Downtowns
Downtowns accommodate recreational photography. It’s light, shadows, and reflections of ourselves in glass entrances. It’s seeing someone we’re responsible for and committing to being kinder and more forgiving, knowing that change requires small steps.
Twangy
It’s pedal steel, a high-treble electric, and a six-string acoustic; its fiddle, snare, and upright bass and lyrics about heartache.
FM 3503
Sand haulers and company trucks roar today, yet in a lost decade, young mechanics revved muscle cars on two lanes, interrupting calm nights before red taillights. It’s been forever since I’ve considered FM 3503.
Harsh Daylight
I’ve tried to photograph harsh light for years. Unlike film, digital has less latitude in bright light, which is why you must find techniques to elevate consistency.
Calm
In a sea of chaos, be an island of peace.
The Westerner
Sometime in the mid 1960s, passenger rail ended for stops serviced by the Westerner. Gone were the days of streamliners west to El Paso or east to Fort Worth. Cars and airplanes replaced passenger trains as speed and convenience took hold.
Carscapes
I did the unthinkable and walked in a city as a pedestrian. The fact that nobody stopped to ask for an explanation surprised me.
Sandhills
Monahans Sandhills State Park, Windmill, Texas & Pacific Railroad Section House
Gear
Photography is 10% taking pictures and 90% watching camera reviews.
Happy
A dog barks, tin clanks, and wind whooshes across dormant branches.
35, 50
Wide and telephoto touch somewhere between 35 and 50, which means every lens over 50 is called a telephoto and every one below 35 is considered wide, making 35 the longest wide-angle and 50 the widest telephoto.
Auxiliary Viewfinders
Forget new lenses and camera specs. One of the most freeing things we can add to our photography is an auxiliary viewfinder because it removes precision.
New York Town
I caught the subway and went downtown. Helvetica lettering pointed the way. Passenger cars rocked, rattled, and clanked in the dark, and a platform musician sang Country Roads. People smiled on the boat to the Statue of Liberty, and Manhattan’s mountains rose above the harbor, where I later walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, picturing it as I would in a dry, dusty town.
The Bigger Picture
There are many things to learn. The point of the arts isn’t to make a living doing art. Instead, if done well, we’ll witness the lived reality of the person making something become more widely known.
HEIC
Who wants to fidget with large raw files? A JPEG is good enough, and now we have 10-bit HEIC.
Traveling Kind
Art includes the freedom to wander off. If someone says that they want to be an artist, that’s like trying to write words around the unexplainable. Why do it?
In our lifetime
We’re our age for a short while, yet the present touches eternity.
Sunset Limited
With a ticket, backpack, and several rolls of Kodak Gold, I watched Amtrak’s Sunset Limited coast to a stop at Alpine, 2 PM, would reach Los Angeles at 9 AM, December 2005.
The problem with mirrorless
Someday we’ll call it a camera with interchangeable lenses.
35 is a lonesome focal length
A 35mm pushes backgrounds away and magnifies foregrounds.