The time of year we've all been waiting for. Welcome to SXSW.

One of our favorite barristas at Caffe Medici.  

It's here! The event that all the local hotels and restaurants have been waiting for. 

It's South by Southwest.  The logos all read, "SXSW."  And the hipsters all just say, "South by."  Whatever.  It's here in my city.  And it's going to be happening for the next ten days.  

240,000 techies, movie lovers and live music lovers crammed into our downtown for a 

current cultural love fest. They're here.  

More are coming every day and some of them will probably end up staying.  

And that's okay as long as they sign the pledge card to "Keep Austin Weird."

If there are any visitors reading this you'll want to make Caffe Medici on Congress Ave. your operations center for caffeine replenishment.  Best cappuccinos around.

Always amazed that people travel in from everywhere to do the "face-to-face" 

and then really end up "face-to-computer.

That's my friend, Cindy Lo in the background (No, not the one in the plaid).

She's an ex-techie who now runs an event company.

Just taking a break from the first day of sessions.

Ready to photograph.

Bernard, Frank, Nathan and I met at Caffe Medici today to have 

a PHOTO SIT.  It's different from a "photo walk" in that

no one is in charge, no one's ego gets massaged, there's 

no ulterior profit or mindshare motive and 

we get to sit around and drink great coffee.

Occasionally one of us will jump up

from the bar and take a photograph of someone.

It's spontaneous.  And no one 

poaches anyone else's shots by

Leaning over their shoulder and 

Double shooting.

Cool.

This is Nathan.  And I have to admit something embarrassing.

We both showed up with the same model of camera.  We both showed up

with a Sony a77.  How weird is that? So embarrassing, right?

This is the look he gave me when he found out I was 

carrying his brand. It's his territory. He had one 

first.

(Just kidding.  We did have the same camera and lens but I asked him to pose "mean.")

When I jumped up from the bar to photograph someone it was because

I saw this person on the other side of the bar and loved her smile.

And her amazingly present scarf.  

When the rain hit a crescendo, really pounding down,

 I decided to venture out of the safety of the coffee

house and face SXSW outside.

Did I forget to mention that it's been raining for days here?

Well, it has been and we're all damn happy about it even if 

it's mildly inconvenient for the visitors.  You see, we've 

been in an extreme drought for the last 18 months and 

we desperately need rain.  In fact, when I strolled out of the coffee house

into the downpour I thought I saw our governor dancing naked up near the Capitol.

Not sure.  Could have been a trick of the lightning.

Out we go into the elements with Nathan assuring me that our

cameras are weatherproof....yikes.

Downtown Dogs. 

Bernard is sporting a camera cover and an umbrella.

Nathan has gone and decided to ignore the Amazonian-style deluge.

He photographs me photographing Bernard photographing and 

suddenly I feel like I'm in an M.C. Escher photograph.

Away we go.

I lost track of Bernard and Nathan somewhere between Congress and San Jacinto Streets.

I think they got caught in a cross current.  For all I know they're floating out toward 

Lady Bird Lake.

They were good comrades in camera straps.  They will be missed. 

But I was happy and dry in the Austin Convention Center trying to make

sense of all the frenetic activity.

I was confused. I didn't even know who the guys in the 

giant cardboard heads were supposed to be.

Everywhere I turned people were being interviewed.  I'm not sure what they 

were talking about but I'm sure it will someday be as important as Twitter.

Or more so.  And it will have all started here.

There were demo areas all over the first floor.  And at everyone of them

people were staring into laptop screens.  Staring and typing.

I don't know what the VIP Tickets are for but I'm

betting it's something very special and very good.

Talk about getting a big head.  Must be a Nikon D800 Shooter....

 This (just above) pretty much sums up the interactive component of SXSW for me.

People staring at iPhones.  Surrounded by lots of other interesting people.

Who are also staring at their iPhones.  And the messages probably read:

"I'm having dinr.  What are U doing?"

But from what I saw today typing on laptops and staring at iPhone screens is 

sporadically interrupted by the drone of presenters in big, dark rooms talking about

the latest way to "Stay in touch" while Power Point slides 

slip across the screen over their heads.

Stay in touch.

Stay in touch.

Stay in touch.

"How can we monetize that?"

And anywhere you'll find 200K attendees you will find long lines.

A pre-perestroika Soviet citizen would feel right at home.....

At least it was safe and dry.

Still not getting the hang of this one...

We could look at the wall.

Or we could look at a screen shot of the wall.

Or we could look at a cellphone screen shot of a three word Post-it note.

This guy is running sound for a video crew.  At least that's what I deduced.

He's got a microphone with a fuzzy blimp on a pole under that blue plastic and 

he's got one of those "sound guy" waist packs as well.

He is also standing alone and staring at the screen of his cellphone.

These guys are part of a club that roams the streets of random cities.

The club requires that they wear laptop bags.

The code of the club also requires that they wear them across one shoulder.

They are walking down the creepiest part of Sixth St.

And the rain is abating.

Pedi-cab on West Sixth St.  Looking good.  Love the well 

engineered shelter for passengers.

Drag coefficient? 

Darn. I missed the Third Eye Blind concert at the Moody Theater. 

They call it the "Moody Theater" because that's its real name.

The natives call it "Austin City Limits."

Austin City Limits box office doohickey.

1600 is about as far as I'd go with the a77 for perfectly clean files from

Jpegs.  I might risk 3200 in raw.  I'd rather shoot everything under 400.

But that doesn't make it a bad camera.  Just one that's not very good at ultra high 

ISOs.  And that's okay with me as long as it delivers on the low end.

We'll find out about that ASAP.

Pedi-Cab on Lamar Blvd. Just in front of Whole Foods Super-Hyper

Flagship store.  Such a euphoric look for someone in the middle 

of crazy Austin traffic in the rain...

Some hints for the newcomers:

1.  Don't swim in Barton Springs right after a big rainstorm. The run off drives up the fecal coliform 

content of the water, making it unsafe.  Wait a few days.

2.  Don't drive in Westlake Hills. Ever. The natives are ferocious.  And besides, we don't need anymore traffic over here.  Stay downtown.

3.  Don't toss out the sunscreen.  Just because it only hit 45 today doesn't mean we won't be in the sunny 80's tomorrow.

4.  Snarky comment about dressing in black removed.  I realized I was wearing black too...

5.  Try to spend all your money in local bars, restaurants and coffee shops.  We love you even more when we get to keep most of the money in the city limits...

6.  The light levels in the convention center (locus of most SXSW activity) are very low.  You will not need the sunglasses inside.

7.  None of the BBQ is authentic unless you are eating it at the Salt Lick, Artz or maybe Franklin's. Everything else is just cheap meat in spicy ketchup.  Frank just reminded me about Iron Works.  It's good too.  And they have good BBQ ribs at Whole Foods.

8.  All of the Tex-Mex food is authentic unless you are eating it in the restaurant of your hotel or at Taco Bell.  Not all of it is good...but it is authentic.

9.  If you see a really cool guy with gray hair point a Sony a77 digital camera at you this week try to feign a look of inspired brilliance and try to look really, really interesting.

10.  ........So much for Top Ten lists..

So, have a great time while you're here.  You might as well go a little crazy, clean out your 401k and really party in style but when the conference is over you'll probably want to go back to your own town.  I'm sure it's much nicer than Austin.  Have you been to Madison yet?

Not Exactly a Portrait But One of My Favorite Working Shots.

Quick shot of a sweet kid in a CT Scanner.

Even though it's not a portrait I've always liked this shot. I took it a few years ago with a Nikon D2x (how did we ever survive with only 12 megapixels???) and a 17-55mm lens.  I lit the image by placing four slaved hot shoes flashes in various spots around the room.  All the flashes are aimed toward the ceiling except for the one in the far background.  It's feathered down to light the doors and wall behind the people.  We didn't spend a lot of time on the shot.  We had dozens to do that day.  But the interaction between the nurse in the blue scrubs and the little girl is great.

With the soft light from the flashes bouncing off the ceiling not much post processing was required.  

Just another day at the "office."  I love location shoots.  They move fast.  They require quick problem solving and you get to use lots of what you've learned to make it all appear easy for the rest of the people involved.

Shifting the discussion back to portraits.

This is Suzy.  It's a quick portrait.  No more than a snapshot.

If there's one thing the blog has done for me it's to help me discern what I like in a photograph and what I don't. For the most part I like to see people in my photographs.  And I've discovered that I'm not really at all concerned with "ultimate" sharpness and resolution or perfect color.  I'm drawn toward grainy images with implied movement.  I'd rather look at black and white than color.  I like deep, rich blacks and I like highlights that hover on the edge of dissolution into white.

I like soft, directional light that spills across a face and I find most beauty lighting as boring as the output of a photo booth.  I like backgrounds that go tremendously out of focus.  I don't like monotonal backgrounds.  I like backgrounds that shift thru a register of values. 

It's hard for me to make a portrait I like if I can't make some sort of connection with the person I'm photographing.  Doesn't matter if I "like" them or not but I have to have some understanding of who they are in order to continue into the process.

Like any other creative process there is a resistance I encounter when I start to think about creating portraits.  Resistance tells me that everyone is too busy to come and sit for a portrait.  That I need to do something different with my lighting and taking portraits would be a futile waste of time if I haven't figured out my new lighting yet.  And there's always the idea that there must be a lens and a camera out there somewhere that would do a much better job making portraits than the ones I have in my hands.

In a very real way this blog is a manifestation of my resistance to moving deeper and deeper into making portraits.  Why bother to call and arrange rendezvous and set up lights if you can harvest the past and pontificate about the future?  Why? Because like the sharks artists need to continue to move forward to breathe.  

I think we'll spend the next few months shooting and writing and reading about portraits.  New portraits.  In fact, the re-invention of the photographic portrait.  Not more quick hits on the street.  A more focused intention to see people and share what we've seen.

This is not my blog. Please read this blog!

I got a taste of this blog from Rob at APhotoEditor.  If you don't know his site you should.  The taste led me to find the original blog and I read it.  It's exactly what I feel about photography, postprocessing, etc.

http://www.derekshapton.com/planet_shapton/?p=1204

Read and discuss.  But remember, it's Derek Shapton's blog, not mine.

Today is the first day of SXSW.  Thank you to all the people dressed in black who've come here to learn, create and add dollars to Austin's tax base.  We love you.

What a week. What a life.

This, of course, is Ben. Years ago. Dynamic range?  You bet.  It's called negative film.

I'm always amazed at the lunacy of the web.  I posted something about using a homemade florescent lighting rig for a specific need and I've waded through several blogs about how I must be a cheapskate or a noob or a person who doesn't care about my clients or someone who only cares about "good enough" instead of great photography.  How handy to have other people make my point for me and even put an exclamation point on it for good measure.  I am, of course, referencing my post this week entitled, "You can't use that.  It's not professional."

In the early 1970's, even in to the mid 1970's there weren't any readily available, affordable softboxes.  Certainly nothing light enough or small enough to take on location.  But photographers looked at giant, metal "scoops" and "softlight" fixtures (made of metal and mounted on dedicated light stands) and they adapted them for location work by making their own "softboxes" out of foamcore panels and tape and sheets of diffusion material.  Then Chimera and Photoflex followed with their own portable designs.

There's a rich tradition of the very best photographers making their own, "do-it-yourself" devices when the need arose.  A great photographer named Peter Gowland even started a side business making and marketing interesting cameras like a 4x5 inch twin lens reflex camera, the Gowlandflex.  It's only in the age of digital photography that it seems that photographers have become such unimaginative wimps that they only feel comfortable with the (mostly) dreck foisted on them by the hive of companies that swirl around the periphery of photography offering up silly crap to the rubes.  Did everyone give up their balls when they got issued credit cards?

On one forum a very challenged poster postulated that my makeshift florescent fixture could, at any moment, fly apart and cripple my clients and everyone within a 200 meter circle.  Imagine the liability!!! He suggested that if I had the financial wherewithal to buy a "professional" product I would be spared this devastation and loss of human life should the assemblage ever be "knocked over."  I can only say, "moron."  

But the sad thing is there are legions of photographers running wild in the world who equate spending money on branded gear as the zenith of professionalism.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The guys who shill the gear directly for the makers get paid and get gear in exchange for constantly chattering about their wedded brand.  They have a fiscal relationship with a manufacturer.  It's in their best interest to interest you in buying what they use.  The relationship continues.  The marketing advantages continue.  The pipeline of gear continues.  But it does raise the overall level of photography? No.  And it keeps too many smart people from experimenting and inventing their own solutions.  And having the satisfaction that goes with personal success.

But if you are doing this as a real business instead of entertainment for amateur photographers you use the gear that matches the project.  And sometimes you make that gear by hand.  The crews on films that cost 100 million dollars to make have been doing it for years.  They have access to the best stuff imaginable but sometimes they invent their own lights for special needs.  And they work with manufacturers to make it in a repeatable fashion because, once other film makers see the results they will probably want to try something similar.  Kinoflos were invented on the set of a police movie for under dashboard lighting and small area fill.  Now they're the big name in professional florescent fixtures for video and film.  But it was a lone gaffer or DP whole came up with the idea and did the initial product.  Same with the first uses of LEDs.

Buying everything off the shelf means that you're doing stuff the way everyone else in the business does the same stuff.  That's called "boring." Real pros modify, adapt and create. They use off the shelf gear but they use it in their own way.  Hotshoe? Really?  See David Hobby.  See Syl Arena. They looked at the hotshoe for mounting flashes on their cameras and they said, "We can do better." And they used the flashes off the camera.

The monetary price to enter this field isn't much.  It's not about the "best" gear.  It's about the best ideas and the diligence and patience to pull them off.  The best work I see nearly always comes from the kid who's 30 days from being evicted, doesn't own more than a body and a few lenses and has an overflowing box full of ideas.  The more gear you need the weaker the concept.

You need a box with a sensor (camera), a lens, some light and a subject.  Then you need an idea, a point of view and the ability to make it all happen.  That's it. Bob Krist talked about using king sized bedsheets as a diffuser in a pinch. That was years ago.  That was before people marketed ScrimJims or Photoflex panels or Chimera Panels.  People started asking for ready made panels after Bob Krist used the bed sheets and talked about it in his first book.

An American Express Platinum card with a stratospheric spending limit never made anyone a great artist.  

But that's just my opinion as a noob.

My favorite comment.  From Scott Baker:  All true, Kirk. When fans of a specific brand see the introduction of a new much anticipated camera, it is such a deflating experience if the review sites label it "enthusiast" or "advanced amateur." They would love the camera if it was labeled "professional," but because the label said "enthusiast" the collective gasp is FAIL! Then the genius comments start coming in like "don't they realize that if they made a professional level camera with (insert XYZ specs) and sold it for (insert figure about $1000 under going rate) they would corner the market?! Don't they realize what we NEED?!" If I was to introduce a camera it would be called the Pro Elite Professional Pro 1.

Just another day.

 Sony a77 with 16-50mm 2.8

I flipped my day upside down.

I slept in late.

I skipped my swim.

I avoided my office. 

I saddled up my car and flowed into downtown.

I got a breakfast taco and some coffee.

I talked to a nice person I'd never met before.

She's has a business importing and selling Fair Trade

fashion accessories from third world countries.

We had fun talking about advertising and photography.

Then I went for a walk.

Whose flowers?

They were on the sidewalk just south of the grocery store.

I was going to pick them up but I didn't know what I'd do with them.

I photographed them, wondered who they were intended for 

and then shrugged and walked off.

I finished drinking my coffee in the middle of the bridge.

I looked for a trash can.  There wasn't one.

I decided to photograph my empty coffee up with Shoal Creek in the 

background.  I love the out of focus background.

I picked up my cup and went on looking for a trash can.

The coffee was from Mexico.  At least that's what the little sign next 

to the coffee pot

said.

Every downtown business is stocking up for SXSW.

The chubby guys with the black button down shirts

under black sports coats worn over black jeans have landed from the 

coasts.  Their eyeglasses are geometric and 

fashion forward.  They all dress the same.

When all glasses are fashion forward......

I hadn't seen a Yumi Ice Cream Truck before.

I loved the product illustrations on the sides.

The swirl cone looks incredible

and 

the Håagen-Dazs looks really rich.

A nice burst of color on a grey and misty day.

I've finally figured out how to do a 100% crop.

Now all the people who must know will be able to know.

This is the window at Estillo. 

They sell "fashion." 

It looks like clothes to me.

The top one is 100% the bottom one is full frame.

"I hate EVFs.  If XXXXX camera company switches to them I'm 

switching to YYYYYY."

"I love EVFs.  I'm selling all the cameras I own that don't have EVF's."  

I love the middle ground.  I get to shoot with both.

Switching is fun.  Even chocolate pudding would get boring

if I had it at every meal...

Sometimes I really want chocolate mousse. 

"Are you from out of town?"  "No we're just heading out for lunch. We live here."

"Can I take your picture?  Would you squinch a little closer together?"

"Me?  Yeah, I live here too.  I'm just talking a day off to do my hobby."

"Have fun!"  "You too!"

(And don't forget to dial in a stop of exposure compensation for that bright sky

 in the  background. Got it.)  

At some point, for some people, life is all about disk golf.

That's a great collection of disks.  Some go left and some go right.

Some go straight ahead.  A man's got to use the right tool for each throw.

I used my zoom lens.

This is the guy who owns the brightly colored disks above.

This is Trevin.  He's in radio.  He does a show 

on 101x every night from 6 to 10 pm.

He was going to hide the cigarette but I liked the "retro" 

charm.  Thanks for posing!

I made him black and white to offset the color from the disks.

I found this fellow at the Belmont.  It's a popular restaurant and bar

on West Sixth Street.

He's re-wiring the whole place.  And he's an electrician.

Isn't that an amazing yellow door in the background?

I don't think he had anything to do with that.

I felt a little guilty since he seemed to be working hard 

and I was just out walking around with a camera

being a tourist in my own town.

I was walking around with a Sony a77 camera and the big, honking

16-50mm f2.8 zoom lens.

You shouldn't be surprised since I talked about that camera

last year.  It's been out of stock forever because of the floods in Thailand.

Did I mention that I really like EVFs?

It's a nice camera.  If you need one with lots and lots of resolution you might consider it.

If you need a camera that takes Canon or Nikon lenses it's probably not a good choice....

Also, I've read but haven't tested this for myself, some testers say that the files are noisier by a stop than other cameras in its class.  I wouldn't know.  I was shooting at ISO 200 most of the time.

I'm getting ready to do a shot in the studio at ISO 50.  I've heard that the 

Dynamic Range at that setting is pretty darn amazing.

But I'm sure I'll show you what turns out for me in due time.

Don't buy this camera just because I did.

I have a long history of buying strange gear.

Mellow Kirk signing off.

Post note 5:11 PM same day:  It's dark and grey and raining here and getting colder by the minute.  What a wonderful time to be in the studio, looking west out my wall of windows and working on a book.  The glow of my laptop screen tanning my face, and my mind churning out little plot points and descriptions.  Beats the hell out of working.

Just photography. That's what I signed up for.

If you're not shooting you're wasting your time.  If we're arguing about gear we're both wasting our time.

TOO MUCH MAGIC. A book that helps explain our inability to stop buying gear. And much more.

I have a book addiction and I'm not ashamed of it.  There's a ton of great stuff out there in the book-o-sphere.  And the focus it takes to write and produce a great book means that there's more signal and less noise in a book than in most other media.  I know from past experience that most of my readers here at VSL love to read.  Otherwise they wouldn't trudge through my longer posts.  We've pretty much scared off the people who profess to not like reading much...

Today, instead of crooning about the latest cameras or doing another heartfelt post about shooting with your heart instead of your brain, I'm reviewing a book that has absolutely nothing to do with photography and everything to do with why we enjoy photography less, feel as though we have less time to devote to our photography and can't seem to get a foothold onto the steep cliff of creative expression.  And why we're spinning our wheels instead of getting stuff done.

Reader, Jason Benlevi, sent me his book entitled, "Too Much Magic.  Pulling the Plug on the Cult of Tech." (full disclosure:  It is a review copy, paperback, and no other value or exchange of services has occurred to, in any way, influence my reviewing of the book.)

The book is both a history of our entanglement with, and accommodation of, all the devices and programming and social interfaces that the past 100 years of technological advancement brought to the consumer.  Benlevi makes a very good case that every new application and device has a useful side and a dark side and that we, as consumers, are being pushed into choices and use patterns without informed consent. And without truthfully acknowledging the dark sides.

I  won't go into detail and spoil a great read for you but one of the statements that jumped out at me concerned the shift in our focus of brain and financial resources.  At one point, two generations back, we (the U.S.A.) sent men to the moon.  Now, with our focus on recreational and sales oriented websites as targets for our joint venture dollars the only way we can get our people to the international space station is to hitch a ride on a Russian spacecraft.  We our the masters of "I'm at Starbucks!"  "Do these shoes make me look fat?" and other important social interactions.  But at the same time we earn less than we did 20 years ago and work harder.

Benlevi is a good writer and he makes the concepts flow.  His time lining of our tech history helps all the concepts fall nicely into place.  His ability to show both sides of the tech coin comes from his own long history in the technology world. He is a hardly an outsider. 

If you've felt uneasy about the massive intrusion and implied necessity of social networking in your life but you don't understand why you feel uneasy or what to do about it, then this book is for you.

If you think an iPad is a tool to enhance your creativity then this book is for you. 

We are being stalked for our consumer information every minute we're on the web or on our phones.  The people who vacuum up our information are deciding what we will see and what we won't.  They are using the information to help us spend more and to spend it more often.  They are helping us relentlessly upgrade.  Find out how and find out why.

I got the book yesterday afternoon and finished the 361 pages over coffee this morning.  That's all I have to say because I'm off to pull the plug on my Facebook account.