Backtracking a bit and reading Sally Mann's autobiography: "Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs" Which was published in 2016 but oddly, overlooked by me.

 

Blogger in Paris. At the Eiffel Tower. 1978.

I have known of Sally Mann's work for decades now and always thought of her as a gifted photographic artist. The fact that she is a writer; and a damn good one, was never on my radar. Recently there have been announcements everywhere about her newest literary work called: "Art Work. On the Creative Life."

I suggested to my family, who are always asking what I would like for my birthday, Christmas, Groundhog Day, or flag day, that they could do worse than getting me the new Sally Mann book. But the birthday is a month away and being newly captivated by the idea of famous, contemporary photographer as literary ace, I decided I should do some homework while waiting for the upcoming volume. 

I sat down with her 2016 book, "Hold Still" just yesterday morning, after swim practice, and I've been swept in by not only her writing but also her amazingly dramatic and ultra-Bohemian existence. Now less that a quarter of the way through the book I am riveted and even when turning on a sprinkler in the garden I come rushing back into the house to take up where I left off with the book. 

If you don't like strong, smart, eccentric women you might not like this book... but for all of us normal, well-adjusted folk it's a treasure trove. And an interesting read.

Since it's peppered with photo references, photo stories and even ..... photographs I can't really label this post as "OT." Read the book, don't read the book, whatever. But I think, now at the quarter way mark, I can pronounce it great reading. 

Finishing up an assignment that may be my last commercial work of the year. Or the decade. Or...whatever.

Stephanie. Faculty at the Seminary.

I wrote recently about a client I did portraits for on what might have been the hottest day of the Summer. The thermometer hit 105° that afternoon with a heat index of over 110°.  During that hellaciously hot day I did portraits of seventeen people. No one was affected by the heat. No one sweated. No one's checks flushed bright red. And we got the work done with no lasting ill effects for the photographer. 

Here's how I proceeded: Based on outside portrait attempts for the same client in Summers past (beginning of the Fall semester and mostly roasting), we totally changed our approach last year. Instead of scouting multiple locations around the campus and then scheduling people to meet us outside and be photographed in the blistering heat I was able to schedule all seventeen people to come into a cozy and well air conditioned studio located in the campus library building. Coffee available just down the hall...Lunch delivered by the client.

The studio we used is fairly small but big enough in which to shoot portraits. The back wall is a white cyc. There is existing lighting on a set of ceiling grids/rails but I nearly always want to use my own lights. More control. More familiarity. 

I used LED lights from Nanlite. They are the Compac 100 series of light panels which are 16 by 24 inches, have good front diffusion built-in, and are fixed to be used in a vertical orientation. I used two of these at the front of the set up and put fabric grids on them to control light spill around the small, white walled space. One fixture was used as a main light from camera left and the other as a fill light from camera right. I added a third fixture with a slightly warmer light setting in the back, as a back light. I usually set backlights to be on the opposite side of my subjects from my main light. Seems to work better that way. 

The final light was a small panel, a LumiPad 25, also from Nanlite, used as a direct light onto the background to keep the illumination level commensurate with the front lighting.

The camera of choice for the portraits was the Leica SL2-S which I like for situations such as this where a 47 or 61 megapixel camera file is overkill and the fewer, 24 megapixels of this camera are more than adequate. I chose to use a TTArtisan 75mm f2.0 AF lens (for the L mount) because I didn't want to crop too tightly; I needed "air" around my subjects in order to have flexibility in compositing the portraits with exterior background images. I stayed right around f5.6 and 1/100th of second shutter speed, using ISO as needed. Raw files to start with...

We did the same kind of shooting for last year's images so I already had put together a catalog of pre-un-focused backgrounds from all over the campus. I was thinking about who I would composite into which background as I was photographing the people, trying to predict how each person would fit into a given background. 

Back in the office I took the images selected by the subjects, and approved by the marketing people, and did a bunch of color matching, retouching and all the usual things you might do with a portrait image, in Lightroom. Once I had the images retouched and enhanced the way I liked them I exported them to PhotoShop for a final bit of trickery and then separated each subject from their neutral background and dropped them into appropriate exterior backgrounds from around the school. There is nearly always some fine-tuning to be done. 

I use defringing in the layers menu to get rid of hard edge outlines where the images meet. I try to match color and contrast between subject and background without going overboard, and I try to remind myself that viewers of the website will be able to see many of these images side by side and so I took post production steps to try to homogenize the overall look for the sake of continuity. When I finally flatten the layers before saving I generally add a bit of noise to the overall file because I think it helps harmonize the foreground and background layers. 

I'm halfway through the composites right now and I'm aiming to finish everything up before the end of the day tomorrow. 

When we wrap up the project I'll bill them for my day of shooting, a set cost for each composite, miscellaneous post production costs and also a usage fee for a five year license to use the images on their website and also for public relations as it relates to the Seminary. 

I just thought you, the reader, needed a change of pace and I wanted to remind long term readers that  the whole reason the blog exists is to explore and share the real world, day-to-day machinations of a professional, freelance photographer. And yes! We still exist in 2025. 

Go Photography!!!

 

In other breaking news. I got the flu shot yesterday and ... no side effects. Important for photographers since you have to be able to move around, stand up and engage.

 And that's hard to do if you come down with the flu. It also screws with your travel plans and could even kill you. So, Flu Shot = Photo Accessory. My reward, besides continuing good health? Yeah, that big, juicy croissant in the image just below...

Rejected outtake. Anesthesiologist forgets to put on gloves for this set up shot...

Later fixed by.... reshooting. 

Might be the 2025 flu???

Waiting for more flu victims...

Really bad case of the flu requiring helicopter transport...

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...

Maybe get a flu shot. Sure, why not? 

Images taken with cameras. 

A Michael Johnston Update. Save that original link to his site on typepad. He's up and running currently and posting new content.

 https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html

While he's struggling to get posts up he is persevering. And today, successful. Well, except as regards posting featured comments. 

He's also posting updates on the progress of his new site construction. So, go check it out. 

A random image as decoration for this post; just below:

From the Battle Sculpture Collection at the Blanton Museum in Austin, Texas. 

Taken with...a camera.

We pay a lot of lip service to the idea that we support art but do we really? Or do we (collectively) spend more time and a lot more $$$ streaming crap?

 

Artist at work.

If we write about gear on the blog people jump into the comments and take me to task for concentrating too much on the mechanics and not enough on the "art" of photography. At one level that's fair. I should write more about the art of the art. Like K.B. Dixon does in his book about photography, "Too True." But the problem seems to be that so many people who are enamored with photography lack the educational background that provides us with a commonality of information needed to share ideas about pure art. Though everyone assumes they are experts about technical parameters of camera equipment they frequently fail short when it comes to art history, photo history and the role of criticism.  I'm not going to make much of an argument today about gear versus art, as regards photography, but I would like to broach the subject of actually supporting art and art venues. 

As a point of reference the average U.S. family spends about $70 per month on streaming services. That's about $840 a year to stream mainstream programming, etc. But the average U.S. family that actually pays for a museum membership ( a tiny, tiny percentage of the general population) spends less than the equivalent of one month's video streaming charges on a year's worth of museum membership fees. About $65 per year. 

An interesting fact is that the majority of budgets for most museums goes to educational outreach which is mostly aimed at K-12 students. We talk a lot about supporting the arts but really, when it comes right down to it, those "classy" shows on Disney Plus and those "riveting" action movies seem to mostly take precedence. 

B. and I are members of the Blanton Museum and pay $100 a year for the privilege. It's a great museum. Not quite world class but an above average regional museum that brings in great traveling shows and wonderful off the beaten path exhibits. The same for UT's Harry Ransom Center. The same for the Art Institute of Chicago. The same for the Austin Contemporary Museum. And Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum (Thanks again for the groundbreaking original presentation of Richard Avedon's show, "In the American West"). We spend a lot more on museum memberships than we do on any combination of streaming services. Is there a direct, financial benefit to us for memberships? Only if we attend often instead of paying as we go. 

Are there intangible benefits? You bet. There is something completely different about seeing art face to face, well displayed, intelligently curated and highly accessible to our individual experience. Different than seeing small scale reproductions on a video screen. Or worse, on a phone screen. And quite often the act of curation provides us, the audience, with an introduction to an artist or their work that we might have never discovered on our own. 

But in addition to museum memberships there is the opportunity to support art in other ways. I recently got a note from a small, local museum that is hosting a show of an old friend's photographs starting January 2026. Most shows in museums are financially supported by philanthropists in the community so it's not unusual for a small organization to send out a request for individual show funding. I like the artist's work. I like the artist. He's got three kids in college. He's a life long artist. His show can use a financial boost to pay for things like framing, the logistics of artist talks, an opening reception. 

We decided to become supporting sponsors for his show to support his work and the work of a very accessible venue in the community. Our donation isn't much in the grand scheme of things but hopefully our early infusion will prod more people to support the show. But it feels good to know that in some small way we are helping make a really good show of photographic images, by a life long, dedicated artist, come to fruition. 

Maybe more concrete support of the arts should take pride of place in our plans over just arguing about some aspect of "Art" on web fora and blog commentary. It sure would be different...

Just a thought as B. and I head over to the Blanton Museum to savor the Baroque Art show this afternoon. 

Since we're talking about "art."

A moment at the Children's Museum. Just for the fun of it.

 

What's it like when an artist retires?

CFO. Calculates the return on vacationing...

I'm working on the last two jobs in the docket. For the year. Both of which follow one version of my interpretation of Murphy's Law. That clients who invite you in to make portraits of their key people, and who want to book right away, will then take a month or so to get back to you with their final selections. Yeah. About an hour apart two different clients for whom I did dozens and dozens of portrait sessions for over the course of a couple of days have now, nearly a month later, finally sent me the selections to retouch and composite. That's fine. These are the last two jobs I have to mess with for the rest of the year... Or longer.

I've gone to my website and removed all the contact information that lived there. Sure, it was there so that potential clients who wanted to find me and get in touch could. But what the website contact page has mostly done since it was uploaded in 2017 was provide a rich target for spammers to daily deliver dozens or even hundreds of unwanted emails and texts. And in those past eight years the vast majority of clients who did get in touch were already clients and already knew my phone number and email address. 

By jettisoning contact information I've been able to leave up a convenient website that works as a ready portfolio, keep my email addresses functioning and hopefully, with some other behind the scenes machinations, will also declutter a few mailboxes and text reservoirs. If someone doesn't know how to get in touch with me already I'm pretty sure I'm not the photographer for them. 

I've winnowed down the work load by not doing any marketing or advertising to speak of for about two years now. It's a nice glide path away from commerce but it comes with the burden of now having to both self-assign fun work and also self-finance that fun work. And I'm fine with that. 

This basically means that the times which I will have to skip swim workouts or fun lunches to accommodate client schedules is quickly approaching zero. There's still a lot to get done. Archiving of sorts. Filling last minute I.P. requests from nervous clients. And the mental exercise of changing direction after 40+ years locked into a strange commercial/capitalist paradigm. Also, flipping the switch that converts priorities from saving for the future to dipping into those savings. Thank goodness my spouse/CFO is brilliant. 

today's schedule: I hit the pool at 7:45 this morning, did a long distance warm-up and then swam with my masters group under the watchful and critical eye of coach Jenn. She's just back from a trip with her husband where they participated in a competitive swim race across the Bosphorus at Istanbul. Today we worked on all four strokes nearly equally. Going from butterfly to backstroke to breaststroke to freestyle with individually medley swims (all four strokes continuously) between each set.  If you haven't tried swimming a 400 IM and think you are in exquisite shape you might want to revisit your fitness plan. That first one hundred butterfly in the IM, at the end of a long workout, is killer. (But not literally...). 

. ...they make it look so easy at the Olympics...

After a quick shower, I ate an apple I'd brought along with me and drove over to my favorite car wash. There's a reason I drove halfway across town to the car wash. It's because my physician has his office a couple blocks away. 

I wanted to wash the car to get all the road dust and tar smoke off the paint; the result of my failed photo foray to Pedernales Falls State Park on Tuesday... I also needed to vacuum up the leaves off the floor mats. The mats are black and show up everything. I must confess that I did have fun driving out and around the wide open parts of the Hill Country on Tuesday. It's been a while since I channeled my teenaged alter-ego and drove my car too fast. I figure it's okay to redline every once in a while if there are no other vehicles for as far as the eye can see. Besides, I've been so well behaved for so long.... it's nice sometimes to cut loose. Four lanes. No cars in sight. Vroom.

After I washed the car I presented myself at my doctor's office to get a flu shot. I'd emailed earlier in the week to confirm that they'd gotten the more vicious and powerful version for seniors. Almost guaranteed to elicit some sort of side effects (not presently felt). My doctor runs a concierge practice. I pay him quarterly for an "all you can bear" access to top flight health care. But other than being able to set my own time for shots and vaccines my general health has thus far made my ten year relationship with the concierge practice less profitable for me than him.  He is, however, a great source of referrals. Loved my Mohs surgeon. 

I had to wait two minutes in the empty waiting room before being collected by the practice RN. I was going to be miffed about the delay but decided to let it go (just kidding). Maybe my watch was running fast... I walked down the hall with the RN to an exam room where she took my blood pressure and other vitals. Then she gently and deftly injected the vaccine and placed a Pokemon bandage on the injection site. She knows my taste in bandaids.

Since it's a concierge practice there is no paperwork for me to fill out and no insurance nonsense to deal with. I keep my doctor current with an email or two after I've seen a specialist --- he's already got the baseline. The front desk person made me a cappuccino to go and offered me snacks. I took the coffee but resisted the urge to eat a granola bar.

I was hungry though so I headed back to my neck of the woods, drove past my street and headed to TacoDeli for a couple of bacon, egg and cheese breakfast tacos. Yum. Then, with a happy stomach, I turned the car around and drove back home. 

When I walked into the office I saw the two emails from the two clients who had been delinquent with the image selections. I sent a brief "thank you" note to each and let them know when I could effect delivery. Then I got to work editing my current website to take off all my contact information. I also checked on travel plans both domestic and international. Two trips upcoming. All good. 

I handed off all the microphones and mixers I'd accumulated over the last ten years to a videographer whose work I admire. The office felt lighter.  I hope never to work on a video project or film project again unless it is as the still  photographer. 

I'm feeling a bit unleashed. For the first time in a long time I have no real, fixed schedule (other than six days a week of 8 a.m. swim practice), I have no debt. I have no obligations other than the classic domestic ones. I have no worries about how to make the ends meet. The kid is launched. The parents gone. Now I just have to make sense of how I got myself into this "predicament."

Ah well. It could be worse. 

PSA: don't smoke! It will kill your 100 fly times at the pool...

That's all I've got for today. Now out looking for a perfect dessert for after dinner...