We've reached the 20 million page view mark. Add in everyone who reads on a feed and we've probably doubled that. I'm celebrating.

This is one of the first self portraits I put up on the blog. Shot in a convex mirror on the corner of a parking garage in downtown Austin in 2009. An Olympus EPL1 in my hands.

The nicest thing about my career as a photographer was being available to go to my kid's school, to all his soccer games, all his swim meets, all his cross country meets, his martial arts practices and even the saturday mornings when he would drag me (he was five at the time) to Toys R Us for the weekly Pokemon card game matches. Screw work. Spending time with your kids is the greatest gift you can give yourself. It may also turn out to be good for the kid. 

I'm sure I could have made twice as much money if I worked a relentless corporate job but I'd gladly trade all the money to live my life exactly the way I just spent the last 19 years doing it. 

No regrets and no big projects I missed out on.

(above photo taken at the Zilker Kite Festival by Ben Tuck)

With Ben now away at college for his sophomore year it's me and the dog holding court at the studio every day. We entertain each other pretty well and when we get bored we send prank texts to Ben. The Studio Dog is getting as grey as I am. It's well earned. 

In the last six years I've written five books, taught lots of classes, written over 2,400 blog posts and I still had time to do hundreds and hundreds of photographic assignments in cities across the country. If you keep moving you stay skinny. That, and a good dose of daily swim practice.

The image just above was taken during a lighting workshop I did at the University of Texas at Austin for the Texas Photographic Society. I'm still engaged with classes at UT and ACC. Maybe I have something to give back. Maybe I just tell entertaining stories. 

The blog has allowed me to meet interesting photographers. Here I was a model in a lighting workshop run by Will Crockett. Will took this photograph of me grinning like a fool.

I think that being a freelance photographer can be a very lonely profession. That's why this photograph I took in a Paris Metro station, with an old Leica M3 and a 50mm Summicron, resonates so acutely with me. But I have to thank friends (and blog readers) like Frank, Keith, Bernard, Andy, Will, James, Paul and many others for making sure I showed up for lunches, coffee in the late afternoons, and the occasional excessive BBQ adventure. It's the connection between so many people that makes this blog so worthwhile for me.... It's all about connecting with people who are both like me and not like me----in a good way. 

The love of my life and the glue that holds everything together for me and Ben is Belinda. 

Wise, kind, smart and ...... pretty much perfect. She even takes great care of Studio Dog. 

I've had lots of great photographic assistants over the years but none so smart, beautiful, creative and intuitive as Renae. She was so much smarter than me it was embarrassing.... I still rue the day she left to pursue her career in NYC and LA. 

How many pairs of glasses does one photographer need?

I've come to believe that the reason so many people come here to read the blog is that in a uniform world they enjoy encounters with eccentric people. I've always tried to be as normal as possible but it rarely works convincingly. Why else the fascination with orphaned old tech?

About a half an hour a day makes for a disciplined engagement with the blog. More time spent moderating comments than actually writing stuff down.

It was a Canon Canonet QL17 that dragged me kicking and screaming into a life (mis)spent taking pictures and hanging out drinking coffee. It was Tri-X that kept me honest for a couple of decades. 

Photo by Ellis Vener. 

It was my success with the article I wrote about Leica rangefinders, on Photo.net that eventually persuaded me to start writing a regular blog. That article, written in 2000, still has legs sixteen years later. That's something a writer can be proud of... 

Damn. Those were great cameras. And lenses.

Photo of me taken by Will van Overbeek with the camera and lens just above.

And a sunburned Belinda with the same combination. 

Go ahead. Try shooting with a Leica rangefinder. You will be drawn to the dark side. 

It's a powerful and addictive combination of the world's best glass and the world's most logical camera. 

I still have thousands and thousands of pages of slide to go through and organize. The march of progress is the bane of photographers who survive long enough to regret their lack of earlier organization. 

Early, wild, Austin photographer photographed by documentary photographer, Alan Pogue. 

Circa 1980. Tell me again how the Strobist community invented off camera flash just a few years ago......

An image that inspired a number of pages in the Novel, The Lisbon Portfolio. 

R series Leica always over the shoulder back then.

Ringlight portrait courtesy of Keith Kessler.

I guess photographers deserve their reputation for looking scruffy. 

Why cameras should go with you everywhere and why you shouldn't care about correct exposure. 

It's one giant continuum. 

Thanks for reading all the stream of consciousness blogging I've churned out for the past six years. I've enjoyed having the smartest readers on the web and I've learned a lot from all of you who come by and read and comment and then e-mail me to help me edit my excesses. 

A special thanks to my friend, Fred, for watching out for my kid, Ben, while he enjoys college some 2,000 miles away from home. Such a comfort to Belinda and me.

Photograph is not dead or dying, it's just getting started. 

I hope you'll stick around for the next 20 million page views and the next 2,400 blog posts. 

I'll keep writing if you keep reading.....

Thank you, Kirk 

Is "visual note-taking" the same thing as photography?

sometimes I take images of things because I want to remember how the subject looked and how it was presented to me in real life. I want the visual note so I can incorporate it into the things that I write about. The images become reminders for me and at the same time they seem to me to be quixotic and serial segments of life in the real world. A concept in seeing the flow of modern life as it exists now. In the moment. In this instance. It will all change next week. Next year. Tomorrow. 

This will be a memory that provides a context when I think back about this particular period of time. 

It may not be relevant to anyone else. But should that matter?

The Uncomfortable Purgatory of being on the wrong side of new gear announcements.

Life in the trenches of visual content creation can be messy and uncomfortable. But few things are more uncomfortable than finally making the decision, after several months of research and exploration, to buy the state-of-the-art camera body only to have a newer, quicker, brighter and more appropriate, upgraded version announced while your acquisition is in transit to you.

It just happened to all the people who waited for a month or so to read all the reviews and actually handled the Sony A7R2. When that camera was delivered less than two months ago the internet was on fire with hyperbole. That camera currently sits on top of the DXO charts for best overall still image quality while the video sites waxed euphoric about its wonderful, 4K in camera, video quality. With a generous nod to both its improved usability and also its graceful handling of high ISO settings. The only issue was one for videographers to grapple with, and that is potential overheating while using the in-camera 4K video settings. Apparently the problem is easily resolved by writing files to an external digital recorder. So, in sum: The best image quality of any current (non-medium format) consumer camera on the market today coupled with what might be the best 4k video solution for under $4,000.

What's not to like?

Welllllll. Here's the flip side of deal. While the A7R2 may be the best thing since sliced bread for still photographers who work with discipline and determination (i.e.: Not a Sports Camera!!!) most video aficionados would have preferred a camera that uses the full format for 4K while the A7R2 does a bit of a crop in. It's at its best when used in the "Super 35" crop. It also lacks the latest Log profile for video. And just last week Sony dropped an anvil on the feet of the early adapting video guys (the ones who threw down for the A7R2...) by announcing the imminent arrival of the replacement to the video-drool-worthy, A7S. That was a camera that brought a full frame, 12 megapixel sensor to market that was totally optimized for video. And is still the current king of low noise, high quality performance video. The current model (the A7S) can't record 4K video internally and it lacks in-body image stabilization but it's still the one to beat in the Sony line-up. At least it was until just last week...

The newly announced A7S-2 delivered the same great 12 megapixel, large sensel size, low noise dominance but now it uses much faster processors, records uncropped 4K video in-body and has the new and highly improved, 5 axis, in body image stabilization as well as the latest Log profiles. And it's about $300 cheaper than the much higher resolution (perfect for still photographers who like big hard drives....) A7R2. And the A7R2 was only the reigning champ for all of two months in the video world....

Why should we at VSL care? Well, I guess we really don't care that much in this situation. It's not like we're entirely video centric but the same thing seems to happen all the time on our side of the fence as well. We just get comfy with the Nikon D800 and the D810 comes along. The dust and oil problem of the D600 gets fixed in the D610 and we buy a couple only to have the somewhat superior D750 arrive hot on the heels of our purchase.

The products become obsolete so quickly now, or at least that's the way we've been trained to think about the process. The reality is that the Olympus E1 in the image above is still a highly usable camera IF you are still using it as you did when you bought it a decade ago. Portraits for websites? Small prints? Street art? It's a wonderful camera for all of that.

And the A7R2 is still the best big image camera on the market (well, we'll see when we fire up the comparison with the D810--- processing might count for something...) and that didn't change with the new arrival of the A7S-2. While some of the video features might be nice to have the difference in ISO performance will be of only mild interest to people who use the cameras for commercial production and the difference in frame crops is really kind of marginal.

The shutter in the A7R2 is rated for 500,000 shots. That's years of useful life for even a heavy duty shooter. We ought to look at its productive life in that measure and not by the features that are introduced on other cameras, after the fact. I gauge the useful like of the A7R2 as about 3 to 4 years of working production. Emotionally its useful life might be measured in weeks IF you are only keeping score of the features.

Should be fun when the older stuff starts to hit the used market. Sony is currently constructing a market filled with slightly used bargains. Better to look with happiness on the plethora of cheaply available, and good, back up cameras rather than to curse being T-boned by inevitable progress. ..

Just a few thoughts. 

A Sunday Review of a Classic. The Olympus Pen FT 70mm f2.0.

Every once in a while it's nice to see which direction everyone is breathlessly running in and then walk calmly in the opposite direction. Sometimes that's how I feel about lenses. Everyone is chasing the ultimate in sharpness and high performance across the field of view but I don't know to what end. And I'm pretty sure that the people chasing perfection aren't really certain of why they want the uber lenses for anything more than an additional validation that their gear is not the weak link in their chain. Validation via gear has a long history and I imagine that very few of us who started adult life as technical types are immune to the lure of measurable superiority; no matter what we have been coached to say. I am not immune. I'm in awe of the Sigma 50mm Art lens but I'm totally aware that it's not adding anything much to the mix. That would come after I grab the tripod and lock the mirrors up, etc. 

But I'm not ready for the silly dalliance of a Holga camera right now, either. When I get into a mood that makes me talk about lenses and photo enthusiasts so dismissively I know it's time to go for a nice walk with an old classic. It always seems to blur the lines between good and useful; between art and science.

I grabbed one of my old favorites from the Olympus drawer today. It's a rattly, scarred sample of the ancient 70mm f2.0 lens that was made for Olympus's line of half frame cameras. The family of cameras were called Pens. The top of the line, interchangeable lens, single reflex camera body was the Pen FT. It was most cool in the black enamel version. 

The 70mm used six optical elements in five groups and is very compact with a 43mm front filter ring.

When I used it on previous iterations of the new, digital Pen cameras I led myself into believing that the lens wasn't the sharpest lens in the line up and also suffered from low contrast. My appraisal today is changed by the addition of the EM5.2 and it's elegant focus peaking, along with my new regard for technique; specifically, shielding the front element of the lens from stray light. (How fun it is that I get to learn the same lessons over and over again, decade by decade).

I am certain that the current, 75mm f1.8 Olympus lens for the OMD cameras is a much better performer on the test bench and under controlled conditions but it in no way obviates the value of the rest of the lenses available for the micro four thirds cameras. I have found that if one shoots the older lenses with care, and with a nod to their provenance and old age, one can get very good results indeed. 

The early part of the 1970s will not be remembered for the amazing front surface multicasting technologies of lens making. We are somewhat spoiled now with lenses bathed in nano crystal multi-coating and other rare, advertising spawned coating formulas. It's almost hard to make a modern lens flare like a mad bastard short of shining very bright lights directly into the front elements. Not so with lenses from the time machine. But that doesn't make these lenses unusable it merely means that we have to use the techniques that were in place in that time period to interdict the nastiness of flare causing "glancing light." 

Here's the simple tutorial: Keep direct light and bounced light off the front element of the lens. Always. This means one should use a lens hood but one should also try to block even more light with one's hands or a black card. Doing this defeats veiling flare and gives you back the true contrast that the lens is capable of delivering. So does this mean that the lens can never be used with a light source in the frame? The answer to that depends on whether you are intent on measuring the symptoms of veiling flare or whether you are nostalgic for some fun flare that might add something to your overall image. 

I also advise taking filter off the front of the lens because these nearly always do more harm than good and add two more air glass interfaces to the optical mix. Clear filters rarely are.

My second secret to getting good performance from older classics is to use them at their optimal f-stops. We modern photographers seem to be in love with the idea of shooting with the apertures of our lenses wide open. We like the mystical properties of images in which the majority of the frame is blurred to the point of unrecognizability. But the art and craft wasn't always this way. Most fast lenses made in the days of manual focus were given speedy apertures to enhance one's ability to focus accurately. And looking through the dark and uncertain viewfinder of the Pen FT cameras makes one an instant believer in fast apertures with their attendant shallow depth of field which makes images snap into and out of focus in a very obvious way. 

With lenses of this vintage I always expect that they will hit their peak of performance two stops down from their widest, marked aperture. On this lens that would be f4.0. I would expect the "envelope" of best performance to extend from f4.0 to about f8.0 where the dreaded and feared diffraction effect would take over. While this would be the range of optimal performance there is nothing to say that you can't use the lens wide open at f2.0. I've done it many times. I can see a difference but many times getting an image and being able to handhold and image is more important than the theoretical advantages of the "envelope."  On a sunny day like today I was able to keep the camera at in it's optimum ISO performance "Ziplock Baggie" of performance which is 200. I was also able to use f5.6 to f8.0 for almost every shot, but I did include several examples of the camera shot at f2.0 just to show you the effect and let you judge the "ruinous degradation" for yourself. 

A view of Lamar and 12th Street, just a mile west of the State Capitol, from 

a friendly parking garage roof.

My walk took hours today because I made a big, circuitous loop and stopped a lot just to relax and stare at the life in front of me without having the camera in front of my face all the time. At the beginning of my walk I felt jittery and anxious though I'm not sure why. Could be the ambiguity of general social progress, the indecision that is the one unchanging aspect of my business life, or my loneliness self-imposed by my selfish need to spend time lost in thought. Whatever the cause sitting on a bench at the graffiti park did me a world of good. So did the quart bottle of Gatorade I bought from a food truck vendor who'd set up shop on the adjacent street. But my moments of quiet disquieting reflection led me to the wall above and it proved to be a good test of the lens's color depth, contrast and sharpness when used relatively close.

I climbed up the dangerous, loose soil path on the right side of the wall so I could savor the view of the center of Texas from a high perch. This gave me a chance to show off the rendering of the lens at infinity. Or there about. All the while I counted my blessings at having a camera with such a nice EVF, complete with focus peaking. Being able to accurately focus the lens where you want it to be focused is the third leg of the stool of high quality imaging (we covered the other two parameters above).

The image above suffered at my hands. I forgot to "shield" the lens from the light from the sun which was bouncing everywhere on top of the hill. When I came back to my monkish office and looked at the work on the monitor it was obvious that flare was working its evil on my rendition of Tag-ish Intensity so I did the unthinkable... I went for the "deHazing" slider in Lightroom and let it do its voodoo work.  Now the wall is represented as I saw it...

This just about sums up the generational gap in camera use. The guy on the left with his cargo shorts and phone versus the older gentleman on the right with a "real" camera and his camp cargo shorts. 

click into this one if you want to see how sharp and convincing the 70mm lens can be if you use it correctly. You have to give me credit for getting it right once, okay?

I love the 140mm equivalent focal length of the 70mm when used on the OMD cameras. 

Fun sometimes to stand back and shot tight.

F2.0

My walk took me into the JW Marriott on Second Street and Congress Ave. Nice bathrooms and a Starbucks on the second floor. But in the public spaces on the fourth floor is a little alcove and I've always admired the way the light strikes the drapes there in the afternoon. Do you know of a place where the light is always lush and tempered and welcoming? You should hang out there and read a book. But back to the subject at hand----I decide to shoot this one at f2.0 (it could have been 2.8, it doesn't show up in the Exif info...) and to my mind it's pretty well defined and workable. I guess I won't fear shooting at the wide aperture now that I know we can hit good focus with the newer cameras.  The image below is also part of the wide open (or nearly wide open) test. You can zoom into the original file and see tons of detail in the draping. 

I finished my walk reluctantly. I was really getting into the meditative quality of just putting one foot in front of the other and scanning the landscape as I moved forward. After the stop at the JW Marriott (Second largest in the world according to the Austin rumor mill) I stopped being interested in the camera and the lens and started to become more interested in the look of the people on the street and the way they were moving through the space. I stuck the camera on my left shoulder and forgot about it for half an hour as I wended my way back to the car and drove back into the western hills to my house. It's always interesting to take the time to go out and walk and be by yourself. It's fun to do so without feeling that you necessarily need to be productive in that moment of time either. 

Another Sunday nearly gone and another week just ahead. I'm always happy to wake up and get going each morning. I always remember the old Japanese idea: One Step Forward and Everything is Darkness. Meaning, I think, that we can't know what awaits so we should live well in the moment. 

Even if that does mean using older lenses. 

Sometime on Monday (if my calculations are correct and Google's data honest) the VSL blog will reach what I once thought was an unreachable milestone. We will enjoy our 20,000,000 page view. 

I'll break in to let you know when we achieve it. If you are reading this on a feed go directly to the site and click through once again so we can get to our goal honestly and quickly. thanks. KT