There is no place on earth with more natural beauty than the Texas Hill Country on a Spring morning. In a good year you can drive for a hundred miles with the roadsides, fields and hillsides in continuous bloom. This is a good year.
Spring – 2017
Tag: Texas
Reflection
San Antonio is a city that dates back to Spanish Colonial times. It has gone from a presidio and village on the banks of the San Antonio river known as San Antonio de Bexar to a modern metropolis. In 1731 fifteen families of Canary Islanders invited by the king of Spain, arrived to begin new lives “about a musket shot from the presidio”. My wife proudly traces her ancestry to those families. They are deep roots in the Americas that few non-native people can match.
San Antonio has always been a crossroads of culture and commerce. Texicans, Texians and finally Texans as they came to be called built lives here. Texans were and are as tough a bunch of individualists as can be found anywhere. Revolutions and Indian wars and civil conflicts swept the land over the years but they held fast. When the Texas revolution came they stayed and died but didn’t yield. When Teddy Roosevelt wanted Rough Riders, he rode his horse into a bar next to the Alamo waving his hat asking for volunteers. He got them. That is how legends are born.
Among the Trees
My year long project to photograph using only a Sony A7II body and legacy lenses is nearing completion. I plan to do a full postmortem of the project later this year. In the meantime some things have become clear. Most importantly I have discovered that using manual focus lenses is an advantage in almost all situations except for fast action shooting. Going into the project I expected that manual focus would be a limitation. It is not a limitation at least for me. Slowing down and thinking before shooting has improved my photography. I see no reason to go back to using auto focus lenses any time soon.
Another interesting thing I’ve discovered is a preference for using shorter focal length lenses. In the past I relied upon zoom lenses and often used long focal lengths of 200-300mm simply to frame shots without moving. That is a bad habit. Now I find myself using a 35mm prime lens for almost all my photography. Long lenses do have a place but they should not be a crutch for sloppy technique.
This photograph was shot a few days ago using a forty plus year old Super Takumar 35mm m42 mount lens. It has proved to be my absolute favorite lens for the project.