value to them and the people around them. Or they are the artists who are wholly committed to the near endless pursuit of their art. Or they are out challenging themselves. Pushing their hobbies from time frittered away to time spent challenging themselves to get to a higher level of achievement and proficiency. Done by working against friction. 

For some people regular work delivers the challenge and the friction people use to moderate the ups and downs of pleasure stimulation and post pleasure pain or emptiness. The stories are legend of the powerful men who are pushed into retirement, dolefully play golf and subsequently die 18 months later. The friction of the business challenge provided the mental physics to hold everything together. Remove the friction and you remove the sense of meaning that keeps people on track. The work and the challenges of work keep one from just modulating between the pleasure and pain cycles all day long and helps satisfy your brain's desire for homeostasis. Without constantly cycling between the momentary "happiness" of empty entertainment and the resulting sadness brought on by stopping the entertainment the brain can more easily maintain a healthier mid-line of emotional energy. There's something to be said for the even keel.

I'm probably going into the weeds here but the basic idea I believe is that re-introducing friction into the lives of the bored population would go a long way toward bringing back more authentic joy into people's lives. 

One of the reasons people are drawn to photography in general and street photography specifically is that the whole practice is fraught with ample opportunities to fail interspersed with sparse opportunities to succeed. But it's that very friction of the attempt that makes it personally worthwhile. And the value really is in the ongoing process and not the random trophies printed and hung on a wall.

To my mind depression and momentary relief from depression is mostly about the cycles of dopamine delivery and dopamine withdrawal. Little pleasures derived from scrolling the web, or being engaged in other entertainment episodes provides a bit of uplifting dopamine but as soon as the entertainment is withdrawn the dopamine drops away. What most of us need but few of us are educated to know is that the pursuits that challenge us consistently tend to smooth out the oscillating peaks and troughs, the amplitude between the ups and downs, and offer a way of living with more satisfaction. And that satisfaction creates a virtuous cycle in your own pursuit of meaning and your sense of fulfillment. 

The more passive your approach to life the less you are able to embrace the feeling that things make sense. The more consistently motivated you are to work on (non-passive) challenging undertakings the greater your long term satisfaction. Imagine how good it feels to write a book. All the way to the end. Or to make a wonderful quilt. Or to produce a well made movie. Or to create and run a successful company. These things may just hold the secrets of our own happiness. Process and completion.

 

Rehearsal with small cameras. Hmmm. 

We can feel good momentarily when watching tennis on TV --- if we like tennis. I don't really see the point. But if we play tennis instead of passively consuming it on screens we can feel the physical and mental challenges and also enjoy accrued benefits such as greater physical fitness and a (hopefully) increasing skill set. As well as a healthy social bonding with our (non-virtual) opponent. If we turn off the TV and our driver of momentary happiness comes solely from passively watching then we are doomed to be deflated, at least to a degree, the minute the program ends. There are no lasting benefits. No new skills learned. Nothing in our lives changed. When the drinking is over there's nothing left but the hangover....

Rome. 1995

Verona. 1986.

the more affluent people become the more they invite constant demands on their time and the more they get done. The happier they report being.  People at lower income demographics have, interestingly enough, more "leisure" time. But less happiness. It's an odd finding but there it is. 

Vatican City. 1986.

Barton Springs. Austin, Texas 2016

Paris. 1992.

Experiences create more lasting joy than objects or products. 

We're planting more and more Lamb's Ear in the back yard garden. 

Photographing is not just about photographing. It's a cultural survey of sorts.

It's exercise. It's a re-acquaintance with where you are and why you are there. 

It's an exploration into human nature. It's a pleasant way to learn about the dynamic graphics of making images --- which most of us can only really learn by trial and error. Right?

It's a chance to roam free like the animals of the Serengeti. The roaming is

both a feature and a benefit....

Children have a sense of creativity that, in too many adults, has been crushed, defeated and killed off. Maybe we should believe in the resurrection of the creative spirit and bring it back into our own adulthood. Beats making fun of the liberal arts majors...

Design evolves faster than viruses....

Okay. Now I know where I am. 

the Ancient Greeks were always at war with some other country. 

Maybe that was the friction that created the next 2,000 years of civilization. 

The friction of Jo's is that of finding any nearby parking...

Naked women statues everywhere. including in this lobby of a Montreal building.

I guess that's friction too.

Getting myself steeled up to do a bit of self brain surgery. 

A few less I.Q. points will certainly add some much needed friction points...

this camera is much more difficult to use well than most current AF, auto everything cameras. 

Maybe that's why I like the images I get from it so much better and it may be why many of the people who pooh-pooh this sort of camera in favor of ultra-auto cameras tend to give up the pursuit so quickly. 

Same. Hard work feels better than drifting around with floaties.

The more challenges life throws at you the more adventures you have under your belt. The more good stories you can tell. The more the simple pleasures of life provide deeper enjoyment. Safe and sound is boring...and will make you depressed. 

Cameras at the ready!!! Charge!!!

My brief affair with current medium format digital cameras has come to an end. I tried to make it work. Really, I did.

 

I am in no way a neophyte when it comes to medium format digital cameras and the general practices of using them. The image above was done with one of Mamiya's attempts, circa 2007-2009. As a camera reviewer/writer for Studio Professional Magazine I enjoyed extended use of various Phase One cameras and Leaf Aptus cameras. I even spent some time with the Leica S system.  The difference between the CCD sensor-ed cameras from earlier days and the current CMOS offerings by Fuji, in their GFX line, rests on two things. The first is the the increase in both resolution and high ISO noise performance while the second is the $10,000 to $20,000 price drop from the bleeding edge days until today. You can now buy a used Fuji 50+ megapixel "medium format" (just barely...) camera for around $2,000 to $2,500; depending on the mood of the markets.

When one of my friends bought the GFX50Sii he thought he'd give it a try and see if it was much better than his current high res digital camera which, like most others, is based on a 35mm sensor size. Being affluent and able to turn on a dime he decided in short order that a newly released version of the 100 megapixel Fuji camera might suit him better. He jumped on the new product and offered me his scantly used 50+ megapixel model for a bargain price. I bought some extra batteries because I'd heard through the (accurate) grapevine that the bigger Fuji cameras sucked down battery power voraciously. That's also quite true. 

When the camera stores had sales on Fuji GFX lenses I bought the 50mm f3.5 and the "kit-ish" 35-70mm zoom. I quickly decided that 70mm was not going to be long enough for portraits so I looked around and played with a number of candidates. Having spent most of my budget for cameras on various  Leica camera bodies and lenses I looked for older lenses that might fit the bill for the MF camera. I stumbled onto the Pentax 645 AF lenses and I have to say that several of them are at least as good, optically, as some of the popular Fuji GFX lenses. I'll quickly add, for the naysayers, that none were as good, wide open, as the Fuji 110 f2.0. That is a nice lens. Pricey and heavy but optically very nice. 

I used the camera and the lenses on a number of involved photoshoots and, for the most part, I found the files to be at least as good as the images coming out of the Leica SL2 that I've owned for the last four years. But not much better. Certainly not remarkably better. If pushed I might say that the difference added up to about 1 or 2 % --- if every parameter was optimal and I could work with great care. 

But here's the deal. The Fuji GFX50Sii just didn't feel anywhere as sturdy and reliable as the camera I'd been using. Even the SD card slots are upside down (two is on the top, one is on the bottom. The opposite of every other camera with two card slots that I've used...). Even with Fuji lenses it's not a focusing speed demon. It makes contrast detect AF Leica SLs look fast by comparison. Then there is the unreliable performance from the camera if it is ever used in direct sun with an ambient temperature over 85° Fahrenheit. I've had the high temperature/thermometer icon go on sometimes in as quickly as fifteen minutes on a hot day. Go out shooting on any day with the "mercury" over 100f and you will quickly find that you are shooting on borrowed time. 

And then there are the batteries. The charged life reminded me of the painful days of the early Sony A7 series cameras and their tiny, weak batteries. Most pros I met out in the field who were shooting with those early Sony cameras (myself included) had a handful,  or maybe even a dozen spare batteries waiting for their 15 minutes of fame in one of the cameras before exhausting themselves and having to embrace a recharge. And, glory be, my Fuji GFX was in the same ballpark. 

Finally, the menus suck. Never drive a car that's faster and better than the one you own or you'll be disappointed with yours for as long as you own it. In the camera world I might say, where menus are concerned, that you should never shoot with a current Leica SL series camera if you plan on sticking with a Fuji GFX. The difference in menus is about the same as either having a clear and concise interface versus learning to read Klingon presented via a nasty and poorly designed font. Outrageous that menus have become so unwieldy and complex. And ugly.

While I got some good work out of the GFX I'll be un-modest here and say that it's mostly because I understand most camera operation basics and I spent time getting the lighting just right --- which is camera independent. When I finished my big group shot of the sixteen doctors with the downtown skyline in the background, last month, I was pretty much over any good feelings I may have had about the camera. 

The camera and the attendant lenses have now all been sold. The warm and happy feeling that this provides me is ... comfortable. If a job comes up that can't be done with an SL2, and a sensor with nearly 50 megapixels, then it's probably not the right job for me anymore. And that makes me happy. 

The ongoing purge of gear is all part of my current mania to pare down the excess inventory, simplify my professional and hobbyist life, and to stop thinking that I need to have every conceivable base covered by the appropriate photo gear. Might have been true when we were all professional generalists back in the 1980s and 1990s but now? Forget about it. 

Additional silver lining of no longer being a "Digital Medium Format" photographer? A lot more space in the storage cabinets. Who knew that negative space would be more comfortable?

The reason so many of us might be attracted to medium format digital cameras, especially since they are now so affordable, has to be our memory of the film MF cameras with their generous 6x6cm or 6x7cm film "sensors".. The geometry and size of the film formats gave us a lot more than just resolution. It also provided us with a different look and a different ramping of depth of field --- which made many subjects look so much more elegant. The current Fuji MF sensors are less than half the size of those in their film ancestors and not that much bigger than the 35mm size of most full frame digital cameras. Add faster lenses for the smaller sensor cameras and you've got marginal differences in the looks you can get. 

I'm waiting until some company designs and brings to market an affordable 6x6cm digital sensor medium format camera. That would be MF the way the photographic gods intended. And a sensor size that would make much more interesting photographs.

In the meantime I might go over and check out the new Hasselblad offerings. I hear the MF bodies are beautifully designed, feel much more solid, and the menu layout is even better than that in the current Leicas. If that's even possible.... But maybe I'll just continue to enjoy my four year journey amongst various Leica offerings. They are much more fun. Just sayin.

Thanks for reading. 

Learned a bit of sharpening finesse from a video on YouTube by James Popsys. Old dog. New tricks.

What a wonderful day in Austin, Texas. It was 42° when I crawled out of bed and staggered to the kitchen to make a revitalizing cup of coffee. I stayed up too late last night reading a riveting book. Couldn't put it down. After getting enough caffeine coursing through my veins I pulled on a new pair of Timberland hiking boots, grabbed a favorite sweatshirt and headed out for adventure. Or, at least a good walk...

I chose an underutilized Leica SL2-S camera and a perennial favorite lens; the Sigma 45mm f2.8, and headed into downtown. My primary goal is always to have fun taking photographs but today I had the secondary goal of breaking in the new pair of boots. 

Yesterday, during some much needed downtime, I watched a new video that UK photographer, James Popsys, posted on his YouTube channel. He was going over post processing and he called out something that I do too often as being a quick way to ruin good photographs. I have tended, in the past, to use a plus setting on the clarity slider in Lightroom far too often. I think subconsciously substituting the visual effect of more midrange constrast when what I really want, most times, was more intelligent sharpening. I made note to wean myself off the clarity slider and then James hit me with a perfect tip about sharpening. 

I learned to sharpen way, way back in the early Photoshop days when some of the tools were more like blunt hammers than fine scalpels. I barely even noticed when Abobe added masking to the sharpening tools and have ignored it until James flung a dose of revelation at me. I really didn't understand what purpose masking would serve in sharpening (even though the Photoshop version is called "Unsharp Mask."). 

Using the masking slider in Lightroom allows you to fine tune what tones/intersections will be sharpened and what will be left alone. Leave the masking at zero and the program tries to sharpen everything. Not just the subject of the image that you might want sharpened. But when you sharpen everything you also end up sharpening noise and artifacts. Which then makes you dependent on the added step of messing with noise reduction when, many times, you don't really need to. If you use the masking slider well.

The secret is so simple. More slider = larger details and tonal intersections get sharpened instead of tiny and visually inconsequential data. Less slider = increasingly includes smaller details such as the aforementioned noise in the file. Wanna see how much or little the masking slider will affect? Hold down the option key (on a Mac) while sliding the control and you'll see an inverted, black and white version of the image and you can see how, when you move the slider to the right, it ignores smaller details and instead only changes bigger details. It's a revelation. 

What I found right off the bat with my new information was that my skies looked more natural and less crunchy. The big details that draw one's eyes were satisfyingly sharp while the small details that don't really register stayed smoother and more realistic. Here's a link for James's video covering this and a number of other post processing tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUbzmWfQFmk&t=825s

He has also convinced me to pay much more attention to luminance in the HSL panels when fine-tuning color in files. But you can watch that part for yourself. 

I tried using the masking in sharpening on all the files I processed from my walk today and was impressed with the improved subtly of the finished files. See what you think.

Today I started my walk by heading over to Torchy's Tacos on Second Street for a bacon, egg and cheese taco on a flour tortilla. That, and a small cup of coffee. Business was slow there this morning. I guess everyone was already out shopping. Being as how it's Black Friday and all. My taco came out quickly and it was enormous. Packed with eggs. Overflowing. Fork necessitating. Napkin swamping. And delicious. 

It was just the protein hit I was looking for. I headed East and dropped by the JW Marriott Hotel to use their superb restroom facilities before walking across the Congress Ave. Bridge and heading South toward the trendy shopping and dining area they now called SOCO. (Yeah. Kinda dumb. South Congress. Right. We get it.). The whole half mile of the street with the fashionable shops and "fine" dining choices was packed with people. Mostly visitors from out of town, judging by their excitement at seeing everyday excesses of Austin's post-hippie-cowboy culture.

I shot a mix of black and white and color and had a blast sliding through the crowds with as much grace as I could muster. Like photographic ballroom dancing. At the end of my long walk the temperature for the day crested around 65° and the sun was lighting up everything. I headed home to see if there was any pecan pie left. In a fit of muddled but optimistic thinking I decided a big wedge of pie would make a perfect lunch. And it did.

the mannequins are ready for the holidays.

and the holiday parties. If you blow this up every single sequin on the dress is well defined and edgy.

For part of the walk I was interested in trying out my black and white chops.

Since I am happily well adjusted (mentally) I found that I could easily switch between black and white and color when the subjects would benefit from one mode or the other. It's not that hard. 

Two things I have never understood about Yeti. Their advertising and their prices.

But here's their Austin showcase. Right at the intersection of S. Congress Ave. and Barton Springs Rd. 

deep in the heart of SOCO I found a bevy of mannequins surrounded by holiday decor. I tried out my skills. The images would look better, I think, if blow up to a couple of feet by a couple more feet. 

Your call.

holiday wall art at the famous Continental Club. 

That's where we shot the Billy Joe Shaver music video that won 

the country music video awards one year. I was the DP on that project.

It was very cool. Steve Mimms was the director.

Kendra Scott wasted no time in getting here holiday decor in gear.

just the present with which to ingratiate yourself with your favorite spouse or mistress....

interesting packages of tea at one shop in SOCO...

Purchased one and sent it to a blogger who tends to overthink... a lot of things. 

Nope. Not me. I rarely think things through. Just ask my attorney...

Youthful appreciation of art on the street.

A new way to shoot on the street. Set the camera for f8. Set the shutter speed to 1/500th. Set ISO to a wide-ranging automatic setting. Blaze way with abandon. Next time we'll work on finding more interesting subjects...

way to block the entire sidewalk with one extended family. Not mine...

the sign in the center says it all....

A couple at the street facing bar at Jo's Coffee. Just chilling out and watching the endless show of people walk by. Pretty good idea.

If it's under 68° the big, puffy down jackets are a must have!!!!

Always wanted to see what ISO 12,500 looked like in one of the restrooms at Jo's. 

I guess it looks like this...

This building, on my route, is a complete mystery to me. No signage. No windows. No signs of human activity. maybe the headquarters of an invading, superior race of lizard people? Eerie. 

I know these balls of concrete exist to prevent people from driving their cars and trucks into the sides of buildings but they still seem out of place to me. I guess it takes balls to deal with bad traffic...

That's it for today. A marvelous walk. With luck we'll be back in the pool tomorrow getting some real exercise. I've got some pie pounds I need to work off. I think a three hour hike was a good start. Now off looking to see if there is still more pie. Pecan pie. The best pie.

I did  search on the web to find out what the human limits per day of pecan pie might be but my research came up empty. I guess the real number is....unlimited.

Hope you all had a fun and vibrant holiday filled with all kinds of food and photos. Skip black Friday and wait for the 2029 models to arrive. That's one plan.
 

Oh darn. Did I forget the affiliate links again? Dear me...