Only Time Will Tell

It is Palm Sunday and usually I'm in the Centro to photograph the processions. I love seeing Jesus come down San Francisco on a donkey and sometimes it isn't a very cooperative donkey. I love the way the procession is back lit. But I've been there a lot of times to photograph the event and that is not to say that I wouldn't find a special image or two. But not today.

I am still processing the images I shot in Port Aransas and I need to get it done while the way I felt when I was making the image is still fresh. Just because I clicked the shutter and have a digital file of what I saw doesn't mean the camera has a soul. After all, it is a computer that captures an image. The camera doesn't look out across the wetlands with a low lying fog and think, Oh, my God. Isn't that beautiful the way the flats disappear into the horizon. But I think that and hit the shutter button.

Some of the images made in the fog give me trouble. The light was low and I'm looking for subtle and delicate tonalities. There is a fine line between a subtle and delicate image and a flat image. For images I really like, I don't consider the process complete until I have a print. So, I'll make a work print and prop it up on my display ledge for a while to evaluate whether I need to make more adjustments before I make a final print.

Is that what I felt the morning I made the image? Is it subtle and delicate or is it flat? Only time will tell.

Weatherproof

The end of the rainy season should be arriving but so far it isn't here. That is okay. We are high desert and we can always use the rain. Especially the rain we have been getting. Mostly a good steady rain for a few hours not monsoon rains that sometimes come. I'm sure the farmers are happy with it.

It is just that it has been so unpredictable. You can look out the window and see sunshine and shadows and by the time you have finished the dishes, dressed and opened the front door, you see rolling clouds and rain to the North in the mountains. Or it could be just the opposite. Rain. So you decide to start a project instead of going out to photograph. Once you are in the middle of the project you look out again and the weather is beautiful…..but you are in the middle of a project and can't stop.

That is the way it has been this weekend with the San Miguel Festival going on. I went into town on Saturday to photography the first communion kids in front of the Parroquia and to wait around for the horses to come in to be blessed although I didn't know exactly what time that would be. When I left the house the weather looked fine. I didn't even take an umbrella with me but the clouds quickly rolled in and it started to rain. I bought an ice cream and waited under cover for quite a while. Finally I decided that I might as well go home because it looked like it had set in for the afternoon. I took this photography while walking home.

When I started walking in the rain I made the attempt to keep the camera covered then I remembered that Olympus claims the OMD and the lens I had on it are weatherproof. Yesterday was the first time I've given my Olympus camera the water test. The camera is still working today so I guess Olympus is right. It is at least rain proof.

Staying Put

A few weeks ago an architect brought me a proposal about building a new house on a great piece of property. I immediately was taken with the idea. I don't really need more house but it would be lovely to have a lot that was large enough to have garage, a garden, a bedroom and studio on the first floor. I checked with my financial advisor and we talked numbers. After he told me I could do it if I could hold the line on the cost within certain parameters, the fantasy of building another house occupied my every thought. Then the owner of the lot decided he didn't want to sell.

I was disappointed but I was in lust with the idea of a new house. I looked at a couple of new houses and checked out another lot but as the days passed I started to think about what building another house would mean. It would take at least a year, maybe a year and a half. In many ways building a house is a very creative endeavor but it is also stressful.

Is that the way I want to spend my time? You know at my age even though I feel great, time is limited. Today I've been thinking about Joan Rivers. A week ago she was still moving and grooving. Her death is another reminder of why I came to the decision that I want to travel more and do more photography more than I want to build another house. I still have my bucket list and my blue highways list. I don't want to put those things on hold for a year.

So I'm not building or buying another house. I have some things that I want to do to Casa Mercer to spruce it up but I think I'll just stay where I am. Unless.......

Help Wanted

Shot from my front door last night. It was shot at 1/5 sec, f1.8, 1600 ISO. I'm using a 45 mm f1.8 lens on the Olympus OMD E M-1 so it is the equivalent of a 90mm f1.8 lens. The lens weighs maybe 5 oz. I really, really like this lens. It is sharp and has good contrast. A similar lens on a full frame camera would weigh in at a  pound or more and probably cost 3X as much.

 

This image would have been better, and certainly would make a better print, shot at a smaller aperture and lower ISO and that would require a tripod. I have a small travel tripod but still it would be a nuisance to carry to dinner or a cocktail party. I want to go out to photograph at night with the camera on a tripod and no other agenda but a photo shoot.  I'm hesitant about doing that by myself. If I'm going to do some serious night photography, I need to hire an assistant who can be on the watch for what is happening around me while I'm setting up the shot.

 

Anyone looking for an occasional night time job?