What's the boy up to this Summer?

He's working at a software company (what did you expect in Austin where we have more software developers than baristas?).  I think he works all day on a computer there and when he comes home he relaxes by....working on his computer. In about a month and some change we'll disrupt the routine all over again and send him back off for his second year of college.

Why is there a desire to build a time machine that could go into the future? Time is going forward more than fast enough for my taste....

News Flash!!! One Hundred Dollar Zoom lens does well. Pressed into use at Pedernales Falls State Park in an attempt to stave off boredom.

The image above was done from a long distance with an Olympus 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 zoom lens, mounted on a nice tripod. I shot it with a polarizing filter on the front to do fun stuff to the body of water on the right, lower corner of the frame. I shot at f8.

When I enlarge the frame it is delightful. And I must say that everything I had with me in my backpack weighed less than the 80-200mm f2.8 lens I would have used had I been dragging a Nikon all over the place. By a long shot.

Click on the photo and it will enlarge....





Forget the new lens. Read the novel...

An afternoon spent testing the Olympus 40 meg (and 60 meg) Hi-Res feature at Pedernales Falls State Park. Hot and crazy.

I'm not much of a landscape photographer but I'm willing to fake it for an hour or two at a time if I'm trying out something different and new. That would be the Olympus Hi-Res mode out in the real world. 

I packed a couple of the EM5.2 cameras and two lenses. The Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 zoom and the Olympus 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. I also packed a 58mm polarizing filter and three bottles of Evian water. Grabbed my straw Stetson cowboy hat, a Columbia long sleeve Sun Guard shirt and a bottle of spray on sun screen, and then I drove the 40 minutes to the park.

All my gear was in a little backpack and I carried a Berlebach wooden tripod over my shoulder. I parked the car and slipped on the backpack then I headed down the steep trail to walk out over the rocks, worn and crevassed by centuries of running water. The head of the falls that bubble up from underground is a vast field of smoothed rocks that hide little pools and streams that all run together in to the Pedernales River.  It takes fifteen or twenty minutes to trek down from the car and another thirty or forty minutes to find the good spots. Spots uncrowded by people dragging along coolers and screaming children.

It was about 97 degrees by the time I got to the boulder field. My hat provided good protection from direct sun, as did the shirt, but after two hours of walking around, finding interesting views, setting up the tripod and comping everything up for the shots, all in direct sun,  the heat just starts to wear you down. It radiates from the baked rocks and even with UV protection in all quadrants the sheer thermal load just starts to elevate your core temperature. 

I headed into the trees surrounding the field and drained the contents of one Evian bottle. Then I looked at what I'd gotten. I liked it. 

When I first started to shoot I set the camera to record in Hi-Res, in the Super fine Jpeg mode. Later I modified that by selecting the Raw+Jpeg setting. While the files jumped up from a 40 megapixel size to a 60 megapixel size I didn't see much difference in quality when I got back to the studio and could take a good, long look on the monitor at 100%. 

After a little break in the shade I headed down the long trail to the area of the park where people are allowed to swim in the river. It's about two miles from the Falls. I spent some time shooting there as well but I kept thinking about the walk back in the heat so I cut the photography down when I started to feel a bit off and trekked back to the car, drained another bottle of water and headed home. 

So, what did I discover about the Hi-Res mode in the EM5.2? First of all, being on a tripod in broad, Texas sunlight just feels so strange. It took me right back to my view camera days. You get to spend a lot of time extending legs in uneven arrangements and making adjustments to the tripod. The upside of my time spend with the "blond beauty" of tripods was that the wood is wonderful to touch even after being exposed to direct sunlight for hours. While a black, metal set of tripod legs would fry your hands the Berlebach was more or less temperature neutral.

In Hi-Res mode the images are loaded with tons of real detail. They also have a different, richer color palette than images that are shot in traditional modes. But much can be done to equalize files from traditional capture and Hi-Res. To this point I have included a file from a large super fine jpeg shot in the regular mode at the bottom and I find it malleable enough to get close to the look of the High-Res stuff in terms of tones and colors. Where it is no match is in resolution.

While we are mostly programmed to profess our undying love for RAW files I think in the future I'll stick to my instincts and shoot the Hi-Res stuff in large super fine jpeg. It looks great to me that way.

I set the camera to the regular file size for the image below because I felt constrained by having to shoot motionless subjects with the super-pixel mode. I like to see people in my images and I like it even better when they move around and do stuff. All the files here are sized to 2100 pixels on the long end for blogger. You'll have to take my word for the fact that the larger files have a embarrassing amount of detail. But for everything that moves you'll probably be just fine with the 16 megapixels you get standard. Nice to know you aren't totally screwed if you left that tripod at home....

After years as a medium telephoto curmudgeon I am grudgingly coming to love walking with a wide angle zoom lens. Either my vision is getting wider or my selection of subjects is shifting...

I love the aluminum canoes. They remind me of Summer camp at Camp Carter in Ft. Worth, Texas.

We did an overnight canoe trip and my partner and I managed to capsize our canoe in the middle of the lake. We used what we learned in canoe class to right it but most of our possessions drifted slowly to the bottom of the lake. It was a chilly night camping out but everyone chipped in something; a shirt, a blanket, etc. and we made it through okay. 

The canoes above are from the Zilker Park trail that runs next to the stream connecting the pool to the city's central lake (which is really a part of the Colorado River....).

Nikon D610+Tamron 20-40mm zoom lens.




Read the Novel....

The "Wall" as a counterpoint to the wonderful blue of a wide angle sky.

Sky with Wall. Nikon D610+20-40mm lens. 

I am posting lots of pictures instead of words because I think the period of my technical relevance is waning. Everyone is already an expert in everything having to do with cameras. All that's left is to do the art.

I love paths that curve and arc. This one runs down to the Lamar Blvd. bridge.

When I started the blog back in 2009 there was so much to write about. Photography appeared to be growing by leaps and bounds and there was a seemingly insatiable audience of people who were anxious to learn whatever they could about photography. And lighting. And the business of photography. Now it feels like we've lived through the upper curve of a sinusoidal wave of interest and innovation and we're heading for the inevitable trough. 

I looked back today at some of the things I've been writing about, like micro four thirds cameras and electronic viewfinders. The push back, in our comments,  from most people doing photography at the time was pretty remarkable. Everyone assumed that we'd continue with the status quo and live on a rich diet of incremental DSLR improvements. Everyone assumed that pros would always use Canon and Nikons. They also assumed that we'd always be using optical viewfinders. To read some of the comments back then one would think that the inclusion of EVFs on good cameras was the work of satan. 

But the photo world has matured, flattened and become fully researched and rationalized. I'm sure most people reading this have handled most of the same cameras I have. Most have paid more attention to the owner's manuals than I have and most can tell you all the shortcuts you can implement with various function buttons on your new cameras. Which I cannot.

Although very few of us are engineers or scientists here there are many discussions all over the web about technical aspects of imaging grounded in high physics and arcane optical theory. Even my dentist and my lawn guy love to wax on about "micro contrast" and "noise floors" and "shot discipline." If I need to understand how lens designs create optical signatures I need go no further than to the woman who cuts my hair to have a full on discussion. Sensor technology? I go to my barista for that.

But the sad thing, at least for me, is that when the internet has succeeded in gifting us all with the same knowledge and the same proxies of experience then there's not much else to really discuss besides whatever new product is lurching through the gear pipeline (which we mostly want but mostly don't need) and the actual photographs that we take. All the other stuff we used to talk about is instantly redundant because the minute it is written and published by anyone it diffuses into the marsh of general knowledge like India ink in my glass of sparkling water. 

I wish I had a willful lack of self-awareness because I could have monetized what I know through a series of mostly meaningless workshops. Entertainment thinly disguised as photographic workshops....

But really, all I have to share is my own work and my views about how I do the work. And the last thing I would recommend here is that someone slavishly copy my methodologies since they are not really well founded, technically,  and are certainly suspect aesthetically. 

We are mostly technocratic males here and it would be healthy if we could all just meet face to face for coffee or beer. We could talk about so many things that are more comfortable and information rich than just what lens to choose to take pictures of that intense red fire hydrant against the rich green carpet of grass spreading out behind it like a.....green screen. 

But most of us will only meet here. And even sadder than the homogenization of subject matter is the understanding that most people love what they, personally, shoot and are indifferent to other people's work. Maybe talking about them "shootin' irons" is easier and more fun because it is surrounded with the excitement (as in gambling) of risking large sums of money. 

People repeat the old saw of being tired of the endless discussion of gear, gear, gear but the statistical reality of blogging is that every gear post here out pulls every post about aesthetics by a factor of nearly 10:1. For those few non-math majors here let me say it like this: If I put up a post about making an image or having an experience making an image (and that post doesn't concentrate on cameras and lenses) then about 200  people will click on it and read it all the way through. But if I put up a post about the new version of an old, but popular, lens about 2,000 people will read it in the same time frame. To really goose readership all one has to do is write a controversial review/editorial on a popular piece of Olympus, Canon, Nikon or Fuji gear. A mirrorless versus DSLR piece is also a sure bet!

If I could make a reasonable argument that the Fuji XT-1 is a piece of garbage and everyone shooting with one is delusional and certainly will never make art with one, I might be able to scrape up fifteen or twenty thousand readers in the same time frame. (Sorry, can't really make that argument). So even though everyone gets all high horsified about relentless gear posts ("tut, tut, let's talk about the art...") they are like a cigarette smoker who professes trying to quit. They denounce the drug and then step outside "just this once" to light up. 

The sales numbers for gear are illuminating. The market for cameras tanked hard, and I think it's going to tank even harder this year. It's not because ardent photographers have embraced phones with cameras it's because huge numbers of ardent photographers have moved on to something else. Their interest crested and plunged. When a market troughs there's nothing to do but ride it out and enjoy actually doing the craft instead of talking about it. Even if that's not nearly as much fun...

I think everyone here knows that I am a commercial photographer. The market is currently better than it's been for years. Some sort of inverse relationship between the popularity of the hobby and one's ability to charge for it.  I intend to keep writing the blog from that point of view and showing what I am working on and what I am interested in. 

I sound like broken record lately, vacillating between Olympus EM5.2 cameras and Nikon's traditional DSLRs, but the reality is that's my current focus and I'm not anxious to rush out and buy or borrow new stuff just to satisfy our collective need for a geardrenaline rush on a weekly basis. Maybe part of the reality of the craft right now is about settling in with what we have and doing actual work. Wouldn't that be novel???

I was walking along, writing things in my head, when I saw the clouds playing with the street lights. What a lovely sky!

Austin Morning Sky.

More images from a walk through the park with a nice camera and an old lens.

This is one of the trails that leads to the Barton Springs Pool.

To the left is the stream that connects the pool to 

Austin's Ladybird Lake. 

At various places along the stream people sit in the cool water

and while away their time making balanced rock sculptures

from rocks they find on the bottom.

The water is always cool. Mostly 68 or 70 degrees (f). 

At the other end of Barton Pool it comes bubbling up from underground.

People who pay admission to the pool usually keep their clothes on. 

People who swim in the stream instead are less likely to do so...

In the morning there are many canoes at the open air canoe rental shop.

By noon on a hot day there are none left to rent. 

This is the trail that leads away from the pool toward downtown.

We have miles and miles of trails around the waters that flow through

our downtown area, most covered by old and new trees for shade.

This bridge takes traffic over the creek on Barton Springs Rd. 

On a hot afternoon paddle board people and canoe-ers glide under and linger for 

respite from the powerful sun.

I walked all morning and on the way back to Barton Springs and my car I saw hundreds of 

fit, young people paddle boarding, canoeing and running through the park.

It certainly gives weight to the graffiti on the column in the image above....

These stairs lead down from the running trails that interconnect around

Zilker Park to the pool at the north end of Barton Springs Pool. It's area that 

people frolic in when they don't want to or can't pay the $3 admission to the 

big pool. 

All images: Nikon D610+Tamron 20mm-40mm zoom.

Lovely day for a walk.

Oh Gosh! Do you think that lens is sharp enough? Do I need an ART lens? Do I need to get that Otus lens? Will people make fun of me if I'm not using an "L" lens? Will the "gold ring" make my image better? But what about cameras? Which one......

Match up the leaf crop below with its position in the image above...

The answer to everything is: "Yes." But only if I'm the seller and you are the buyer.

(spoiler: twenty year old lens. third party. my cost? $120. Is is sharp enough? ---- Duh.)

Good Morning Austin. What's going on at Barton Springs? Let's go see.

All blog images today taken with a Nikon D610+Tamron 20-40mm SP+a good attitude. 

If you want to photograph a popular place in Austin without a lot of people in your shots you might consider doing your photographs in the earlier part of the mornings. It's been my experience that millenials are like vampires, they rarely rise before noonish...

Some food images shot with the Olympus OMD EM5-2 in the high resolution mode (40 megapixels). Shot at Cantine Restaurant in Austin, Texas.

My friend, James, and I have been working on a video for an Austin restaurant's website. We shot lots of kinetic footage on our first day, both using handheld EM5.2 cameras and a box full of different lenses. Our footage, while technically similar in terms of color palette, etc. couldn't be more different stylistically. I stay on scenes longer and I shoot more conservatively. He shoots with much narrower depth of field and moves quickly. In the end both styles work well together to moderate the whole piece. The second day we went back so I could shoot high res stills of some of the food while James shot video of the same set ups. 

I felt that I had recently mastered the hi-res feature in the camera so I chose to use it for all of the non-moving imagery. I switched back to normal settings when shooting subjects like the "wine pour." 

As with the first day of video I brought along a box of lenses for the cameras. Some were older manual focus lenses from Pen FTs while some were newer. The most used lenses (by me) were the Sigma 60mm, the Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 and the 40mm f1.4 Pen FT. James seemed drawn to longer focal lengths and shot with stuff like the 70mm f2.0 Pen FT and even a Nikon 105mm f2.5 ais. 

At the end of the shoot the restaurant manager asked me if I would shoot the community table near the back of the restaurant and I was happy to comply. 

I went back again today for lunch and had a great meal with my super-tech friend, Amy. She's an electrical engineer and it's a joy to understand the latest technology through her eyes. As we were having lunch I was watching out of the corner of my eye as another photographer and his assistant came through the door to shoot the food and make a little slider enhanced video.

Their methods, location selection, etc. were much different than the ones I made but I guess that's what makes this job so interesting...

At any rate, here's the stuff we shot on our afternoon of food photography:

The Cantine Salad.

Rotisserie Chicken.

Salmon, cauliflower, capers and tomatoes.

Porchetta.

The community table.

Cocktail shakers at the bar. At the ready.

Used in the high res mode the colors are exemplary and the endless detail makes post processing a breeze. I'm warming up to the EM5.2. I can hardly wait to share the video with you and am amazed that you can now buy such a talented camera for only $900. 

The world of work is changing with every new toy.

Forget the toys, read the novel...

Panasonic announces a new camera that might make m4:3 users upgrade. It looks great on paper, with one exception.....

What's not to like about the latest announcement from Panasonic? It popped up on my radar this morning because the announcement is all over the web. Here's the main stuff we like: The body style is super groovy. Very retro and aimed at photographers who are nostalgic for the cool, self contained, rangefinder style cameras of the 1960's and 1970's. The EVF is one of the new, high density internal screens that provides something like 2.6 million pixels to provide a detailed finder image. The camera  features Panasonic's respected 4K capabilities and it should be a very decent video camera. The thing that most people will be excited by is that it's the first micro four thirds camera to feature a sensor that provides more than 16 million pixels. Thom Hogan reminds us that the scale up from 16 to 20 million pixels only gives us 13% more resolution. Pretty sure that's not going to make a huge difference but then again, you may be one of those shooters who needs every last pixel for some giant prints.

The camera is a bit bigger and bit heavier than its predecessor, the GX-7, but I think that's a good thing on both counts; more space to lay out buttons and give our fingers a bit of relief space and the extra weight will probably mean steadier shooting.

The camera has built-in image stabilization but it goes one step further (when using Panasonic lenses that are so endowed) by using the I.S. in the lenses at the same time. Apparently the combined stabilization from both body and lens makes for a steadier image than either method used individually. I can only imagine that combining the two is a direct result of the inclusion of a much faster processor that can do the math required to optimize both sets of moving parts in tandem. Seem Moore's Law keeps improving cameras in a way that is different than just stuffing more pixels on a die.

So, better finder, better I.S., 4K video, more resolution (and presumably the same or lower noise!) and better handling all add up to a mature and potentially delightful new imaging product. What about my caveat in the headline?

It's not really that big of a deal but when I read through the specs I see that, while the camera has a port for the use of external microphones there is no port for headphones with which to monitor said external microphones. That instantly relegates the GX-8 to Fun secondary art camera for me. But the omission isn't a big deal if you never really intend to do much video or if you are happy shooting double sound with an external recorder instead of using audio that comes directly into the camera.

I think the camera is quite handsome and I'd like to have one in the silver finish. It looks very much like the Company's L1 (See DPR for illustration and review), digital 4:3 camera from about eight years ago. I handled that camera and liked its ergonomics as well.

If one were transitioning from a massive DSLR this might make a good choice for a first, higher end, foray into micro four thirds, but the equation is much different if you already own current Olympus products. Switching to the GX-8 as the primary camera would be scary since Olympus must surely have something new up their sleeves such as a revision/upgrade of the OMD EM-1. Remember that the launch of that camera happened during the October Photo Expo show nearly two years ago. Seems like it's just about time for something new to come out.

I'm hesitant to buy a GX-8 until I see if Olympus leapfrogs them again with something special. Choices, choices.

I wonder who will be pre-ordering this one? 

Celebrating Wing Span. On stage.

Play: Sophisticated Ladies.
Location: Zach Theatre, Austin, Texas
Date: July 14, 2015
Photographer: Kirk Tuck
Cameras: Nikon D610, D810
Metering: Yes.

The Piano Series from Sophisticated Ladies at Zach Theatre. In the red dress? Afra Hines, incredible dancer!

I had much fun photographing the final dress rehearsal of Zach Theatre's rendition of "Sophisticated Ladies." As usual, the sheer quality of the actors, the stage sets, the lighting and the music were as good as the best anywhere. For a photographer who loves to photograph people there is a little that beats an evening spent in a comfortable seat, watching incredibly talented people move through space with grace and precision. Add to that great songs written by Duke Ellington and performed by a live orchestra. And finally, I get to experience it all with two really cool cameras and two of my new favorite lenses. 

I blocked off the seats on either side of me and the seats in front of me so the noise of the shutters wouldn't disturb people. I generally had the Nikon D810 in my hands, coupled with the older 80-200mm ff2.8 ED push pull lens. When a dance scene with a large ensemble spread across the stage I reached for the D610 sitting on top of the Domke camera bag in the seat next to me. That camera had the 24-120mm f4 lens on the

A fun job from the earlier days of digital. Fuji S2pro camera.

Day by day packing for lights.

Small. Light. Fast. Cute. 

I went on location today. I was in a mid-sized conference room making portraits of four men in coats and ties. One after the other. The camera portion of a job like this is hardly a big mystery and really, any camera that allows you to change the lens and use a focal length that is somewhere near the equivalent of 85-90mm (on a full frame, 35mm camera) will probably suit you just fine. The predominant use for the images will be on a website and, really, just about any camera made since 2004 should do a decent job delivering a sharp, mostly happy file. It's always the lighting that's more interesting. 

Last year I might have taken my case with three of the Elinchrom monolights and used them for the project but it seemed like so much overkill to haul the big case up the stairs, plug multiple cords into wall sockets, piece together a softbox and a speed ring and decide where to put it all. Since last year the folks at Cactus sent me an RF60 flash unit and three of their V60 triggers and after I figured out how to use them they way I like to light stuff I've honestly been trying to shoe horn most of my interior shoots into minimalist lighting scenarios. 

I've been throttling down the size of my modifiers in an attempt to make my light a little harder. Given the high dynamic range of the Nikon D610s and D810 I don't really need to worry about softening the highlight transitions as much. When I don't have to worry about burned highlights I can spend more time getting a harder, more dynamic feel to the light. After working with friend Frank and seeing a couple of the modifiers for small flash that he uses I decided to pick up a Westcott light modifier called a Rapid Box Duo. The model I got is basically a 32 inch octagonal softbox that sets up much like an umbrella and provides several levels of diffusion as well as a little metal dish one inserts into the softbox to help spread the light from a small, electronic flash evenly across the front diffusion of the modifier. The box takes a couple of minutes to set up and most of that time is putting together the two piece flash holder that couples the flash to the soft box and the whole set up to a light stand. 

I use the Rapid Box about six feet from my portrait subjects and it gives me a harder light with more contrast than the much larger diameter umbrellas and soft boxes I have generally used. The Cactus RF60 flash is a perfect companion for the quick box because it uses an internal radio trigger and the power levels of the flash can be remotely controlled by the V60 trigger sitting on the camera. At a quarter power I get quick recycling and lots of flashes from a set of Eneloop batteries. Today I used a second flash in a 48 inch umbrella with the power dialed down low (1/32th) to add just a bit of fill to the shadow side of my subjects' faces. That flash was also triggered by a V60 transceiver.

I chose a shutter speed/f-stop/ISO combination that would give me a perfect exposure with the sun lit trees outside the windows of the office and then brought the flash exposure in line to match that level. Takes longer to write about it than to do it. 

The benefit of two inexpensive, battery powered flashes and a portable, collapsible octabank? Mostly portability. I didn't need an assistant to help me haul the gear up to the second floor of the converted  old house that houses my client's company. Everything came along either in my Think Tank rolling case of in a stand bag in my other hand. No muss, no fuss. But it isn't always like that....

And that brings up my shoot from yesterday.  

I have a client who like to have portraits made of their board of directors and their senior executives outdoors with lots of out of focus green in the background. Last year we shot for them on a day with gusty wind and direct sun. Yesterday the Photo gods met me half way and just delivered the hot, direct sun....no wind to speak of. But trying to over power direct sun is different than matching the lively green on foliage outside a tinted window that also has solar screens. In a true, outdoor setting you generally need a flash with a lot of power and, if you are shooting more people than you can count on one hand you also need an electronic flash that has lots of electrical capacity.

Yesterday's lighting kit was the antithesis of this morning's light weight assemblage. Here's why. I wanted a 4 foot by 4 foot black flag to take the direct sun off the subject. This required an extra tall Century stand that can be raised as the sun climbs in the sky. A stand with a 4x4 floating up ten feet in the air can do a lot of damage if it comes down in an uncontrolled fashion so I also needed two twenty pound sand bags on the stand to keep my insurance agent happy. 

That takes care of managing the direct light but I also have found it a very good practice to put another 4x4 foot, black flag directly behind the camera so that the subject's eyeline is aimed at something that won't promote squinting. I don't want to get hit by a falling stand any more than the next person so I want to make sure there are  20# sand bags on that Century Stand as well. The third Century stand held up an Elinchrom S head, fitted with a 30 by 40 inch softbox. The softbox can also do a good "sail" imitation so that stand needed its own collection of sand bags. Wow. That's about 120 pounds just in sand bags and another forty in Century stands. 

I added a white reflector on a stout, Lowell light stand to the shadow side of my subjects to add a bit more detail to the shadows. Better bag that one as well...

I used the Nikon D810 at ISO 64 to squeeze out the most extreme image quality I could manage and also because the lower ISO allows me to get ambient exposures like 1/250th, f5.6, in broad daylight. This makes syncing up the flash easy and mostly problem free. The Elinchrom Ranger AS flash is rated at up to 1100 watt seconds of output power but I like being able to use it at half power because it recycles very quickly and I can generally get about 400 to 500 flashes out of one battery charge. I do drag along another heavy, lead acid battery as a back up but it's rare I need to depend upon it. 

I might have been able to make the smaller flashes work but not at ISO 64... No unless I pull a "Joe McNally" and gang a bunch of the smaller flashes together in tandem and add a radio trigger to each one. The way I figured it I knew I would have to cart and man handle the Century stands and the squadron of sand bags anyway, I might as well have all the power I needed at my fingertips. 

It worked well. And the gear went from the cart to a stout cart to the set up and back again. No carrying all this stuff up the steps solo. Not by a long shot. I know most people buy one type of lighting product and then get all dogmatic about their choices. They insist on shoehorning their paid inventory into every working circumstance. I come from a different age. It was a time when we customized our kits for the task at hand. It still works. 

The Elinchrom Brute Force Lighting Solution. 

The Ranger RX AS Two Head System. 

1100 ws. Two heads with modeling lights. Short duration flash heads. 

Big, stout, speed rings. The works. 

the filled case weighs in at a little over 40 pounds. 

Not the extremely portable solution for everything. 

Taking the Plunge.

Ben, mid Dive.

I learned long ago, on cold, dark mornings, that the hardest part of any project --- every project, is that first part where you are standing on the deck in the bitter, cold wind considering diving into the pool; the dread of embracing that first uncomfortable, wet chill, and the act of getting started.

That's what makes Summer swims more fun. It's already hot, the water is warmer, the chances of hypothermia remote. Even if you go to the early practice you're still pretty certain to start soaking up some solar-quality vitamin D before the workout is over.

I just got off the phone with a friend who is an exemplary photographer. He does it for money and he's a self-starter when commerce is involved. But he's been talking about his "art" project for so long that no one believes that he'll ever wrap his toes around the tile at the edge of the pool and launch himself. The cameras will never taste the rich nectar of something done for the challenge and not for the pay check.

There's always a reason for him to delay. He waited until full frame cameras hit the market, he waited until 20+ megapixel cameras hit the market, he didn't want to start his personal project when he was busy because he just couldn't stand to step away from the cash flow addiction. He didn't dive in when the markets and the economy tanked because he was too nervous to stray too long from his phone and his physical connection to the client space --- he feared he'd miss one of the few, stringy jobs to come through at the time.

Now he's waiting till he makes his first million. Next he'll be waiting till he makes his second million. ..

But his project is arduous. The one he talks about. It's a globe trotting trip that seemed so do-able when he was in his forties and even his early fifties. But the project keeps being put off.  Now his left shoulder bothers him after a day of working. He's walking with a little bit of a hitch because his right knee gets a wee stiff when he sits too long. He's waiting for the situation in Greece to get straightened out. He's thinking he needs to hold onto the money his project will cost in case an emergency comes up.

Part of the trip is a walk across a couple hundred miles to go from one sea to one ocean. It's a trek that one does through the mountains, on foot. But work and family have kept him busy and the few days a month he does get out to walk he realizes that the heat bothers him much more than it did ten years ago. He's tired now. And he gets tired more easily. The idea of camping out and not having a coffee shop nearby in the mornings seems like a much bigger impediment than it every did before.

Psychologists might call this a middle aged failure to launch but I'm calling it the sneakiness of progressive entropy. And I'm pretty sure it's sneaking up on a fairly large number of my friends and will overwhelm them before they realize it.

At times such as this, when I have had yet another coffee with my friend and heard another series of plaintiff excuses for delaying his adventure yet again, I come back to my office and pluck one little book off my shelf and sit down for a quiet and short read.

The book is: Andrew Marvell. A Selection of His Finest Poems. 

The poem I read is called:  To His Coy Mistress.  It is one of the first of a genre of poems referred to as Carpe Diem poetry. Translated: Seize the Day! I advise everyone who has a wonderful project in mind, but is consistently failing to launch, to stop and read the poem I've mentioned. I hope it's enough of an antidote to defeat that series of sensible spreadsheets one's mind is constantly constructing to put off anything risky, dangerous or imbued with the promise of too much fun.

The time to plunge in is while you still can. And the "sell by" date on that package is largely unknowable and unpredictable.

I have, once again, advised my friend to "Take the Plunge." Whether he will is solely up to him but each time I hear about the plans they are subtly diminished. Practicality is okay for some things. For art practicality is early death. Quit your job. Do your adventure. Write your book. Take your trip.

Let's not bury you before you've had a chance to launch yourself.