Revised scheduling for November.

 

Love 50mm lenses. From lowly to lofty. All good. 

Well heck. I was planning on taking an out of town trip in November. I thought it might be a good time to re-visit Montreal. But real life has a way of intervening in human plans. Seems my dermatologist found a suspicious spot on my left shoulder blade and decided to biopsy. Wouldn't you know it, it was a squamous cell tumor that needs to be removed, and I'd hate to wait on it and have it spread. Ounce of prevention vs. kiloton of cure... 

This little "treatment" will probably involve stitches and, if so, I'll be out of sorts and out of the pool for at least ten days. Then there is the irritation of having a spot positioned just exactly where I can't reach it. As with any surgery I'll need to change the bandaging and clean the site daily, at first. Since I can't see it or reach it I'll be depending on B. to act as chief nurse for four days a week and my doctor's nurse to change it each of the other three days in that first week. Not something I'd really like to ask a hotel concierge in a foreign city to do for me... if  you get my drift. My dermatologist assures me I'll survive nicely but won't go as far as to say I'll be "comfortable" for those first few days. I hope any scar looks wicked and cool...

My bigger issue is the idea of no hard physical exercise, and especially no competitive swimming or water sports of any kind, for those first ten days. Grrrrr. 

My primary physician and I chatted and he's reserved a time certain for me to come by each day that I have to for the post procedure care I'll need (clean and re-bandage). He's been my doctor for well over 30 years and I find it's great to have a relationship with a concierge medical practice even if it's not something that's covered by Medicare. The personal service has always been outstanding!

Of course this will hamper my regular activities right up till nearly Thanksgiving. And with the latest airline flight delays and cancellations I have no intention of flying in these holidays. I couldn't think of anything less fun in this moment of history. I'll be celebrating with family and friends and hopefully getting back to swim workouts instead. 

It all works out to mean that the best time for me to head out on a photo adventure, cross borders, is the first two weeks of February. I'll schedule to make sure I get to see the Richard Avedon "Immortals" show in Montreal around the 12th of that month. You'll just have to make do with Austin and central Texas photos until then, interwoven with scanned "greatest hits" from the film days. 

And more silly blog posts about my love for 50mm lenses; and their currently popular sibling focal length, the 40mm. All good to my way of thinking. 

Below is a shot of the kid taken with a 50mm lens mounted on a Leica R8 camera. The good old days. Shot on slide film to make it all more challenging. 

Ben. Leica R8 + 50mm Summilux R.

The skinny little 40mm isn't so nice and skinny with an adapter attached. 

the Voigtlander 40mm Ultron for Nikon. Adapted. 

A really nice, shorter "50"...

A perenial favorite! The Canon 50mm f1.4 FD. Practice your MF chops...

And, of course, the cheapest lens I own...

And it's still pretty darn good --- if you are willing to stop it down a bit.

Currently walking around with a Carl Zeiss 50mm ZF.2 lens with a Nikon mount and the required adapter. It's a very pleasant and sneaky lens. Stop it down to f5.6 and it's sharper than a scorpion sting. I really like it... 

What does that 24mm-e look like on the DLUX8? And why do I like wide angles on smaller sensor cameras better? Unknown...

a quick snap at Allen's Boots on Congress Ave. in Austin. 

The opposite angle.

Looking through the window at Vespaio Restaurant in Austin.

 

The latest book of Richard Avedon's photography just dropped and it's really good. A show of the work to follow starting in February in Montreal.

 

This book showcases Avedon's portraits of people we might now call "seniors." Famous and infamous people photographed in their old age. While it sounds undelightfully depressing it's actually a wonderful look at the aging that we'll all endure...if we're lucky. 

The work is all black and white and is beautifully printed. The captions are detailed and interesting and the main essay, by Adam Gopnik is really illuminating. 

The controversial series of images of Avedon's frail father, at each stage of his decline, are represented in conjunction with an essay that explores Avedon's reasons for taking the images. Was it revenge? Exploitation? or a visual investigation of Avedon's relationship with his father? 

The portraits of his father in decline have always been controversial. It's an interesting topic.

The book was produced in conjunction with and in anticipation of a show at the Fine Arts Museum in Montreal. That show will run from February 12, 2026 through the first of August 2026. A fine excuse to make another trip up to one of the few remaining North American democracies.... 

I mention the book because I am a big fan, student of, all around appreciator of much of Richard Avedon's work; from his early fashion work all the way through his "In The American West" period.  And beyond. 

I also mention it since I am trying to drive the used price of this book up. Why? Because I received three copies for my recent birthday and I think I can get by just fine with one copy... Well, at least it shows that family and friends are paying attention to what I really like and getting appropriate gifts. 

Just thought that if you are an Avedon fan you might be interested. If you aren't I really don't want to hear the reasons why you think he's nothing special. It's not cogent to the intent of this particular post.

Tell me instead which week you plan to go to Montreal to see the show. And whether or not you'll be wearing your purple cowboy boots to the opening. 

When are purple boots not appropriate??? Yikes!

I was amazed to find that Allen's Boots has a store on the Main Street in Fredericksburg. The store is big, better lit than the original and a lot tidier. I passed on buying the purple boots. Just wouldn't go with anything else I have in the closet...

Again, very pleased with the older Leica 35-70mm f4 ROM lens for the R system. Adapted to the SL2-S it seems to do a great job on general boot photography. 

One last peek at the purple boots. You know you want some...

The Most Fun Store on the main drag in Fredericksburg, Texas has to be Rustlin Rob's Hot Sauce Room. Amazing but dangerous.

 

Been a while since I've walked down Main Street in Fredericksburg. I must have missed Rustlin Rob's on previous visits but I had time yesterday to walk the whole strip, one side at a time, and I found what might be the wildest collection of hot sauces I've ever seen. While I like good salsas with my tortilla chips I've never been one to engage in the manly competition of seeing who can consume the hottest hot sauce and for how long. I'm a hot sauce light weight. Always have been. I think it's because, in my formative years, my parents, who were raised in the north and acculturated with "mild" (BLAND) cuisine, shunned hot sauces of all kinds and didn't see fit to have them available for us more adventurous  kids in the house. 

Anything hotter than ketchup was too hot for my dad and he'd let you know it. Red chilly flakes? Not in his pasta! And while my mother was more adventurous she drew the line at anything that had one grabbing for the ice water and having one's eyes tear up. But my brother, sister and I grew up mostly in San Antonio which is ground zero for great hot sauces of all kinds. Those that originate with jalapeno peppers all the way up the scale to habaneros and beyond. You think Tabasco sauce is fiery? You ain't endured nothin. 

And yes, like most long term Austinites I do occasionally make my own hot sauce. It's pretty good. 

I was momentarily tired of Austin's traffic and the general hustle culture in the city so yesterday morning I hit the pool early and then fired up the Subaru and headed West. In times past, when I was headed to Fredericksburg for a photo assignment in the Texas Hill Country (mostly to photograph vineyards and winemaking) I was generally in a hurry to get somewhere and took the most direct routes. Yesterday I was in no rush and wanted to savor the lack of traffic on the back roads; the two lane, rural routes that crisscross Texas. 

Once I got about 28 miles from  town on Hwy. 71 I started nosing off the main highway and onto the two lane blacktop that flows and swerves through ranch and farm country. Oh my God was it ever fun! On one stretch of road I didn't see another car for about 25 minutes. The curves on some stretches take the posted speed limits from 60 or 65 mph down to 20 mph on the hairpin curves. Some curves were nicely banked while others weren't banked at all. Or more exciting, they were negatively banked...

All-in-all it took about two hours going on the rural roads. It usually takes about an hour and a half on the more direct routes: if you go on the off hours and there are no construction slow downs...

Here we are a year and a half into my ownership of a Subaru Legacy Sport sedan and I could not be happier with that car! Ample horsepower, wonderful, tight bolstering on the seats, taut suspension and all the comfort I could ask for. If I owned an electric car instead I bet I could have saved about $30 dollars on round trip fuel cost. But you know what? I could also buy cheap wine in a box instead of something better... Life is short. It's not all about saving every penny...

When I pulled into the square in the middle of town, just off Main Street (love any street called, "Main Street") I pulled a photo backpack out of the trunk, consulted all the research spread sheets, took a couple of hours to re-read reviews,  called a few friends to ask their advice, and then pulled a camera that seemed like the right choice out. Well, not really. I really only took along one camera and one lens so I didn't have to make any on location equipment choices. But I did need coffee and lunch and fortunately I was parked right across the street from The Kaffee Haus. It's a nice coffee shop situated in an ancient stone building. The exterior is nothing much to look at but the interior is nicely restored. 

I ordered their avocado toast with the addition of a poached egg and a couple strips of bacon. I also ordered and was blown away by their baked in house macadamia nut and chocolate chip, toll house cookie. The avocado toast was the perfect portion for a light lunch but the cookie was one small step away from cookie rapture. All washed down with a latte coffee turbo-charged with an extra shot.

Fredericksburg has a bit of a split personality. On most weekends it's filled with people. Young people from Austin out to try the offering from different vineyards, stay in the far flung B&Bs and traveling West to find the latest restaurant refugees who've escaped from high stress, big cities to open smaller, cozier new restaurants. The town bustles with bus loads of bridesmaids who come (sometimes in odd costumes) to "party" at the surrounding vineyards with the brides in tow. 

But on Wednesdays, like yesterday, some of the shops are closed because the mid-week traffic is so much less... productive. 

Most of the people I saw on the main street yesterday were at least as old as me and for the most part in much worse physical shape. Big pot bellies, and a gait that seemed like they'd just come from knee replacement surgery. They shuffled along in packs for four or six at a time. Some lone couples as well. Old men sat on benches outside "boutiques" while their wives headed inside to shop. Not a soul had an actual, standalone camera. Not one person. But the cellphone cameras weren't getting much use either. 

That's not a pretty face of retirement. At least by my reckoning. 

But then things took a positive turn and I discovered the Hot Sauce Showroom. Heaven. Love the packaging, the logos, the names. Check them out below. 

In the late afternoon I'd taken about 150 images around the main street and I was ready to head back to the promise of Austin: Big traffic, bigger traffic jams, 24 hour a day road construction but a city filled with young, excited and beautiful people. There's just so much energy here. Even in slow times. 

But most important: I wanted to get a good night's sleep before this morning's swim practice. It turned out to be a wonderful set of 5x500s. One for each stroke and one more just for kicks. Toss in the warmup distance and there's your two miles. So nice. Swimming consistently and with effort is a scientifically proven aid to slowing down the effects of aging. Science indicates daily swimmers turn back the aging clock by ten to twenty YEARS. Kind of like an accessible fountain of youth. And isn't that what people have been chasing forever?

Only 70,000 masters swimmers across the USA. Seems like the promise of extended youth would be more popular. Oh well. 

Which camera and lens? Well, it doesn't  matter.  Just kidding; it matters to me.

I took a Leica SL2-S and the recently acquired Leica R 35-70mm f4. Shot in raw. Worked well. 

Impromptu Road Trip to Fredericksburg.

 

Brooke's Bubble Bar. Okay.  

Changing one's trajectory is like moving a skyscraper. It's hard work; seemingly impossible (without dynamite) and more than a little mental "elbow grease."

 

I thought retiring would be easy peasy. I'd stop accepting work, reverse course in the financial arena and start taking money out of accounts after decades of putting it in, apply for Social Security, and then inundate myself with a whole host of exciting photographic projects that I'd put off while pursuing the almighty dollar. It seemed like an easy plan. I'd watched B. do it five years ago and she made it all look calm.  Smooth. Fun. 

So far I'm just winging it. There are routines which make life work. Praise for continuity. I get up every morning and head to the pool to swim. This morning there were three Olympians in the pool when I got there. It was yet another dose of inspiration to keep up the practice. Five or six days a week of fast swimming turns out to be the ultimate way to slow down aging. The hydrostatic pressure is a boost. The coordinated movement is good for body and brain. The higher blood flow for an hour is great at clearing the clutter (both physical and mental) out of one's brain. And the camaraderie of 25 or 30 friends surrounding you and motivating you certainly staves off any feelings of loneliness or isolation. 

It's just that after swim practice there is nothing I have to do. And I'm so used to having had a full schedule. 

I always thought, when I was younger, that the big challenge in retiring would be figuring out how to make the money last. Now I realize that I "over-trained" in that regard and under-trained in the "what is your purpose"/"what is it you want to do?" regard. I can go anywhere, photograph anything, but how does one pick and choose?

For the first few weeks of total retirement from work I spent too much time watching videos about cool cameras and listening to people much younger than me talk about their visits to inevitably overcrowded and over-touristed major cities. At first I thought I should go somewhere cool, like Rome or Paris. But here's the catch: I started going to those cities as a young adult. Back in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I've been in and out of Paris and Rome at least a dozen times but each time I go back the cultures get more homogenized, the crowds get bigger, and the opportunities to make interesting and novel images seem been wrecked by zillions of versions of the same icons and curiosities shot at every angle, with every filter etc. 

Now it makes me a bit sad to travel to someplace like Paris to photograph. It's still a wonderful city for museums, galleries, restaurants and shopping but the sheer volume of tourists makes it all feel like the mad rush through the doors of Walmart on Black Friday morning to fight with other Americans for that large screen TV on sale for half off. Or to jostle for position in front of the Plexiglas covered Mona Lisa. It's just not fun anymore.

After watching the influencers gush about their first visit to someplace cool, and after watching a young photographer explain the thrill of buying his first Leica everything starts to feel like a sit-com re-run. 

The rest of the time I'm seem focused on reading the many books I didn't think I had time for but now realize that they weren't that good to begin with; at least not most of them... The second Sally Mann book was disappointing. Never meet or read the autobiography of an artist you admired. There is an extreme probability that you WILL be disappointed. I still like Mann's work but I sure wouldn't hire her as my house manager... Or as a life coach. I'm not even sure I would show up for happy hour...

The bottom line, I guess, is that my photography has never been about a "project" or a long series of images documenting an event. Nor has it been about landscapes or the documentation of travel destinations. The reason I loved photography was to be able to make portraits in a way that pleased me and in so doing it getting to sit for a time and chat with interesting and, to my way of thinking, beautiful people, and then to make prints of them. That's pretty narrow but that's pretty much my photo world outside of the old commercial work and the generation of ephemeral images to put up on the blog and on Instagram. 

Finally distilling down to this understanding is good in that it gives me a general direction to take with my personal work. 

This post is not a request for direction. I don't want to mentor anyone. I'd rather write checks to charities I like than torment each other with volunteer time. I taught for as long as I would ever have cared to. I know where to find the subjects I want and how to approach them. I don't need a "project" in order to be motivated to make portraits. By their very nature portraits are episodic and not continuous adventures. You see a face, you become inspired, you negotiate access and then you make the portrait. Then it's over. There is no continuous flow involved and that's fine with me. It gives me time to recharge and to process what I've done in the moment. 

I'm just tossing this writing out in order to solidify what's coming together in my own mind. I know some of you are going or have gone through the same process of trying to figure out how to make the best use of newly acquired time. It's harder than it seems. It's different than anyone thinks -- before it happens to/for them. But the best advice I got in this journey was from our friend, Frank. He suggested that one be prepared to embrace our own irrelevance. At the time I thought he was being ironic but now I see that he was imparting wisdom. 

Some things become irrelevant. The audiences shift and compress. People walk away. The reasons to go ever onward change. If you resist the change to irrelevance it can be emotionally painful. It's hard to believe that you will never be 25 years old again and surrounded by a social cohort of exciting and excited peers. Ready to conquer the world. With everyone basking in the glow of youth and the attendant beauty in the moment. 

Things were better for all of us when we were young and thought we could conquer the world. Now I'm working on conquering my need to conquer the world. A challenge for sure. But at least I have the time and energy to work on it....

Mannequins imprisoned behind glass...

The Boston Mannequin Society is the best.