OT: Hats. Favorite hats. Why you should have collection of hats.

 

Back in December of 2020 I had the distinct displeasure of undergoing Mohs surgery for a squamous cell cancer spot on my left check. It took a while for the scar to heal but I got some pleasure out of explaining to the curious that I had gotten the scar in a knife fight, in a bar. For the achingly literal readers out there: I have never been in a knife fight and it's been years since I've been in a bar....

The procedure went well and in time the scar vanished to nothingness. I did some research around the time of the event and was a bit unhappy to discover that having one malignant squamous cell cancer tends to predict about a 50% chance of having at least one more. Oh joy. 

And here's how it starts: one day while your gorgeous valet is sitting in your lap shaving your face she notices a very small, hard bump on your face that wasn't there before. You head in to see your general practitioner. He looks at the offending bump closely. Really closely. "Hmmmmm." The sound of which is never really comforting... "We can try freezing that off with liquid nitrogen but... if it comes back you need to go and see Dan." Dan is the name of my dermatologist. It's recommended that everyone who grew up in Texas swimming every day with nothing but Johnson and Johnson baby oil to protect their skin put a good dermatologist on retainer. If your genetics are Anglo/North European/painfully white guy and you spent a lot of unprotected time out in the sun in your youth there will come a time when having your skin guy on speed dial comes in handy. 

A week later I'm in Dan's office. It feels strange to be in my dermatologist's office completely clothed. Usually I am there for a twice yearly, full body skin check. Just standing there in the cool breezes while Dan and one of his wonderful and curious nurses spend time looking for one of those feared melanomas...

Dan looks at the small bump and suggests that we slice it out with a scalpel and send it off to some lab for a biopsy investigation. He jabs me with a giant, hollow knitting needle full of some variation of Lidocaine right in the cheek. Ouch!!! And when he is convinced that the nervous response in the area is temporarily deadened he comes in with the sharp knife, following up with a deft cauterization of the area so I don't spew blood all over the upholstery and the carpets. (There are no carpets in the exam rooms. Too hard to sterilize. But it sounded good when I was typing out that sentence).

Dan took off his rubber gloves and consoled me with my potential options, should the biopsy turn out not to be everything I wished for. I could choose from surgery, 15 visits for radiation therapy, a crude cut and paste, or I could just wait until the tiny dot metastasizes and I eventually die a painful and unnecessary, early death. We would have to await the results of the biopsy before we got to have fun making choices. Sadly I did not see choice for "new camera therapy" wherein I purchase a new M11-P Safari version camera and the magic aura of the new acquisition is powerful enough to ...... yeah. That was never on the table.

I got the text about eight days later. Come in on such and such a day. "The test came back positive and we need to take another look and weigh our options". My options. Really? No suggestion that a bit of "Industrial German Therapy" might work? In a pinch? No? Drat.

So, that's long lead-in but I couldn't figure out how to subtly refer to my vast knowledge of English literature, (Thanks! "Uni") and vaguely relatable quotations so I decided to not squander your time with pithy parsing of 18th century, achingly boring nods to antiquated writers and just go into the meat of the matter. Here it is:

It's never too late to learn to love sunscreen, long sleeve shirts and hats with brims sufficient to provide a buffer between direct sun, the skin on your face and the tops of your ears. At 69 years old most of the damage has already been done and is just percolating up as the result of too many long swims, midday, on balmy August afternoons. The hats, it seems are the best all around preventative if you buy the right ones. Yes, the Tilley hats will work as long as you are emotionally immune to fashion ridicule. But there are nicer solutions out and about. Even the mannequins are quick to "hat up" in the Summer months. 

While baseball style hats cover thinning hair, protect the scalp, etc. they have one other advantage for photographers. The shade of the bills works to make viewing what ever is on the back screen that much easier. Look! A rare X100V !!! Seen in the wild. Theses caps are not optimal for top of ear protection, etc.

A nice brim. For sure.

A ready resource for those who left the house and forgot their hats. 

Hats are everywhere. 

The downside of the baseball cap style is the extra effort required when shooting verticals. 

Your choices are either to remove the hat or reverse it and look like a "bro." 

Which will then require you to say, "dude" with alarming frequency.

I often shoot these silhouettes to send along to my dermatologist as proof of my adherence to his dictates concerning prevention. Thus far no discount of fees has been forthcoming. But I did get a free pen on my last visit. Seemed like a party favor to me. But it's probably the wrong kind...

This is the current camera of choice for VSL special photo ops in sunshine. 

Just reflective enough to reduce thermal build up but not so reflective as to bounce excessive UV  back up at the user...

No hat and freshly mown hair. Recipe for more wealth transfer to Dan. 

The all around good hat option for walking around in the sun and heat with a camera. 

Or even without a camera. Or with two cameras. Maybe also a small backpack so 

I can pack a lunch. And take along an assortment of pens. And a little leather notebook 

so I look more expeditionary and literate. At least to a point. 

Don't you wish Leica made lenses for eyeglasses. They'd be so good we'd all have 20/10 vision in both eyes. And never need diopters ever again. Might be pricey. Especially with the tariffs. 

this is the current preferred hat for me. It breathes. It's inexpensive. 

It has a wide brim that blocks overhead sun light. The black band accents 

the black finish of the classic SL. It's all good. 

I went to swim practice this morning. I applied a lot of sunscreen.  Both my lane partners were back from various trips and (injury not substance) recovery efforts. It was a glorious day that started out in the 60s. I slathered on SPF 50, water resistant sunscreen. (It's it odd that cameras and sunscreen are both "water resistant" instead of "waterproof" Right?). The early morning sun doesn't hit lane five until about the last 25 minutes of practice. Thank goodness. 

1,000 yard warm up and then continuing sets of 75 yard I.M. swims (25 butterfly, 25 backstroke, 25 breaststroke) broken up by fast 200 yard freestyle swims. Endlessly. Even with all the stroke work we did get in a bit over 3,000 yards in our practice. A good warm up for this afternoon's run (or jog, depending on the heat). 

Stay safe out there. Even if you do choose to wear a dorky hat. Better to be teased by pesky humans than lashed and tortured by Mother Nature.

Nice lens on that last frame, by the way...

My favorite post about the technical side of photography. Really. And one of my favorite portraits...ever.

 https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2011/03/um-shut-up-and-shoot-social-hours-over.html

You can hardly ever go wrong if you photograph what you love...

On Mondays there is no swim practice in the morning. Mondays B. and I go for long walks through the neighborhood. We listen to the sweet song of the grackles, the lullabies of the blue jays and the velvety tones of gas powered leaf blowers off in the distance. We go up steep hills and down gentle grades. I have longer legs and I change my gait to match hers. It's a good time to talk over future plans, finances, the week's menus and whatever new project we want to inflict upon the house or the gardens.

Today was a different Monday. B. decided to vary the routine and walk around part of Lady Bird Lake, on the hike and bike trail. It was a good idea. A good change of venue. I started planning the route in my head. We'd park on the north side of the lake. Up a hill and a couple blocks away from where the train tracks rush through the middle of town. From the north side of the train tracks all the way down a dirt path and around the back of two big apartment towers there is a passageway leading to Mañana Coffee and then, beyond, to the lake and the trails. It was my plan to cross the tracks and take the dirt path behind the building on the West and then, after transiting the coffee shop, to cross the walking bridge and hit the trail on the other side. Which we did. 

It was an unusual day for the first week of May. The weather has been unseasonably cool and now wet. There were soft breezes spinning along most of the trail but when we got to the farthest point, where we cross back over to the North side of the lake on the pedestrian bridge that runs under the Loop One highway, there were cool, dry gusts of wind that threatened again and again to blow our hats right off our heads and into the dark water some forty or fifty feet below.

The section of the hike and bike trail we walked on is about 3.5 miles in all. There are some gentle hills and almost all of the pathway is covered by tall trees currently covered with leaves. The trail wasn't crowded today as it usually is during the weekends. Mostly, today, it was solitary runners and then pairs of women in running gear or black stretchy pants and Hoka shoes talking to each other continuously as they walked along. 

While most of the women were locked in pleasant conversations the lone men chose to run slowly instead of walking quickly but no matter their speed they stayed the course with serious and uncomfortable expressions on their faces. For them the orbit around the trail was more a duty than a pleasure.

When B. and I completed our route we stopped in at Mañana Coffee to buy some drinks. I have noticed lately that when I am out by myself or with B. the counter help or staff at coffee shops, restaurants or retailers have started to treat me with what I would call "deference for old age." They deliver questions in a slower and clearer, and maybe slightly louder way. They presume that I won't understand what's in an espresso based coffee drink. Or how to maneuver through a checkout touch screen. And they are unusually, almost painfully, more pleasant to me than they were to the person ahead of them in line. I attempt to fit in. I don't want special treatment. I tap my phone on their terminals to effect Apple Pay. I preemptively ask for whole milk in my cappuccinos as that's how the purists make them. But the outward expression of age is becoming insurmountable. No matter how I try to fit in it's obvious to the people in their twenties that I look like I came from their parent's or grandparent's generations. 

At one coffee shop near the university campus, a shop where I imagine they see a person over 50 about once a month, a kindly young woman behind the counter sized me up one day and charged me half price for the coffee and tossed in a pastry at "no charge" because they were "day old." I imagine she was trying to do a "poor" senior citizen a favor. I didn't want to minimize her act of kindness so instead of using my phone to pay, or pulling out an American Express Black card, I fished around in the wallet I carry and found enough cash with which to pay. She gave me a sad, supportive smile after she gave me my change. I didn't know what else to say.

B. and I sat at a small, outdoor table and enjoyed our drinks and also a warmed, chocolate croissant (or pain au chocolat ) to celebrate what may or may not become a new Monday routine. As we sat and watched younger people arrive, order drinks and then nuzzle up with their laptops computers and ever present phones I told B. that on several visits here for coffee I had finished up and started heading for home when I heard thunder and, as I walked along the air turned colder and the wind picked up. By the time I'd gotten to the top of the hill, following up the familiar dirt path, my forward progress was thwarted by a cargo train that was pulling hundreds of cars and which took seven minutes to pass by. Seven minutes during which all I could do was to stand and wait. And that in the middle of the waiting it started to rain. 

At first there were small, ineffectual drops. Not much harder than a drizzle. But as the train thundered along in front of me, blocking my path, the rain started falling harder and the thunder of the train was joined by peals of thunder from the skies, along with lightning as a visual accompaniment. 

As I stood waiting the skies grew darker and darker until the automatic lighting on various buildings started to flicker on. Giving the impression of a winter dusk though it was, at the time, midday.

I always walk with a hat and B. knew this. I continued to tell her about those episodes and touched on how I took that rain spattered hat off my head to use it to cover the ever-present camera I usually had hung over my left shoulder. A hat is a convenient camera cover to protect the body and lens from the intrusion of ever more insistent rain. Sadly, hats only work on one's head or in the protection of a valued camera but not both at the same time.

Once the lumbering train cleared from my path I walked briskly back to my car a few blocks away, forging a head through a rain that felt vengeful, thoroughly soaked by the time I got to the car. I popped the trunk and got out one of the swim towels that live there and put it down on my leather car seats to keep them from getting too wet. 

After I related the story to B. and after we'd mostly finished our coffees I looked to the Southwest and saw that the sky had darkened and the wind was picking up. "It's time to go." I said. We headed toward the dirt path that would take us over the train tracks and back to the car. A light rain started to fall. As we were heading up the hill we heard a train coming up the tracks from South Austin and making the turn to head to the West and finally to the North. We weren't fast enough to cross the tracks before the trains raced in front of us so we were constrained to stand back and wait for it to come through. 

There were three engines in the front of the train. And then three more in the middle of the train and, in all, a nearly endless stream of cars. The trained slow a bit at the same time that the rain fell harder. I pulled my hat off my head and wrapped it as well as I could around the Leica M240 I was carrying with me. B. laughed and said that this is exactly what the story I was telling just ten minutes ago predicted would happen. After what seemed like an hour the train passed by and we walk briskly to the temporary dry sanctuary of an apartment building on the other side of the tracks. Other people had ducked under the overhang of the roof to find respite from the downpour. The young couple next to us had their phones out and were checking the weather. "Any chance it will slow down soon?" I asked. "Nope. The weather radar looks pretty bleak for now. Probably hard rain for the next hour. Hour and a half." The man said.

I told B. that I didn't want to wait and if it was okay with her could we walk through the rain to the car and just get it over with. She said that would be fine with her. Like an adventure of sorts. It's not often that we find ourselves stuck out in a downpour together, after all. 

We hustled back to the car and B. hopped in while I pulled some fresh swim towels out of the truck. We dried off before starting the short trip home and congratulated each other on a fun and totally different Monday morning. I had fun doing this. It's nice to have the privilege of not having to show up at a job and work all day. Rain or shine.

It's even more fun to have a best friend who is also not hampered, schedule-wise, by the constraints of a job. 

What am I reading now? I'm a big fan of the poetry of Billy Collins. I have a copy of his collection called, Sailing Alone Around the Room, and I'm just busting into his latest collection, a book called, Water, Water. Poems. His work is accessible and fun. Modern yet unencumbered by academic fluff and inside jokes. He is the "Anti-Barthes." A good poet for people who don't need therapy.

New camera acquisitions? None that I know of. The new stuff I'm remotely interested in isn't shipping anytime soon. But one friend is saving a Leica Tri-Elmar lens for me in case I suddenly want it. He's leaving for Mexico in a week and plans to leave the lens with me, perhaps to tweak my attraction to it. 

I was looking at battery prices for Leica this morning. There was a thread on one of the Leica fora that was started months ago about the scarcity of new batteries for the M240. Apparently Leica decided at one point to take the battery for that camera out of retail inventory and make it a "parts order" sort of deal. Apparently so many people ordered new batteries that Leica decided to double back and make it a stocking, retail item once again.

After reading this I thought to order one more, just in case. I went to B&H and was surprised to see a price listed as $90 each. The last time I ordered one it was $215. Heck, even a CL battery is more expensive right now. I ordered two of the M240 batteries. They are back-ordered so we'll see if and when they actually ship. We'll also see if the $90 price is a mistake or not. 

When I started buying replacement batteries for the Q2, SL and SL2 they were $285 each. Then Leica improved the batteries for use in the SL3 and Q3. They have more capacity. And the price for these replacements (which are fully backward compatible with the older cameras) dropped to $200. Well, not anymore! B&H now has them listed for $385 each. Hello tariffs!!!

Tomorrow's schedule is already packed. Swim practice first thing. Semi-annual dentistry; check up and cleaning, at 10. Lunch with my favorite creative director at 12:30. Portrait shoot at 4. Ramping up and ramping down are the new way I think that creative people retire. Work when it's fun, play with cool cameras and legacy lenses when you get tired of the clients. All good. 

I would throw in some literary quotes here but none seem to fit. I'll just quote K.B. Dixon when I need to say something smart. His book, "Too True" is my favorite antidote to pretentious blathering about critical philosophies about art. Nothing at all Punctum here. Go buy K.B.'s book and read his piece about Roland Barthes's "Camera Lucida." You'll either grind your teeth or roll around on the floor laughing. For me? Rolling on the floor.....

https://www.amazon.com/Too-True-Photography-K-Dixon-ebook/dp/B088W9LRKR/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1BY8PNLFWU3MD&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.OXnXfKPFGKefsPdby_7eow.oibnaP4atkjzWWufszHIppWtPLa0F1LQVZTB797mYic&dib_tag=se&keywords=Too+True+by+K.B.+Dixon&qid=1746478360&sprefix=too+true+by+k.b.+dixon%2Caps%2C108&sr=8-1

Not much affection for your crazy uncle Winogrand either....

 

Sunday afternoon. Cruising around town with the 28mm f1.4 Thypoch lens. And deciding that I really do like shooting with a 28mm. Especially on an M. Written Content Coming Shortly...

I like rangefinder cameras that work well on manual exposure settings. The manual aspect makes me pay attention better. I feel like I'm in control rather than just letting the camera set stuff while I hold on for the ride. Leica users who have upgraded to the M10 from an M 240 all basically say two things about why they upgraded. First they mention that the camera is thinner, front to back and feels more like the Leica M film cameras. Fair point. The second thing mentioned is that the M10, which is also a 24 megapixel camera, has much lower high ISO noise than the 240s. Again, fair. If those are the two metrics that are important for you... I used to read upgrade reviews from users moving from the older camera to a newer one and I'd have transient worries about noise. Would it strike when I needed clean files the most? Would limiting my ISO to 3200, 1600 or even 800 put a huge crimp in my shooting style? Would I regret not getting on the upgrade train?  

Naw. I've now been using an M240 for nearly two years and have found very, very few situations in which noise, even at 3200, was intrusive. If I was shooting under low light for a client I'd choose a camera like the Sigma fp or the Leica SL2-S because they both have absolutely killer BSI sensors that make shooting at 25,000 ISO not only possible but almost transparently so. I still prefer to use the rangefinder cameras for all of my personal work because the extra friction required to use them well (rangefinder  focusing -- an acquired taste, mildly decent center-weighted metering when not using an EVF, the extra weight of the brass bodies ( go black paint!!!) and the lack of a finder selector that let's one preview the focal length bright lines without having to attach a lens). None of these things seem bothersome after the couple of months it takes to get comfortable with any camera. 

One more point about file noise: Adobe's Lightroom Denoise A.I. has essentially made noise a non-issue for me....as long as I remember to shoot raw files...

Here's my logic in sticking with the M240 camera. When I shot with film Leicas in the 1990s we used to buy multiple bodies so we could stick a 28mm or 35mm lens on one body, a 50mm lens on a second body and a 75 or 90mm on a third body. If we did that we didn't need to slow down and change lenses which is something most photographer find themselves doing often if they have only one body to use.

I'd love to go out and buy an M11P to replace the M240, and if I did I'd want at least two of them. But the idea of spending $20,000 these days on two camera bodies, no lenses,  just doesn't make a lot of sense. While photography is still a doing well as a hobby it seems like the writing in on the wall for people who want to make a living doing it commercially. If you are a serious business person you'll buy into a camera system that works well all the time and which makes financial sense. Having $20,000 tied up in two rangefinder bodies (that really are niche) really doesn't qualify as good business sense unless you are one of the top 1% shooters who can pull down five figure day rates on a routine basis. 

I wanted to outfit an M system the way I'd done it in the M6 (originals) days. I found I could buy three very clean and nicely maintained M240 cameras for between $2500 and $3000 each. Let's say $8,000 for a collection of three. Each one gets one of my "holy trinity" prime lenses and I'm good to go. For me it's the 35mm, 50mm and 75mm. With those in my camera bag I'm set for most reportage assignments and for my own personal travel images. A side benefit is that you always have a back up if something goes wrong with one; or, God forbid, two of the cameras. Another huge benefit is the insanely good battery life those particular cameras enjoy. You can basically shoot like a crazy person for a full day on one battery. If you shoot more intelligently a fully charged battery can get you through a week. If you are a 100 shot per day photographer you might get two or three weeks from a charge. 

As the prices on M10 and M10P cameras drop (if they ever do...) I'll add one of those to the mix to see how I like working with a stripping down model (no video! which is actually a good thing). 

But all camera talk aside...

I just needed a nice walk today. Same old route. Just seeing what new businesses got started since my last walk through and which business have shuttered. Which buildings have gotten finished up and which projects are just starting. The 240 was a nice camera to have along and works very well with 28mm lenses. Either by using the camera finder or attaching a bright line finder in the hot shoe. 

Nobody needs to shoot with an M camera. It's almost an affectation. But for people like me who started shooting with Ms back in the 1970s there is something comfortable and classic about doing so. Again, it's based on familiarity. It just brings back so many good memories when I look in that wonderful optical viewfinder. All good here. 

Great swim practice today but....I think we covered enough swimming in yesterday's posts. 

Raw. OOC. 

Same. 

Same.

Same.

Etc. 

Caution: Intermission!!!!

Mannequines will be shown. Quite safe for work, church and children. 

Suck it up. You know you love the mannequins...

All done with mannequins for this post. 

No more program interruptions. 

Cars on South Congress Avenue on a Saturday Afternoon. 50mms rocks.

The Mannequin Cadre watching intently for interesting cars to come by....

Yes. Plastic Jesus on the dashboard. 

Australians fascinated by old American Muscle Cars.

Watching their mum almost get run over by cars as she dashed into the street to photograph an old hot rod, with her phone.

Yep. That's really the owner of the '57 Cadi.

Back when Americans really knew how to design cars. Real cars. 

All pix: Leica M 240 + 50mm Zeiss ZM

tourism on South Congress at Max capacity.