Nice light is good.

I love large, soft directional light with a good shadow for some drama.  When you find it out in the street it's a wonderful thing.  Just make sure, when you find it, that you have someone around who is fun to photograph.

info:  Belinda in Verona. Tri-X.

Saying hello to strangers in public.

 I know it can be kinda scary to walk up to strangers and ask them if you can take a picture of them.  It's even scarier if you don't share a common language.  But it's a fun challenge.  Especially for the introverted.  I was walking through the streets of Rome when I saw this imposing looking person. And he looked so different with the headscarf, the aviator sunglasses and the cigar in his right hand that I just had to get his portrait.  But I didn't feel right trying to be surreptitious so I walked right up to the table he was sitting at and asked him if he would mind.  "No Problem."  I focused my Hasselblad, having already judged the exposure the minute I stepped into the square.  I was using the 100mm Planar so it was important to get physically close.  That's not a long focal length on a medium format camera.  I shot a frame and then he leaned over and mugged a kiss to his mom.

I snapped that too.  He smiled, she smiled, I smiled.  I was about to thank him and walk away when he took off his glasses and his headscarf and gave me this very direct portrait.  I loved it.  We shook hands. I bowed and walked off.  The man seemed delighted that he had been singled out for a portrait.  He gave me good stuff.

When I go on walks in San Antonio with groups of photographers and when I do lectures about photography there are always some people who want to use long zoom lenses to sneak photos of interesting people.  But the images they get always leave me unengaged.  In many ways these long distance photographers have no cultural skin in the game.  And the photos lack dimension.  The camera is so, so, so secondary to the whole equation.  It's all about responding, reacting and collaboration.

A great exercise for all kinds of photographers is to stretch out of your comfort zone. Minimize your camera gear so that you don't need to make any choices.  That takes it out of the mental process.  Go somewhere with lots and lots of people and try picking out the most interesting people in the crowd, approach them, tell them your true intentions for taking an image and photograph them with their willing complicity.  You'll meet people.  You'll learn what it means to get permission.  And your photos will be more interesting.  Was it Robert Capa who said, "If you're pictures aren't interesting you're not close enough?"  

Techfo:  Hasselblad 500 CM,  100mm 3.5 Planar,  Tri-X film.  Scanned on an Epson V500.

Academia Portrait.

I love going on vacation with one camera and, at the most, two lenses.  You learn that camera and those lenses forward and backward.  And if you're really in the game you'll limit yourself to one kind of film.  Digitally is wonderfully convenient.  But sometimes, at least for my brain it's too convenient.  There's a digital camera I wish someone would make.  Kodak almost did it for a brief time.  I want one that shoots squares.  Only squares.  Not something I can over ride or change.  Just square all the time.  And I want it to shoot in black and white.  I know I can set that combination on a number of cameras but I know equally well, and more importantly the bossy part of my brain knows, that I can change right back to a different combination.  My brain works better when it's forced to work with inflexible tools at hand.

The year this was taken, 1993,  Belinda and I had planned a trip to Florence.  As we sat in the airport in Dallas, Texas the television played some breaking news.  A car bomb had just exploded outside the Uffizi Gallery.  We arrived the next day......

Hasselblad 500 CM with 100mm f3.5 and Tri-X.

Technical note:  Someone asked in a comment if I would share my scanning workflow for the black and white negatives.  I'd be glad to.  I have an Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner on my desk next to my little computer.  It came with film holders for 35mm and medium format.  I blast the dust off the glass and the negative with some compressed air and then I go straight into the Epson Scan software and set all the typical controls.  16 bit grayscale.  Sized to 10 by 10 inches @300 dpi if I'm eventually aiming for the web.  24 by 24 inches at 300 dpi if I'm aiming on making a print.  I turn unsharp masking to low and turn off any of the grain enhancement and dust removal controls off.  I make a preview, size it, hit zoom and look at the way I've cropped the image in a bigger window.


Then I go into level controls in the Epson Scan software and set white and black levels and the corresponding output sliders until I have what I want, image wise.  Then I scan and save as an uncompressed tiff.  It takes all of four minutes for the smaller size and about nine minutes for the larger size.  Then the image gets opened in PhotoShop CS 5 where I use the healing tool to spot the image.  I do my final sharpening in PS CS 5, usually (point)1 radius at 300% (unsharp masking) followed by a quick, "sharpen edges."


I used to think you had to get drum scans to get good images but once I was doing a big show of black and white images from a 1995 trip to Rome and I sent out twelve images to be scanned for something like $80 each.  I hated all the scans.  And this was from a famous scanning house.  They were too highly sharpened, to saturated and kinda dirty.  I knew I could do better.  I bought an earlier version of the scanner (I think the 3200 Perfection) and scanned the stuff over again on that $300 machine.  The lab I used to output the 24 by 24 inch prints with a Lightjet printer were very impressed by the scans and so have many other photographers.    There is a print of the Russian Girl on the Spanish Steps in Rome above my desk and it's as perfect as any enlarger print I've ever made.  Many times the high priced equipment is only necessary for the underskilled user.  Practice scanning and, like cameras, you can use just about anything to get a good image.


If I'm going to web I reduce to 1200 pixels wide and run the save to web in PS CS 5.  Always as sRGB files.  In fact, I use sRGB for everything except my Costco prints.  Those go out with the Costco profiles for specific printers embedded in the files.


Then I put the negative back in the protective sleeve or page and sit down and write the blog.....

A continuation of the train/Hasselblad series.

The interesting thing to me about medium format Tri-X negatives is the long dynamic range they had when developed just right.  I marvel at the detail of the cloth weave in the reflection of Belinda's blouse in the window and how gracefully the reflections roll from white to soft gray to middle gray.  How smoothly the grays hold detail in the head rest cover behind Belinda's head and how wonderful the tones look in the over head lighting in the top, right hand of the frame.

I have no idea where we were other than somewhere in the middle of Italy.  The old Compur shutter on the 105mm purred like a cat and, after the mirror came up the shutter was all but silent.  I love the composition and the placement of lights and darks.  I shot one frame.  I discovered it twenty years later. I saw it when I shot it.  And when I developed it.  And when I contact printed it.  But I only really saw it last night.  

I am in love with love.

Old images from an earlier time.

In 1991 Belinda and I took a trip to Italy to explore the country and celebrate the end of a long recession that had gripped Austin since 1986 or 1987.  That recession was also caused by the real estate market and inept or criminal banking practices.  Some, in the savings and loan industry were actually prosecuted.  I took along one camera and two lenses.  And a bucket full of Kodak Tri-X.  The camera was a Hasselblad 500CM and my favorite two lenses at the time were the ancient 50mm and the amazing 100mm 3.5 Planar.  Kind of a 28 and 60 point of view in 35mm terms.  We were on a train heading to or from Parma and Belinda was making a note about something or another and paused to look out the window.  I made it a habit, back then, to always notice the ambient exposure when I entered a room or a train compartment so my camera was already set at an approximately correct exposure.  I looked down into the finder and focused and then I clicked the shutter button.  Looking at the image and how quickly the pencil and the headrest go out of focus I am almost certain that the lens was set either wide open or, at the most, f4.

Weeks later, when we came home I had at least 100 rolls of film to develop and process.  In those days I  processed and contact printed any film I shot for myself.  I did it to save money.  After all, we'd just survived a big downturn and one that changed the advertising market locally for some time to come.  And at my core I'm pretty frugal.

When you are developing 120mm roll film in a cannister that holds four rolls you don't do all 100 rolls in a day, or even a week.  You have to leave time and space for hanging the film up to dry and harvesting it from the clothesline in the darkroom and then cutting it into strips and putting it in archival pages.

Once I'd made the contact sheets I'd go thru with a china marker and mark in red the frames I was interested in printing.  A quick square around an image meant that it was "of interest" while an extra line over the top meant "keeper" and two extra lines over the top of the frame meant "print now."

Today, twenty years later, I've probably printed fewer than 10% of the 1200 images I took over the course of that month.  Every once in a while I look through the three ring binder that holds this trip and I find another one.  They appeal to me differently now.  I'm watching my past with nostalgic glasses.

The arts under attack in Texas. Again and again.

Artist/actor: Martin Burke

I am duplicitous to my own intellect.  I want to believe that art inspires,  that arts shows us what it is to be human, and that art is a critical function of a civilized society.  I want to think that we (the masses) should support the artists (the chosen few) in their ongoing endeavor to bring catharsis to culture.  That tax investments in the arts return enormous but not always obvious rewards to us in general.....but I falter.

Our governor, Rick Perry is pushing to gut all funding to artists and arts organizations across Texas.  And I have no doubt that, if we're collectively insane enough to elect him president, he'll get out his budgetary Bowie knife and try to rip the tax guts out of every arts organization across the U.S.  Goodbye museums.  Goodbye orchestras.  Goodbye art class in school.  Goodbye any art that survives or is nourished by taxes.  And my knee jerk liberal self wants to rise up and protest because I've been well trained to accept that any and all funding for the arts is good.  But is it?

And will America revert to the Dark Ages if we sever the financial ties that bind art to taxpayers like an unwanted backpack on a long journey through the desert?  The mantra on the right is to cut everything and the arts seem like a target rich environment for cutting.  It's target rich because the average American has no idea whether or not art really does affect his own life.  Art seems to be the province of the wealthy and the elite.  It's very inscrutability is it's barrier to the unwashed.  Just try explaining abstract expressionism to a room full of business students.  The blank stares are intimidating.....

So here's my conundrum.  I would never have had the opportunity to see Martin Burke perform in The Santaland Diaries if the city of Austin didn't provide some financial assistance to Zachary Scott Theater.  Martin has talent, not just training.  And it's the talent that makes me laugh and cry each time I see him perform.  In a sense, some projects, like big theater pieces and symphonies and large scale installations are like NASA.  They can't be cobbled together in home laboratories and they can't be funded with a bake sale.  And they do provide real economic value......down the road.  I submit that clubs with live music and theaters like Zach Scott and the Long Center and the Doughtery Cultural arts center are what led to the development of a rich and growing downtown which in turn aids developers of soaring residence towers, the owners of giant buildings for business in the downtown corridor and the creation of wealth largely due to the proximity and continued promise of art.  All within a mile of the state capitol.  All within a mile of the man who would cut and slice away crayons from school children along with funding for the opera (which I will gladly give up).  But not funding for businesses which fail with alarming regularity and often reneg on tax abatement agreements....

What floats the wealth of Sante Fe?  Could it be about 17,000 galleries that create the entire business  magnet for the town?  What's our one image of Sydney Australia if it's not the opera house?  Can you imagine people wanting to deposit tourist dollars in New York City without the Met and the Moma and the Guggenheim and countless galleries and shows?  Believe me, no one comes to NYC for the quaint and affordable hotel stays.....

Paris without the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower and all the breathtaking (and tax paid) public architecture?  So I do understand the role of government funding of the arts as a boost to local economies here and around the world (Believe me, no one would ever go to St. Petersburg Russia in the dead of winter without the Hermitage.....) but is it fair to have tax payers foot the bill?  That's where my brain bogs down....

Then I read about the four billion dollar per year oil and gas subsidy for Exxon-Mobile and the countless hundreds of millions that municipalities throw at building stadiums so private businesses can have gladitorial shows for profit.  The idea in the first case that the world's second largest business would stop doing it's business if we didn't pay them to do it is ludicrous while the second example is just plain pitiful.

To some extent it is selecting who will get money and who won't that brings up the controversy.  Exxon can reward favors from Congress while artists generally cannot.  People in general are motivated to think that rewarding Exxon might buy them cheaper gas (fat chance....) but people don't have a selfish motivator in regards to the arts.  They don't see, tangibly, what art will do for them.  So doling out the taxpayer's largely unwilling largess becomes a popularity contest with the group promising the most understandable or doctrine rewards reaping the lion's share of the money.

They had an answer for this in Sweden.  I don't know if they still do it like this but in the 1970's I read that they would have a lottery for arts funding.  You applied, just as you would for a grant here but all were welcome to apply, there was no litmus test for the funding.  If you had an idea and a way to complete your idea you were in the game.  In the lottery, when and if you're name came up you were given living expenses, gallery space and  the opportunity to show your work at a gallery.  Didn't matter if it was liked or disliked, controversial or plain.  You got your shot.  Everyone had a chance at getting their shot.  No one arts organization was able to burrow in and suck at the teat long after their relevance fled to another school of thought.  I'd like to see something like that here.

But back to my bifurcated nature.  I pay taxes.  I have my own sense of priorities and ethics.  I think we should shut down every inch of corporate tax welfare in the entire system.  Tomorrow.  And we should put term limits on any arts funding.  Everyone goes free market.  Everyone.  Business, art, music, thought, food, experience.  It all goes free market. 

Can you make the case that opera is great for your town?  Bravo, put together a business plan, sell the seats and gather unto you your own donors.  People won't pay for it out of their own pockets?  Tough.  Rosetti and Verdi and Mozart had private sponsors for their art.  Get your own.  Want an oil and gas subsidy? Tough.  Find some private investors.  Sell your plan to a church group.  Market.

Look at it this way.  If we get a hold of the gutting knife and apply it equally,  eviscerating both the arts and ALL agricultural, oil and gas, construction, home interest credit, defense spending, government grants to pharmacy and all the rest we'll put so much money back into the pockets of Americans that.....they'll sandbag the windows of their MacMansions, buy more and bigger flat screen TV's and burrow in for the dark ages.  But at least they'll have their "own" money in their pockets.

Hmm.  This train of thought is too hard.  How did we get here in the first place?  When did art and business begin to need the taxpayers cash to survive?  What was all that talk about free enterprise?

Bottom line:  There may or may not be money available in the arts.  Artists will pursue their art no matter what.  And if they are starving they will, like William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens, get real jobs and do their art because it's straining to come out.  Because we use art as our own catharsis.

I've been doing photography now for thirty years.  I've had many shows.  Paid for all of them.  Paid for the frames and the wine and the cheese and the invitations, and the months and years of looking for the images and the time in the dark room slamming all the stuff out.  No grants.  No stipends.  No public money.  If people like the work they like the  work.  Sometimes we sell one.  Usually not.  But I do it because I like it and I do it to show my friends and family and interested strangers what I do.

And I support my art by selling my craft and technical skills, won from art, to companies that understand that their marketing efforts can be translated into a single, gestalt visual that adds value to their communication with their customers.  And I sell books that find their value on an open market.  And, as liberal in the bluest of Texas towns, I am still conflicted about footing the bill for the art of others when so many times the end users, for whom we've subsidized engagement, are the wealthiest in our communities.   But we don't know how much value art brings to the table down the road.  How much trickles down.  And I'm not willing to cut there unless we're equally willing to wean the businesses.  At least there we know where the profit goes.  And it's no better dispersed.  All or nothing.  That's a good motto for any artist.

"Art show us what it is to be Human."

Portraits are what photography is all about.....for me.

Lou and the Hasselblad.  The studio on San Marcos St.


I don't know why they do it but they do it all the time.  People talk to me about photography and they are so desperate to show me what they've recently shot that they whip out their iPhones and start flicking through images.  And sadly, many times the images are not portraits.  They show me tiny landscapes which makes my internal critic yawn and wince.  They show me "abstracts" which means they liked the color or shape of something and snapped a photo.  They show me architecture which I sometimes like, sometimes tolerate but mostly ignore.  And they show me pictures of cats to prove how sharp their new lens/camera/flash is.

I have a new dodge to get out of looking at the images as they are flicked past on the screen.  I apologize and point out that I didn't bring my reading glasses and so am incapable of truly appreciating the "art."  At this point they start using two fingers to enlarge the photographs.  Perhaps they mean to scroll across and depend on my "persistence of vision" to tile together their masterpieces in my mind.  At that point I generally just tell people to stop.

The one exception is when someone shows me a really nice portrait.  Then, mystically, my vision improves and I can share in the sharing.  Now I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with pursuing landscape photographs.  Ansel Adams had a good run with the genre and I suppose some other people have too.  And Lee Freidlander certainly made some hay with his abstracts, as did Gordon Parks.  It's just that people are so much more interesting to photograph and look at.  In a way it's because portraits can be virtually interactive......at least they will look back at you.

(Above shot on medium format black and white film, Hasselblad Camera.  180mm Zeiss lens.)

Studio Coffee Break, circa 1993.

Lou and the little black dress.


It was a more civilized time.  We'd shoot for while and then stop for coffee while the assistants reloaded the film backs.  None of the jittery madness of tight scheduling and fast turnaround we "enjoy" today.  And, after a shoot, the film would be sent to the lab for processing and contact sheets.  That bought us two days of relaxation and respite.

The coffee was always hot and good.  The film always seemed to turn out fine.  And no one was in a rush.  What a delicious way to work.

Another Day Another Medium Format Portrait. From The Early 2000's...

   Amy in the studio.


I can't imagine how we did it just a few short years ago.  I was looking through boxes with thousands and thousands of black and white, medium format images and wondering, "how did we pay for all that medium format film?  All the developing and contact sheets?"  And it wasn't all for jobs.  That would make sense.  No, at least half the stuff in the boxes was personal work.  People I couldn't bear not to photograph because I liked the way they looked so much.  Looking back at a typical bill from my lab from 2002 (we were still shooting a mix of film and digital....) I note that I shot 160 rolls of MF tri-X in the month of June.  In that same month I shot 300 rolls of color transparency film.  While that's only 5,500 exposures it's critical to remember that every click of the shutter cost real money.  I'd estimate the out of pocket expenses for the 460 rolls of film, with develop and contact at a modest $10 per roll (I used to get volume discounts...) and that means we spent $4,600 that month.  Close to a dollar a frame.  And that's before scanning or printing.

Now, for all intents and purposes, when we shoot with digital cameras it seems like photography is free.  But I think we've made some compromises that I wish we didn't have to make.  I like shooting in medium format but who can afford to buy and use $28,000 cameras and $4,000 lenses for clients whose budgets are falling faster than the Dow Jones average?  But the things I miss most people will dismiss as intangibles:  The brilliant finders.  The way the image goes out of focus because of the longer focal lengths on bigger formats.  The way black and white and color negative films could hold on to highlight detail and make it amazingly nuanced.  Being able to put your hands on a piece of film and seeing it.  Knowing that negatives might dissolve but knowing that they will do it gracefully instead of catastrophically.  The incredible tonal range of well shot and processed film.  The unmatched pleasure of the square frame...

The wonderful thing about life is that not everything has to be binary.  I change my mind a lot but it doesn't mean I have to burn all the other options and walk a narrow path for the rest of my days.  I've been seduced by the promiscuous nature of digital's ample largess and I've been swayed by film's Calvinistic rigor and I like both feelings.  The hot tub and the stern, early morning run up the long hills.

So I think I'll spend a while going back and forth, like a man with two lovers.  I'll shoot portraits for myself on silvery slivers of film and I'll shoot work for my clients on the visual accordions of digital.  And I'll hunger for the day when a wonderful client, with Warren Buffett-sized budgets, stumbles across some of the work I'm doing with film and exclaims,  with a breathy excitement: "Oh dear God!!! These are wonderful!!!!  Please.  Can you shoot our next project with real film???"

And I'll tilt my little black beret to one side of my head, toss aside my hand rolled cigarette,  empty my martini glass and, grudgingly say,  "Well...if that's what you want..."  And we'll be back into a new game of mixing old and new.

Note:  atmtx visited my studio on Sunday and captured me with the new camera.  His photo is here