Summer time in Austin. A quick photo another summer.

Ben at a swim meet.

Let's drop the cameras for a few days and go swimming...

We're back. This article is worth reading.

In the meantime this is a fun read:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/photo-overload-everyones-taking-pics-but-is-anyone-really-looking/article4365499/

I love the idea that people are always fidgeting with their smartphones because they can no longer smoke cigarettes in most places and don't know what to do with their hands....

edited 6/25  to add:


http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/photography_after_photography/

This is a nicely prodding piece of writing as well...

And, a book by the original photo critic, A. D. Coleman...

This is my style. This is my look.

6/25: Image edited this morning with a judicious square crop.

Anyone who practices a craft goes through a period wherein they feel they've lost their mojo. The magic touch that is part of their unique style. Nothing that used to work seems to work anymore and the artist goes through a period of loss that calls into question their skills, their vision and their very reason to keep going.  I know, I've been there.  And more than once.

I've been working with digital cameras for more than a decade but I was never able to duplicate the look I got when I was shooting portraits on black and white film back in the 1990's.  I've been bouncing from camera system to camera system hoping that I'd find a camera that would do the magic for me.

Recently I started shooting portraits with a Hasselblad film camera and black and white film. I kept thinking I was closing in on the old feel I used to have but at best they were glancing blows, resonance of memory imposed on technique.  But yesterday I think I got my mojo back.  An old friend came into town and I set up the kind of light I used to use when I photographer her nearly twenty years ago.  A big, soft light used in as close as I could.  A black panel to the opposite side to keep the spill light from bouncing around the room and ruining the integrity of my wonderful deep shadows.

My model was intuitive.  She seemed to sense what I was looking for, filling the missing pieces in the puzzle I had scattered in front of me. I work in an almost detached and automatic way, adjusting the light, adjusting the pose and adjusting the give and take.

When the session was over and we said, "goodbye" I sat down and started looking through the files. I ran them through as much post processing as I needed to get them back to the state that was almost automatically achieved in the days of big film (if you considered hours in a darkroom to be "automatic"). And when the file looked back at me from my monitor I knew that I could keep doing portraits. A mental block had been lifted.  I showed myself (dragged kicking and screaming) that I could do what I wanted to do with digital cameras.  I hadn't lost my chops, rather I'd submerged them in the subconscious resistance to change.

To paraphrase Frank Costanza in the Jerry Seinfeld Show, "I'm back, baby!"

Making Portraits.

The quiet moments between the poses are as valuable and interesting as the poses we plan.

Postprocessing as the equivalent of darkroom techniques.

From this afternoon's portrait session. Minimal processing.

Nikon D3200 and kit lens. ISO 100.

And one more variation processed to make the image in line with what I ultimately wanted to see:

All images ©Kirk Tuck 2012

I think the discipline of post-processing should be a process of distillation rather than aggrandizement.  At a certain point it's up to the content of an image to carry the day, not the package the image comes in.

First Portrait with Nikon D3200 camera and kit lens.

From this afternoon's portrait session.

Enduring Beauty. An afternoon portrait session.

I first photographed Lou nearly twenty years ago.  You've seen her portraits from that era on the Visual Science Lab many times. We had the chance to work together again, this afternoon. When she walked into the studio I thought she had been frozen in time.  Once in a great while  you run across a natural beauty. It can knock the breath out of you.

Lou Lofton is the author of, Warren Buffett Invests Like Girl, And Why You Should Too.  She was an analyst and writer for the Motley Fool financial website and.....she was Ben's very first babysitter.

The portrait above was taken with a Sony a77 camera and the 70-200mm f2.8 G zoom lens. ISO 50.  Lighting: Elinchrom Ranger RX AS with a 72 inch Fotodiox umbrella and diffuser.

I also used a Nikon D3200 and a Hasselblad MF film camera during the session.