Hey. Austin photographers. Just an event FYI. Eeyore's Birthday Party is this Saturday, April 26th. At Pease Park. Starting a 11:00 a.m. and ending at Dusk. Free to the public

 

Eeyore's Birthday Party comes from the "Winnie the Pooh" stories. There is a glum donkey named, Eeyore and his friends throw him a birthday party in an attempt to cheer him up. A couple of UT Austin English professors decided (about 60 years ago) to throw a small party in the park as a celebration of Spring and a tradition began. 

Now, some 60 years later the party has grown from a couple of classes of English students to thousands and thousands of Austinites. There are drum circles. Dancing people. Costume contests for kids. Unicycle jousting. Face painting and lot of food and drinks. The smell of marijuana smoke wafting down from the hills just to the west of the open park space can be, at times, almost overwhelming. But never an issue for the event goers. 

One year I stayed a long time in the park and walked through the wooded area where people were lighting up a number of times. At the end of the event I walked back to my car and realized that I probably shouldn't be driving. Second hand high. I called the CFO of the vast VSL organization and she met me in mid-Clarksville and drove me home. Really good photos that year. 

All of the food vending and assorted things like face painting for a fee are run by non-profit charities and it makes for Eeyore's Birthday Party being an excellent fund raiser for those organizations. 

Don't bring any weapons, glass bottles, or bad attitudes. It's all about having fun and letting whatever hair you have left down. 

Cameras are welcome as are good manners and consideration of people who don't want to be immortalized on your Instagram feed. 

I hope to see a bunch of fun loving Austin photographers on Saturday. But if you live in NY or Paris or whatever you are also welcome to drop by. Might want to start planning now....

How do they sell Nikon cameras in 2025? The answer is: By putting them in the hands of a half dozen or so "influencers" and dropping the "influencers" into a groovy pool area at a trendy, restored motel in South Austin. Complete with models and a lighting crew. Hey! Maybe you could do this too!!!

 

You've seen photographs here of the Austin Motel many times. I walk by there on one of my camera walks on the South Congress Ave. route. I've seen a lot of fun and strange stuff at the motel over the years but I hadn't seen the pool used as a location to make photographs to sell cameras. 

At first I thought I'd stumbled into a shoot for some product or a promotion for the hotel itself. But something didn't look quite right. Instead of one "hot shot", super cool photographer the pool deck was littered by at least half a dozen tattooed, young photographers, supported by an additional crew of people who actually knew how to light stuff with electronic flashes, all hovering around a small selection of models in swim wear, all hoping they'd be the one to get the stellar shot of the day. And hoping it would be different from everyone else's highly individual shot.

Each photographer was outfitted with a brand spanking new Nikon Z5ii and a Nikon zoom lens. It was fun to watch but so, so different from any commercial advertising shoot I've been on in the last 40+ years. Gina from Nikon was gracious when I asked her what was happening. We chatted for a few minutes. She insisted that these photographers were so good that all their images would be amazingly different from one another.

I stood back and photobombed their chaotic set with my old, obsolete, Leica SL2 and then I walked on down the street in search of new mannequin photos. Here. Join the fun!!!

Model: "Now, which of the three cameras am I supposed to look at???"

Setting up the Profoto strobes just in case the influencers need em. 

Stay tuned. I'm sure every influencer will have their highly personal vision up on the Instagram feed in no time. Group hug!!!!

Added: An older post of mine that seems to be trending today. Bizarre coincidence? : https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-role-of-social-media-influencers-in.html

OT: Rough day. But good in a few ways.

 

Author in a factory in Mexico. 

I think people generally delight in routines. I know that I do. Routines eliminate the anxiety of anticipating the unknown as it nears you like a panther stocking you in the night. I like to go out of town to conferences and trade shows and I also enjoy advertising assignments that take me to places I'd never get around to visiting on my own. But the re-entry is always a bit annoying. Either because I've put off unpleasant tasks until a job or project is over or because I've put off a doctor's appointment or financial task. Today was the day when I handled things I'd put off in anticipation of my time in Santa Fe. 

We don't have swim practice on Mondays so Tuesday was my real re-entry day; post travel. Sure, I was at  swim practice on Friday and Saturday of last week but the Easter holiday put a crimp in my swim schedule on Sunday and Monday. So those other two days didn't really count.

Today's workout seemed normal to the people around me but I felt like I was trying to drag a small truck up a steep hill with my bare hands. Lots and lots of freestyle sets on tighter and tighter intervals. The kind of stuff that feels fun in your twenties but seems like real work in your late 60s. Matt, in the next lane over, set a mean pace. A couple seconds rest in between sets. Tight, tight intervals. And speed work.

By the time we finished our hour we'd covered about 3400 yards. Not bad but even just a week out of the pool is enough to make you feel the workout. It's tough until you get your feel of the water back.

After swimming and a quick breakfast I made a trip downtown to my bank to make a deposit and also quickly catch up my banker on last week's bank conference. After that I was on my way through highway construction and beastly traffic to visit my dermatologist. I wanted to know if a spot on my face was something not to worry about or something that, left unattended, might kill me. 

Dr. Carrasco doesn't beat around the bush. "We need to scalpel that puppy off and then biopsy it." Oh joy. A shot of pain killer in the cheek and some quick work on me with a sharp knife. I'll know in a week if it's just a creative actinic keratosis or some sort of scary basal cell cancer that will require a bit more digging and scrapping and, maybe some sutures. While he had me in the chair he also offered to blast a seborrheic keratosis he found behind my left ear with a few healthy applications of liquid nitrogen. You know, just to make things a bit more fun. My only question for procedures like this is: "Will I be able to go to swim practice in the morning?" The Doctor, knowing me pretty well, asked, "Chlorinated or not?" I assured him that the pool was perfectly chlorinated (whatever that was supposed to mean) and he gave me approval to go swim. What's the worst thing that can happen? Cue the flesh eating bacteria...

One thing I like about my relationship with my dermatologist: I called yesterday to set up an appointment and I walked into the office the next day for analysis and treatment. That's service I like!!!

After my exciting experience at the office of minor skin torture I dropped by the house, thought about taking a nap, but got a text from the production company I worked with in SF last week. They wanted to know what to do with my back-up case full of Leica cameras and Leica lenses. I got in the car and drove from my house in the SW of Austin to their offices in the NE quadrant of Austin. Traffic was about par for the course in our fair city. The Mopac expressway was stop and go almost all the way there. 

Now I am back in the office and very clearly thinking that a nap would indeed be just the thing. I'll go take care of that right now....

Now that the numbing agent has worn off my cheek hurts. Two things I wish I had done more diligently during my teen years in Austin (and beyond): Flossed more and used more sunscreen. Do those with relentless application and you'll probably live well into your 150s...

Happy to have the Leica inventory re-united. All good and all happy.

Added: Just heard from the guys at the Leica Store in Miami. The tariffs are about to bite. LSM sent a note that prices will be heading north on May 1st. And that includes prices on anything coming into inventory after the 1st; even if it was pre-paid. That includes special orders, et al. 

Leica obviously isn't the only company to respond to the tariffs. Pretty much everything in the photography world is about to get at least 10% more expensive for USA photographers. Many of you won't feel the sting but for us hard working, low paid professionals it will probably feel less than optimal. More painful. Couple it with the precipitous drop in the value of the dollar compared to other currencies and you can see that we're heading in a direction that will eventually make almost every camera buyer here uncomfortable. 

Remedy? Prepare to be happier than ever with the gear you already have!!! Feeling smart that I spent the last four or five years over-buying Leica stuff....