Reporting from Austin on yet another rainy, super humid Sunday. Today's favorite camera? The Q2. Because it's water resistant...

 

We've made it to another Sunday. It's rained here in Austin for at least ten of the last ten days. I got out of the house yesterday when the sun was lifting moisture from the ground up into the air for a while. At least we had real sunlight to work with.  I took the Q2 and did my old walk through downtown. I took that camera in case it rained while I was walking.  Nothing much had changed. 

Some big bank buildings are in the middle of renovating their large, ground floor spaces to make way for new tenants. There are more homeless people out on the streets than I remembered. People still drive like shit and ignore traffic rules. And even the idea of crosswalks.  Nearly everyone is either kind of too fat, way too fat or Methamphetamine thin. The number of tattoos per capita has risen since I was last out and about with a camera. But mostly it was the humidity that made the walk seem uncomfortable. Imagine standing in a hot shower for a while... A really hot shower. For a really long time. So humid you resist going into air conditioned spaces because you know your front lens element will instantly fog over when you walk back out. 

The test lab at VSL seems to be closing in on the best choice of hats for the Summer in Austin. We've tested many and come to the conclusion that there is no "one hat" which will fit every Summer circumstance. But having three choices seems okay. After all, the two not in use can ride around in the back seat of the VSL staff car until needed. 

The right hat (or hats) has become mission critical now that I've waded through a bout of skin cancer surgery again. My wonderful surgeon made me promise not to let sunshine touch the scar until it is 100% good as new. So now that everything is on the mend I start out every adventure outside the house or the VSL bunker by slathering on sunscreen and then auditioning hats. I actually wore the white (dorky) Tilley hat the first day back outside, mostly because the brim is nice and floppy and flops down just right over my left cheek to keep sun off the X. I bought a new Stetson hat but I'm not fond of it yet. The straw weave is too loose so the sun protection is mostly surrendered. But an even more recent acquisition; the Outdoor Research Oasis Sunhat has a really nice, wide brim which holds its shape well and is lightweight on the head. Anything to keep future visits to the surgeon at bay...

The new air conditioner in the house works so well you could chill a six pack of beer in a short amount of time by propping it in front of one of the vents in the dining room. Now sleeping soundly with two down quilts on the bed and a fire in the fireplace. Nixon-style. Aiming for maximum condensation on all the outside windows...

I'm counting down the hours to my first, post-op swim practice. Tuesday morning. The pool looks good, the weather looks good and the scar is looking good. I'm not sure I will remember how to swim. I might have to start all over again in the slow lane and work my way up. But maybe not. I guess I've only really been out for two weeks come Tuesday. We'll see if my lane mates missed me or gave me up for dead and have already moved on and replaced me with someone new. They can be quite practical...

I'm never going to shoot another video so I'm grappling with pulling out bags and backpacks and rolling cases full of mixers, microphones of all types, endless cabling and too many HDMI connectors with the idea of giving some away to struggling, young videographers or just dropping the whole package to the used equipment expert at Precision Camera here in Austin and accepting like twenty five cents on the dollar for the good stuff. A move that will free up floor space and shelf space. Next up goes the lighting gear. Tired of looking at C-Stands, light stands, a forest of tripods, and way too many softboxes and electronic flashes. Oh, and also a surplus of LED light fixtures of all kinds. 

I'd be so happy to end up with one tripod and a drawer full of cameras and lenses. But even there I am thinking of continuing the process of winnowing down. I've got too much camera stuff. Too many choices. Sometimes I think it would be a fun challenge to dump everything but the Leica M cameras and M lenses and see if it's true that the equipment really doesn't matter. Three cameras, eight lenses and a sack of batteries... Sounds like a plot for a movie. Too bad I'm getting rid of the video stuff....

Found a handwritten, double entry ledger for the business that mercilessly covers the period from the end of my time running a regional advertising agency, the start of my photography business, and right up to around 2004 when we went fully in on QuickBooks Pro and did the accounting on our office computer. OMG!!! I worked a lot over the years reflected in the ledgers. For a while we were averaging well over 250 jobs a year. Keeping one or two assistants on the payroll for years at a time and traveling at least a week out of most months. Photography could be quite lucrative pre-digital. Now I know why I feel like I'm being lazy these days. It's all down to the contrast between then and now. 

Just glad I didn't piss away all the money on crazy stuff. Nice to finally understand what B. was talking about for all those years --- about the power of compound interest. And why, "No!" I could not have a  shiny new Porsche. Or a louche Bentley. Or the analogous example in some other part of the consumer spectrum. Just cameras and lenses. And only ones that could be deducted or depreciated. 

So this is what it feels like to start processing the idea of retirement. Novel. Fun in a way but also scary if one has defined at least part of their identity as a working photographer. Or as an artist. Seems the photograph part and the working part was more important to me, almost always, than the money part.

It's always something. 

Silver lining of the endless rain? The primary lake that provides water for Austin and beyond is Lake Travis. It's been steadily dropping lower as drought after severe drought hits the area. The lake level was  down to under half its full volume recently. All the rains have been incredibly beneficial and the lake is within striking distance of hitting its FULL capacity. Which gives us all some breathing room. I haven't watered the grass for over a month and every blade is emerald green. The mosquitoes are having the time of their short, annoying lives, the frogs are insanely happy, and maybe those water restrictions we've had in place will get relaxed for a bit. 

The weather people have been predicting that we'd have a hotter and drier Summer than average. So far they could not have been more wrong. The highs for July have barely hit the 90° mark. We've had far more wet than dry days. We're still digging out in the surrounding towns from catastrophic flooding and much loss of life. But we're not suffering through the near endless plus 105° days we had in 2023 and 2024. We're halfway through Summer and still expecting more rain. When I drove home from the hardware store today my car's display showed the outside temperature at 79°. A humid and sticky 79 but still not even up to 80°.  It would be even nicer if the humidity dropped. 90 to 100% is pretty obnoxious. 

Today is rushing by. It's always that way when I'm sorting gear to get rid of. Nice problem though. Looking forward to a home cooked meal with B&B. Always affirming and fun.

A small show at the upstairs gallery at the Blanton Museum.

Celebrating the mere idea that I'll be back in the pool in less than 48 hours.

And, as always, celebrating the mannequins. 

Digging around in the old film archives. B and Dad in San Francisco. On the wharf.

Most of the lighting inventory is heading to new owners. Just not yet identified...

Anne with the studio's old Rollei 6008i. Ah....the film days. 

At Jo's Coffee Shop. Mid-1990s. Jo's has been there for quite a while. ..

Umbrellas at the ready

Stitches out. Face recovering. Blog is doing something very strange. More details in the post.

First things first. The blog has traditionally gotten between 2500 and 5000 pageviews per day. If I write stuff that's really, really boring it drops to 1200 pageviews. No problem for me since I generally like to write and pontificate and ramble so I'm not put off by low numbers. But lately I've been having the opposite issue with the blog and its stats. For the last month or so we've been logging well over 100,000 pageviews per day. And when I dive into the Google Blogger stats I can't find any specific source responsible for the out of control traffic. 

Now, if I was writing this for money and could convert the views into cash I'd probably be pretty happy but I read a lot of spy fiction, have a short fuse for anything that feels like fraud, and would hate to think that there are still just 2500 loyal readers supplemented by 100,000 robot hits that will somehow turn into online ammunition to defraud someone who absolutely doesn't deserve to get defrauded. Right?

Be super cautious if you get any emails or texts that seem to come from VSL or my own website. I don't send any. None from VSL. 

I've come to like posting photographs on Instagram so I'll probably ramp that up and post even more. It's easy and fun. I might even write some long captions there to take up the blogging slack here. 

I wanted to let you guys know. This will all stay up as it is unless something untoward happens. 

There it is.

In other news I'm finding it very pleasant to walk around without a huge bandage on my face. Less attention from the world at large. I feel great. My face feels a bit stiff on one side. The doctor says this is to be expected. I'll be back in the pool on July 15th at 8 a.m. I can hardly wait.

While I like all of my cameras my long time favorite seems to be the SL2. More so than the M's or the Q. More even than the D-LUX 8. It's just fun to shoot and the big files lend themselves to a square crop. 

I'm taking the rest of the Summer off from any client work in order to swim and run every day. I'd like to be in better shape on my 70th birthday than I was on my 60th. --- and so on. 

That's about it. 

Alanis Morrisette at Liberty Lunch in Austin. 

A very young and very pink Renee Zellweger. 

VSL's happy place. 

Super model Lou.

 

Old School Street Shooter. Ever-ready case protection included....

 

Siena.

Fun at Trevi Fountain.

 

I didn't realize that I spent an entire morning in the area around Trevi Fountain back in 1995. Groups of tourists came and went. People tossed coins in the fountain for luck. Vendors sold small statues of David. 

I liked the look of these guys so I aimed the Mamiya 6 with the 75mm lens at them and shot a frame. They  subsequently made it quite clear that one frame was more than enough. I nodded, smiled and moved on. 

Sometimes you get your one shot and that's it. No sense pushing it...

A continuing discussion about sticking around a scene to work the changes. And practice becoming so boring that one becomes invisible. Even with a huge, medium format film camera. And a normal lens.

Two Italian Gentlemen discussing something in a public square in Rome.

I'm always astounded and bit incredulous when I see a video of Bruce Gilden rushing in to attack people with his camera and flash and then turn away after one frame with some smug sense of certainty that he had, in fact, captured a "decisive moment." The one frame. Captured while in motion. With the wide angle lens all stopped down to f11-16, compensated for with a blast of naked flash. I guess I could be like another blogger and just say, "to each their own." or some equivocal pablum, but I think the results of Gilden's work are two fold: To the viewer? Boring. To the subject? Threatening and disrespectful. 

Why insist on making a photograph such a desperate undertaking? Why make so many other people uncomfortable? Why not just make one's self invisible and keep taking photographs until you have something you like? Or something interesting? And why not use a lens you like instead of one that compensates for your lack of empathy or idea of collaboration? All questions, I guess, for another day. 

When I was scanning older, medium format, Hasselblad and Mamiya 6 negatives earlier in the week I came across this series that basically took up eight frames on my parsimonious twelve frame roll of film. I looked for a "hands down" winner but it turns out that I like each from for one reason or another. 

As you can tell from the perspective none of these frames were captured "voyeur style" with a long lens from behind a furtive fern or tree trunk. Nor were they anxiously "shot from the hip" which would imply giving up all control to chance. Nope. It's a standard lens. A 75 or 80mm lens on a big square format. Just like a 50mm on a 35mm sized frame. I'm probably standing about eight to ten feet from the two men I was interested in focusing. I was interesting in photographing them because they used their hands and big gestures as they spoke. Culturally different than people in my home town...

If I had any indication that I was making them uncomfortable I would have stopped and moved on because the thing I found visually interesting would have been lost. I think we are fearful sometimes that people will be confrontational if we photograph them without explicitly asking their permission. In a case like this I try to maintain a boring affect, take my time and calmly photograph with the idea that I'm taking in the whole scene and not just the people in the foreground. 

As you can see by the fall off in focus I am not depending on a small aperture to provide a big range of zone focusing. I am actually bringing the camera to my eye to compose and to make sure my focus is good. But I'm not doing it in any way that would indicate that I'm anxious to work quickly or that I fear discovery. Instead I'm photographing at a slow and measured pace and trying to represent that I'm just doing something very routine and normal. 

Had I stopped at the first frame I would have lost potentially six or seven following frames that are either different enough to be contenders or, in fact, better than the original action that drew me to photograph. I think this is a valid approach. To become part of the scene and not something that sticks out. But I could be totally misguided. ?

Seen and ......

Ignored.

The frame I was looking for all along. Patience can work in your favor. 

Best not to rush.

 

Is it a landscape or an uncropped "street photo"?

 Good grief. I love the square format. 

Somewhere in Italy in 1995...

A card game hustle in the market in Rome. Trying to blend in with a big, manual focusing, medium format camera. Sometimes you just have to go for it.