Just revisiting a favorite image taken with a Sony a77.

Jill in Xanadu. Zach Scott Theatre.

Stage lighting only.

And a few more from the same show.

 all images photographed with the Sony a77 and the 70-200mm f2.8 G lens. 

All lighting from the stage lights.

Going Places. Planning the trip.

Everyone has an idea of what might constitute the "perfect trip" for them. That idea might change as we gain more experience and spend more time actually traveling. When I was in college the trip I wanted to take was the classic "backpack and Eurail through Europe trip. I spent a semester doing that with a girlfriend. Now, I don't think I'd have the same enthusiasm for carrying around a big back pack, camping out in freezing weather and making fried eggs on a Blue Gaz stove in an Alpine meadow as ice melts off the tent. I've traveled enough for corporations to be a bit spoiled.

While landscape photographers might want to go into unsullied nature to find the confluence of beautiful land and perfect light people interested in music would rather haunt the music clubs and concerts of big cities ready to document that once in a lifetime performance.

Right now, 2013, I have the idea that I really want to spend ten days discovering Tokyo. Not all of Japan---that's too big a bite to chew off---really, just Tokyo. I have several friends who lived and worked in Japan and they are quick to tell me how misguided I am. That I should consider Kyoto for the gardens and the temples, etc. But that's the trip for them, not for me.

I have a lust to be in a big city, filled with people and buzzing with energy 24 hours a day. My own Lost in Translation tour. So I've been building momentum. Gearing myself up to get geared up. Planning to start planning.

I know I want to go alone. So I'm planning to go in the middle of the Fall. Ben and Belinda will have settled into the routine of work and school. Neither would really have the option of taking that much time off for an adventure that really revolved solely around me wandering the streets taking images and video of things I find quirky, exciting, whimsical, funny and abstractly definitively Japanese. Nor do I want to take time for planned lunches and formal dinners. I'm not interested in building team consensus in the morning or making a visit to a must see site just because it's in someone's guidebook. I'll go alone and then, when it's everyone else's turn I'll stay home and hang with the dog while they do their thing.

I know I'll want to use some of the massive airline miles I've accrued over the last ten years and never used. I'll investigate the best way to leverage those points from affinity programs to pay for airfare and upgrades. I've pegged the first week and a half of October as a slow season so I'm looking around to see when the black out dates are and how I can get around them if I want to get specific with my arrangements.

I need to figure out where I'll make base camp  and find a hotel that works. My biggest concerns for lodging are quiet and a place to charge batteries.

Then I need to start writing proposals to companies who might think that co-sponsoring part of the trip in exchange for a series of articles written about my experiences in their factories or engineering facilities are worth some sort of traded value. I'll start with Sony and go from there.

When I get closer to the date I'll start packing. I'll want to take two identical cameras. One reason is to have an identical back up that works exactly the same and takes the same lenses, batteries and attachments as the primary camera. Second is to have two cameras that can be set the same and use interchangeably while walking and shooting so I can use two different lenses without having to stop and change them out on a single body.

If I were packing to go tomorrow I'd take two Sony Nex-7's, two of the 18-55mm kit lenses and the 50mm 1.8 OSS lens. All of the lenses have IS and I like both choices. For me, convenience and general competence outweigh performance at the zenith of possibility. The above cameras, two chargers with six batteries and ten 16 gigabyte SD cards is an awesome imaging system for traveling and it all fits in a small and inconspicuous bag. No flash and no tripod. I've been down both of those roads before and come to the conclusion that it's not possible to be prepared for every and any eventuality. It's better to plan for an optimum part of the curve and work there.

The real gear is a good pair of comfortable walking shoes and a good attitude. That and a jumbo helping of curiosity.

I've traveled with cameras for the better part of 25 years now and I've done it every which way. I took 25 pounds of medium format Hasselblad gear with me on assignment to St. Petersburg, Russia, along with nearly 100 pounds of lighting. That was a logistical (but at the time, necessary) nightmare.

One time I went to Rome with just the right kit and I wrote in my journal about it. I said I would only want to bring a fast, auto focus camera body and a medium range, fast zoom. At the time I was thinking 28-85mm f3.5 or f4. Now, with nice ISO at 800 or so I would revise that to be a medium range zoom that ends up at f5.6 on the long end. As long as it's reasonably sharp.

If the past is a guide to this trip then it will go something like this: Arrive and sleep.  Get up every day as early as possible and walk the streets in targeted areas just absorbing the sights and shooting the things that interest me. Ten to fifteen miles a day. A card of images a day.  Every night, after supper, I'll sit in my room and write about the day in my journal. What I saw. What I ate. What I heard. What I bought. And so on.

The secret to making it all work in my head is to have a goal in mind before I step on  the plane to go. I can already envision a show of images at several of my favorite galleries. Right now I'm thinking black and white but that may be because it's the way I worked on my most successful trips in the past. And I like the way black and white prints work on the walls.

The new wrinkle will be a conscious integration of video. Snippets tied together with the intention of digging down into some interesting aspect of the trip. I'm not sure what that will be yet but it will come to me before departure.

Why am I sharing this? Because writing out loud is a good way of making it real and gaining the momentum to follow through.  But I'm also keenly interested to hear from you in the comments or offline if you've traveled to Tokyo recently, or live there now. What would you see? Where would you go? What are the new social trends? Where would you base camp? And, if you shoot or have shot in the streets there, what cameras and lenses did you find to be workable or optimal?

My long term goal is to make several trips there and to really see the city before things change again. I want to share my interpretation of the experience with my friends and a wider audience.

Final (vital) question: Can you get good coffee without too much fuss in Tokyo?

Thanks.

"Mad Men" window dressing in Boston.

Since most of us who write and read the VSL blog are guys I won't expect us to know about the Betty Page shop in Boston, on Newberry Street. But it was right around the corner from my hotel and when I got in to town in the early evening I took a stroll just work out the flight kinks. There was this window and in it were mannequins that looked incredibly cool. Perfect models from the 1960's. They weren't going anywhere and they weren't charging SAG/AFTRA rates so I decided to spent a minute or so making their portraits. The "models" were very cooperative but they really didn't have much range when it came to gesture and expression....

I loved this profile of the red head. I shot it with the Sony Nex 7 and the 50mm 1.8 lens at near wide open and handheld. When I got back to Austin and started looking through my files I was happy to see just how controlled the noise was and how sharp the lens is, even when shot nearly wide open. I've included a shot that's around a 1:1 crop just so you can see what to expect from the system. I'm very happy with the overall performance; especially for the size and price.

The final shot, the group shot, was photographed on a different evening using the 

Sigma 19mm 2.8. I consider it a "must get" lens for any of the mirrorless systems.

Old Magazine Assignment. My Three Favorite Chefs of the Moment.

Emmett. Owner of Asti and Fino Restaurants. 

Marion. Owner and Executive Chef of La Traviatta

Peter. Chef to the world.

 I'm leaving for Boston on Monday. Tonight I'll write my last two blogs until next Friday. This is one of them. These images were done a long time ago. The magazine assignment was to figure out my five favorite chefs in Austin and to write a small profile of each one which would touch on their significance in the Austin foodie scene.

These are the three scanned files that I found today on a CD rom I burned over twelve years ago. I did the assignment with a Leica M6 camera, a 90mm Summicron lens, a 35mm Summicron lens for Emmett, and Tri-X film. I printed each one before I did a final scan for the magazine.

I thought about them today because I was querying my chef friends for restaurant suggestions in Boston. Looking at the images today reminded me of how much autonomy we had in our styles back then. It was fun.

I'll be ignoring the blog until Friday the 15th. If you get all vitriolic in the comments you'll still get moderated. I've given my dog the password and she's a ferocious editor. And fiercely loyal...

One more blog coming.

So Much Sturm und Drang about cameras, I thought we should take a break to contemplate cupcakes...

Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the cupcakes...

Sony Nex 7 with 50mm 1.8 OSS lens. Shooting through the glass case.

Mom. On a Visit to San Antonio.

I'm always dragging a camera around but I'm so investing in being in conversations that I don't put it up to my eye and use it nearly enough. Yesterday I was visiting my parents. The occasion was my father's 85th birthday (he is hale and healthy, thank you!). I was sitting on a couch across from my mom and I liked the way the light was coming through the window so I brought the camera up to my eye and shot. I took five or six shots and I got the shot of my mother that matches the way I think about her: Sharp, in charge and ready to discuss anything with a ready command of the facts of the moment.

I was carrying the a850 around with me and I used an 85mm lens.

The visit to San Antonio was good. We caught up on the family news and had a great dinner. It was nice to take a day away from the office and the phone. I should use my camera more and argue less. Seems to work out well.

A really great blog on change and competition by one of our readers:

http://armorfoto.tumblr.com/post/46392764589/from-hot-type-to-bottom-feeders

Randall Armor is a veteran photographer and teacher and he's written a really good blog on competition and change in the world of photography. It's a great read. And, as soon as I finish what's in the queue in front of me I'm going to settle in and start reading his other blog posts. If they are as good as this one I'll be quite happy.

If you disagree, disagree with Randall. I'm just pointing you in the right direction...