Based On A True Story...: Zen While It Lasts

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Zen While It Lasts

Now, I'm not the type to incite or promote violence...

I have this little fantasy where I buy a Leica Q (probably the sleekest, coolest, best looking digital camera made thus far). Light (actually, no, I held one- looks light, but it's a veritable brick in weight and feel) and portable, it's all I could ever need and use as I take it everywhere shooting only Leica worthy photos for the remainder of my life...

Actually, I'd be quite happy using one of those fellows, but... I do need a 20mm~ when shooting events. And as far as spending $4,000+, well, that certainly ain't gonna happen. Fact is, I'm pretty happy with my GR and X-T1 (mated with a 28mm~, the latter looks pretty damn cool itself- even if the one on the GR is sharper), and I may upgrade in a few years, or not. Sure, the GR has always acted up a bit on the rare occasion (probably why I got it so damn cheap "as new" to begin with), and the the X-T1 does miss focus now and then, but truth is, I just don't shoot that much to warrant any immediate upgrade. And technically, I can't complain about 16in medium format quality prints from instruments that small and light, and (relatively) cheap!

After forty years of B&W... I'm quite happy with color, no regrets whatsoever. Limited as my shooting still is, it's way more keepers than before with my everyday GR and the option to go Square, not to mention, spending way less time in post- going back to actively shooting B+W film (still got quite the backlog) is nowhere on the radar, least not anytime soon. I'll always have fond memories and much respect, but truth is: it was much more labor intensive, and ultimately, more limiting creatively...

But, If you're gonna punch anyone... Photos: © Stan Banos

2 comments:

Eric RoseNovember 14, 2018 at 7:10 AM
Quite frankly I would like to do a whole lot more to Nazi's. However I have to decided to side with being a good and caring human being. The Nazi's and most GOP members would see that as weakness. So be it.
ReplyDelete
Replies
Stan B.November 14, 2018 at 12:52 PM
Hate crimes have increased dramatically in The Age of Trump, along with a marked erosion in just about anything and everything concerning: civil rights, human rights, environmental rights.

All interspersed with light hearted moments such as this...
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-met-wisconsin-nazi-salute-wave-huppke-20181113-story.html
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Grandmaster Flash- A child is born with no state of mind, blind to the ways of mankind.

Goethe- The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.

African Proverb- The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.

Ann Landers- Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

Edward Snowden- I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.

Mohandas Gandhi- Poverty is the worst form of violence.

Zapata- La tierra es de quien la trabaja con sus manos.

Milan Kundera- The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Voltaire- Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Chris Hedges- Civilizations in the final stages of decay are dominated by elites out of touch with reality.

Christopher Hitchens- I have always found it quaint, and rather touching, that there is a movement in the US (Libertarians) that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.

Claude Chabrol- Intelligence has its limits while stupidity has none.

Carl T. Rowan- It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.

African Proverb- The foreigner sees only what he knows.

George Orwell- The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

Elliott Erwitt- I don't believe that photography can change the world, but it can show the world changing.

Gilles Peress- I don't care so much anymore about 'good photography.' I am gathering evidence for history.

Yogi Berra- You can observe a lot just by watching.

Dorothea Lange- A camera is an instrument that teaches us how to see without a camera.

George Bernard Shaw- A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.
Henry David Thoreau- It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
Robert Dosineau- If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time.

Pentti Sammallahti- Everything I've photographed exists regardless of me, my role is only to be receptive. The most important thing is the luck... behind every good image there is the good luck too. Sometimes when you are in a right place in the right moment, you'll feel that the image is a gift and even that it doesn't matter who's behind the camera.

Duane Michals- Never trust any photograph so large it can only fit inside a museum.

Lisette Model- Photography is the easiest art, which perhaps makes it the hardest.

Paul Watson- A person without regrets is a person who has not lived a life of diversity of interests and cause.

MLK- Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Prof. Ivan King- Can we really claim to know anything about the nature of the universe if we don't know the properties, or even the nature, of 90% of its material?

Dr. Wernher von Braun- It is as impossible to confirm them (UFOs) in the present as it will be to deny them in the future.