I photographed this morning. I practiced this afternoon...
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I bundled up a small collection of cameras and lights, put them in a rolling case and stuck them in the trunk of my car next to a half full stand bag that cosseted a couple of light stands and couple of umbrellas. Then I went to swim practice.
The water was warm but the coach was smart. Shorter sets, faster intervals. We all lived through the morning workout.
I sometimes like to spend some extra time in the water warming down. Catching up with swimmer friends. Not today. I was actually trying to stay on schedule and re-animate my Germanic sense of punctuality. I'd agreed to make five portraits this morning. And the location was one of those downtown skyscrapers I like to photograph but which so few people who visit here are ever interested in seeing again...
I wanted to arrive in the area early enough to see if I could find a convenient parking spot on the street. But my bad luck in cards and in finding convenient parking spaces is legendary amongst my friends. The client let me know that I could park in the building's attached parking garage but that building has been around Austin for decades. I've parked in that garage before and it is, without any doubt, the worst parking garage in all of downtown. Designed, perhaps, with the misguided idea that eventually everyone would embrace cars the size of a Fiat 128 and we'd all live happily ever after.
I've never been in a parking garage with such low ceilings. This may account for the fact that there were very few very tall vehicles like Chevy Suburbans. But there were endless poorly parked pickup trucks, the elongated variety, complete with trailer hitches sticking way out the back. Hoping to catch some inattentive driver's car with gleeful malice.
My car isn't big but as I wound up and up through the guts of the structure I thought just maybe I should have packed a stick of butter and used it to lubricate both sides of the car in hopes it might fit in/squeeze into one of the plentiful spaces where the drivers using the adjacent spaces haphazardly straddled the painted lines of demarcation which are supposed to be, at least, a civilizing influence.
Round and round I went. Certainly deep into a Stoic exercise.
I ended up on floor 10 B. I pulled the gear out of the trunk and headed to the elevators. Surprise, unlike every other parking garage in Austin there is no direct access to the parking garage elevator from 10 B. You must, instead, pickup your heavy case, and your stand bag, and your collapsible background and carry them up several flights of rudimentary stairs to access the "lift".
Things like this are a significant motivation for me to scout locations in advance. Even going so far as to "interview" building security to figure out the best approach to lawfully breaching and working in "their" buildings.
I did have fun once I arrived on the 14th floor of the building. The client associates were smart and interesting. The shoot flowed well. The set up was simple and quick. I broke all the "rules" of logic and precedence and instead of using a full frame mirrorless camera or a medium format camera for the portraits I chose to go with an APS-C format cameras for some portraits and a rangefinder camera for the others. Everything looked just fine in post. I think we like to scare ourselves sometimes into using the safest and most popular of gear when other gear will do just as well.
My exit from the garage was more graceful. How expensive is Austin? Well, two hours in a garage will set you back about $30. Thank goodness for two things: I work quickly. And, I can bill the parking back to the client.
When I got home and worked on today's files I took a break and then set up the Fuji GFX camera to practice the technical set-up procedures with that camera and flash. Just in case I wanted to use it for tomorrow's full day of portrait shooting. I went through all the menus and set them for the way I like to do flash work. I fine-tuned the menu items on flash trigger. Ditto with the flash units themselves. In the end I decided that I'd go in a different direction but now I feel that much more comfortable setting up the GFX for a particular style of shooting. I'll use the MF cameras the next time. A bit of practice is never out of style.
Galleries uploaded. Re-packing completed. Chores checked off the list. Wife out of town. Now time to go and forage for dinner. Decisions, decisions.
