The Red Watcher
Mackinaw City, Michigan
Picking Up a Fallen Star
Spring Arbor, Michigan – shot on the Canon M and the EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 lens.
Austin, Texas: Street Photography
Here’s something I don’t usually do: some street photography around downtown Austin, Texas.
With all my work travels this year, I’ve had the chance to do more of this style of photography: Philadelphia, Mexico City, etc. And even with my recent practice, I still find it hard to do well.
But there’s nothing like practice. Austin’s perfect weather, manageable downtown, and good light all around helped.
One challenge was focal length. Either I wasn’t close enough, or my 22mm and 32mm on the Canon M6 didn’t get me close enough. Another challenge was traffic blocking some key shots.
Still, a good photowalk out and about, exploring the city.
Austin, Texas: Shapes and Shadows
I’ve traveled a lot this year.
On the way to the airport, this time to Austin, Texas, for a conference, I thought, “I’ve used this parking garage an awful lot lately.”
It’s not a bad thing. I love to travel, and these trips have allowed me to try out more street photography than I usually do.
Back home, my pictures are mostly people-less. A city like Austin, though, lets me walk around an urban environment and practice in the streets.
My Austin trip was so inspiring (and warm – it was a perfect 70-80 degrees and sunny in mid-November, much warmer than Michigan) that I went out to shoot every chance I could. That gave me a ton of photos to select, organize, and process.
Consider this the first post in a series of albums from Austin – this time focusing on light/shadow, my usual go-to when out shooting. Look for more traditional street shots, with people, and others from around Austin in the next few weeks.
Shot on the Canon M6 and EF-M 22mm and 32mm lenses.
A Good Case for the Everyday Carry
Ali from One Month Two Cameras discusses her needs and wants for her everyday carry camera—the one you use for just about everything.
For 12 years, that was the Canon M for me. Earlier this year, I upgraded to the Canon M200, but I’ve had second thoughts. And those thoughts came right as Ali’s video went live last week.
Put shortly: she’s on to something…
Take Me to Church
I attended a Methodist college, worked at a Methodist college, and orbited around the Methodist community over the years.
Now, my wife is working with the First United Methodist Church in town on a music therapy program. It’s the church where she grew up, and her grandmother still attends Sunday service, so we have joined the worship service the last few weeks.
There’s something to be said about a classic pews-and-steeple church. New churches look more like warehouses or coffee shops. I prefer a church that looks like a church.
Hymnals backed by a legit organ – as opposed to a praise band – help give that old church vibe, too.
Church helps build a routine, encourages service to others, and fosters community. All of those things are precisely what we need right now.
Encouraging Creativity
It was a rare moment of sibling collaboration—when all the kids put aside their squabbling, grabbed their markers, and made something.
This scene used to happen more often, especially before Aiden became a teenager. Our kitchen table was the family art studio, and the kids would take on a three-marker challenge or create handmade birthday cards for friends.
Early on, we encouraged creativity. My wife is a talented musician, and I have a background in music and photography, so we made sure to give our kids a solid artistic foundation. All the kids took early childhood music classes, and we enrolled the girls in the local art school’s preschool program. Aiden is a talented musician in the middle school band, and the girls are musical theater performers.
We know it will do them good. Art for art’s sake is a perfectly fine goal to me, but there are other benefits—like civic engagement and writing skills. And the arts are social: most of Aiden’s friends come from marching band (so did mine, back in high school!). The arts, combined with a love of reading, an appreciation of the outdoors, and a bit of Midwestern kindness, are a pretty good recipe for an enjoyable childhood and a successful adulthood.
For some families, it’s all about sports and competition, or pure academic achievement.
Our kids? They were cursed with art lovers for parents. They didn’t stand a chance.
Ex Social Media
With Tweetdeck’s subscriber-only model comes the death of Twitter for me.
Yes, it was long in the tooth. Yes, it hadn’t been updated in years (until recently). But darn it, Tweetdeck was my version of Twitter: comprehensive, time-based, multiple accounts on one screen, and so simple to use.
Up to now, all the drama around the sale of Twitter and its loathsome owner hadn’t affected me. I built a comfortable corner of the platform – full of photographers, Mac enthusiasts, and funny Simpsons accounts. It was quiet, and I only saw what I wanted to see. My Twitter break last February helped even more because I eliminated a lot of political Twitter that affected my mental wellbeing.
Now that Tweetdeck is paid-only, I don’t see much value in the platform.
- I want to see posts in the order they’re posted.
- I don’t want to see random posts from accounts I don’t follow.
Those two simple requests alone leave much of Twitter useless to me now. And the lack of third-party clients, establishing some order and preferences, makes it worse.
For so long, I got Twitter. Unlike many of my IRL colleagues and friends, it seemed built for people like me. I built up a lot of good online relationships on Twitter. I shared my photos, got great ideas, and “met” tons of people with similar interests. I don’t know where those will go now, but maybe it’s back to following blogs and email newsletters exclusively. Another social media network isn’t what I need.
I need a good, reliable platform. Twitter’s not that. Not anymore.
See you somewhere else.
Swim Surreal
Neat new music from the Zero 7 universe.
Their first three albums were amazing, then they just kind of fell off the Earth for a bit. Nice to see them collaborating with talent like Swim Surreal.
Let’s Go Blue
It’s tough being a University of Michigan football fan this season.
Last year? Easy. One of the best years ever.
This year has been challenging, with key wins, disappointing losses, and a lot of inconsistency. So when the number one team in the country, Oregon, came to visit, our expectations were easy to set: we probably weren’t going to win.
Instead, my buddy Don and I went for the atmosphere. We and 110,000 other fans descended on Ann Arbor on a beautiful autumn afternoon in November.
It was us and the big corporate sponsors, apparently. Mt. Dew set up a station a few blocks from Michigan Stadium, complete with velcro walls and a DJ. We popped in and grabbed a few (free!) BBQ sandwiches, and watched the college students come and go.
Inside the stadium was as festive as ever, and we got to watch the sunset on both the game and evening.
Shot on the Canon M200 and EF-M 22mm f/2.
Disgust For All
Not much to say on this, the day after the U.S. election, but a few thoughts I had this morning waking up to the news:
- Info bubbles are bad—it’s so important to step outside of what you normally read about or hear and listen to other echo chambers.
- “Vibes” alone aren’t enough to sway people who have legitimate concerns about the country’s direction.
- Who shows up matters and ultimately determines the outcome. If you don’t have the votes, you don’t win – simple, but hard to execute.
- America is a tough place to understand sometimes, and it’s getting tougher.
I’m sad and nervous. I’m also dumping my usual sources for information (Twitter – deleted my account, and Reddit for general browsing) and am committed to casting a weary, skeptical eye on news media reports that seem confident.
In the meantime, we all have feelings to process and art to make. Let’s get back to work.
Back to Normal
It was a constructive summer. Especially in the last few months, I’ve made a go at getting out more and more, trying to fill my photography buffer so I have plenty of material to edit and share as we move into the cold and gray months.
I feel like I’m getting back to a familiar sense of normalcy, photographically speaking. In some ways, I’m recreating my work commute from 10-12 years ago. On the weekends, I get up early, hit the road to a local town, and shoot in the morning light. A few things have helped, like:
- Making a conscious effort to get out and shoot more – actually dedicating time to doing so.
- Creating a running mental list of photography opportunities and locations.
- Good weather! Now that we’re into autumn, I know the sun and warmth are ending, so it’s been nice to have bright mornings.
- Testing out lenses and cameras. Last weekend, I grabbed my 28mm because I rarely use it, and it provides a challenge.
Back into the groove. Back to normal – or at least a new normal (I say one day before the U.S. presidential election).
For now, it feels good.
Through the Ghastly Blank
Foggy fall mornings in Jackson, Michigan.
Shot on the Canon M200 and EF-M 15-45mm lens.
Artoberfest
A smaller, much more manageable version of the behemoth Art Fest during the summer, Ann Arbor’s Artoberfest had us downtown on a lovely October afternoon, exploring Corktown and grabbing some prints from local (sometimes snoozing) artists.
It was my first time walking around downtown Ann Arbor since last year’s holiday season, and I had a chance to do some street work with the Canon M6 and trusty EF-M 22mm f/2.
And unlike the giant summer Art Fair, this festival had top-tier art worth checking out. Spending money on area artists’ work feels good – an easy way to freshen up our decor at home and shop locally.
Stockbridge, Michigan
One our way up north this summer, I took the scenic route (as I often do) through the little towns of Stockbridge and Perry, Michigan. Along the way, I made a mental note to stop by both towns and take photos.
I picked a foggy morning on the first day of autumn to head up to Stockbridge. I’m glad I did, because the mist gave the town square a vibe. I made a whole morning out of it, shooting along the way and back home, and it ended up being a really productive (and fun) day out.
Shot on the Canon 5D with a combo of the EF 28mm and 40mm.
Around the Block
Quiet fall evenings are a chance to get outside, get some fresh air, and end the day on a high note.
Shot on Canon M6 and EF-M 32mm f/1.4.
Salsa Night
For our anniversary, I reserved a Salsa Night out for my wife and me last weekend.
Since we didn’t know how to salsa dance, I tried to reserve pre-show lessons for us. However, the lessons were all sold out.
That meant we were going into an unfamiliar dance night as total rookies.
“We can do this,” I thought. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
The music was great, and the dancers who readily joined the dance floor were impressive to watch. What about us?
My first idea was to get the rhythm down and do anything I could to get comfortable with salsa.
The beat? Four-four. But the rhythm was one-two, one-two, so while I sat in my chair, I tapped out the steps with my feet, mimicking the dancers in front of me. Once I had that, I felt like I could improvise the rest.
And since we were on a rare date night, just my wife and me, away from the kids, there was a little pressure to have a bit of extra fun and make this evening memorable.
To calm our nerves, we got up to slow dance during one of the ballads. We had done this dozens of times before. But while we were slow dancing, the rhythm changed just a bit – more of a swing – so we added some swagger to our slow dancing to feel it out. This was a good warm-up.
When we sat back down, I went back to feet-tapping the rhythm, slowly pounding out some courage to go up and truly salsa dance on the floor. Then my wife and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised.
“Let’s salsa,” I said, shrugging, as I grabbed my wife’s hand and went out to boogie.
And you know what? We had a great time. First, no one noticed us. Everyone was either watching the band or the more proficient dancers all around us.
Second, we were having so much fun that we didn’t worry about what we looked like. Sure, we tripped up a few times, and I awkwardly tried to spin my wife around like I saw those other dancers do. But we never stopped smiling and we never slowed down – even during the line dance that I couldn’t quite get perfect.
Nerves turned into laughter, and self-consciousness turned into being in the moment. We giggled as we occasionally stumbled off the beat.
Sometimes, we don’t know all we need to know to succeed—or even to have fun. That’s fine because, with a little bit of self-made comfort and practice, you can easily make the most of a situation with low stakes and high enjoyment.
On this Salsa Night, joy trumped comfort. We were there to have fun together, and step by step, we earned it.
Parma, Michigan
Parma, Michigan is a little burg on the west end of Jackson County – quiet and empty the day I was there.
Shot on the original Canon M with the EF-M 22mm f/2.
Philly in 50mm: Museum District
More 50mm shots from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, this time near the art museum (made famous in Rocky).
The hike from downtown to the museum district is a pleasant one, lined with sycamore trees and art installations along the way. At the start, you have the Barnes Foundation, and then halfway down the path you have the Rodin Museum – a space that looks like an ancient Roman edifice left behind by millennia and plunked down into a sprawling, modern American city.
Then you get to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with its Rocky statue and iconic stairway, and you can tell this is where people gather. Especially dudes who just jogged all the way here to run up those steps.
I haven’t been to Philly in years, not since my big Revoluationary War tour of New England in 2008, and it was great to see some places I didn’t catch on the original trip.
Shot on the Canon R with the RF 50mm f/1.8 lens.
Philly in 50mm: Downtown
Quick work trip last week to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area.
My coworkers and I had a chance to visit downtown Philly briefly. With only my work camera – a Canon R with the RF 50mm f/1.8 lens – I snagged a few pictures around the historic district and the art museum stairs (made famous in the Rocky movie).
These are the downtown portion, in and around the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.
I don’t often do the street photography thing, but it was nice to explore a busy urban area and capture the people and scenes around this important American city.