Welcome. Is the dog on the left a Briard, by any chance?

Forgot to add that I've coupled that little lens to my Monochrom Typ-246 very successfully for several magazine assignments on the street and under less-than-ideal conditions. Bough it used and couldn't bee more pleased with it.

Have the same '70-era Tele-Elmarit 2.8 90mm. Compact, enduring, reliable — a piece of glass that performs under variety of conditions.

You might try a visit to the interior of Sedona's Chapel of The Holy Cross, at different times of day, interior and exterior. Inspiring architecturally, and poised between two majestic redrock spires. It was built in 1956 by my prep-school room-mates mother, Marguerite Brunswick Staude. Just Google it for addy. /cl

Neat sequence, Brent. The 45-degree roostertail-off-the-lip in the second shot's a really clean capture. Looks like you were leaning waaay over the rail. cl/

"…f8 and be there" is more correctly attributed to W. Eugene Smith the great WW Twice combat photographer.

Wrangler 5's intel is the good gen.

Check KEH for a clean screw-mount and keep that little Leica shooting. Still have a 1938 IIIa, with a collapsible 50mm, and will never give that up.

Early Leica's are for lack of a better metaphor, mechanically organic, they slow you down to carefully selective function, make you really consider and zen your exposures --- good gear for the image-making soul. cl/

Has the color quality of a 1920s hand-tinted color postcard.

"Old Fart" falls into the etymologic category of a metaphoric pronoun.
"Kiss My Royal Ass" (in the event the derisive command is issued by someone who is, or believes themselves to be "royalty" and/or whose ass is somehow elevated in worth and stature above the person given the events in question, a "commoner" to whom the command is issued) is simply a parting-line insult.

"Old Fart?" Really? Yes, well, your choice of metaphoric pronoun, not mine.

Re: "Old Farts" etc.

Susan from Vermont's observation, really sums it up:
"Post processing is a tool for changing the image to conform with the photographer's vision of the scene/subject that the camera could not adequately capture! While there are many who will enhance images in an attempt to make them better, without concern for what they actually saw, there are also those who desire to have that image express not only the physical presence of the subject/scene but also the original vision of the photographer. That vision often includes the evoking of a particular response from the viewer. It is not easy to capture this in a straight out of the camera image! In this instance, post processing does change the image, but does NOT change the actual vision of what it was. Instead, post processing is intended to bring the image CLOSER to the original vision."

Post-processing on a computer is what digital photography today offers, and that offering, from my very limited understanding and level of skill, is what constitutes the bulk of contemporary photography, probably including "art photography." Especially when even film negatives can be digitally scanned and enhanced or simply printed.

"Disruptive technologies," as Leica's Irwin Puts puts it, have always operated operated without "…sentiment and historical nostalgia" and in that sense follows Art's winding historical path, which is to constantly seek new ways (and means) of expression.

Since "New" is not always comfortable, and since I'm certifiably --- both actuarially and chronologically --- in the bracket where "then" refers to a period well-over twenty-five years prior to this posting (when film and mechanical cameras were the prevailing technology), I've had to make a conscious effort to embrace the photographic future rather than let it surpass me.

So, there's your choice. Let your "old fart" language define you and impede your photography, or become a "newbie" a term that suggest that you're new and fresh, up for learning what it takes to let your interests and capacity rather than your chronology dictate your photographic, and hopefully artistic, future. cl/

Well put and very sage advice.
As an author/journalist, who uses a camera only incidentally and is new to digital, let me offer an additional analogy.
Most writers work in sequential "drafts." We start with an idea or concept of what we want to say, and put it on paper, or screen. Next, we go into the "editorial darkroom" and begin the process of editing, re-writing, evaluating and refining our text until the images we want to convey in language are sharp, clear and euphonic.
Yes, sometimes "first thought is best thought" and yes, on occasion we get it spot-on right at the first tap of our fingers to the keys. Just as sometimes a photographer captures the scene/image-in-question perfectly with the first snap of the shutter, and the resulting exposure requiring little more than developing and printing.
But the ordinary experience is that the sequence of editing, rewriting and refining, equates roughly to the processes of producing a print in photography, either traditional or digital.
In the event you can buy or from the library get access to the massive Thames & Hudson "Magnum Contact Sheets" book take a look at how some of the 20th and early 21st century's great photojournalists worked and selected. Of course, most of this book reflects the use of film, and only in the last pages are the images digital, however, the validity of process remains.

"This story is my inspiration to slow down, reassess, and get real about how I want to live life."

Yes, well, we share similar philosophies, Brent. And yeah, it was great working with Severson, Griff, Stoner, and Artie Brewer who got his start as our Laguna Beach Surfing Club photographer. At Surfing, I bought and published Dan Merkel's first surf shots, in the late 1960s. And, as with others on this site, I see the creative capacity inherent in your images whether or not you choose to publish.

Apropos of your efforts to "redress and get real" you might enjoy my book, " 'Peanuts' an Oral Biography Exploring Legend, Myth and Archetype in California's Surfing Subculture." (2010, Croul Publications, Newport Beach) winning the sobriquet of "This Year's Best Book on Surfing. 2010" from Surfer's Journal, and detailing the life of a now-all-but-forgotten, Laguna Beach surfer who along with men like Pete Peterson and Loren Harrison helped create and define surfing as a way of life and living.

George "Peanuts" Larson was a guy who embodied the "schooner-rigged" ethos your Mexican fisherman-story evokes, refining his life to a Ghandi-like simplicity, living on the barest of resources with a tenacious determination to let nothing defer him. And he pretty much accomplished his mission, dying unencumbered, like Ghandi, and leaving no wake when he paddled over life's reef.

Send me your contact info and I'll have Croul Publications send you a free copy. Warmest Alohas, cl/

Brent:
Speaking as a long-ago former editor of Surfer Magazine, and a project Director/editor at SURFER, a contributor for Surfer's Journal, and a guy who's spent a career in the surf-world, you've chosen an extremely competitive field. Big events draw the big surf-shooters with their anti-tank weapon lenses, but they offer unlimited crowd-color, and a place to hone your "shooter's eye."
Avoid limiting your thinking about only getting into the surf mags. Shoot and submit everywhere. Build a portfolio -- submit to mags like Orange County, Riviera, Orange Coast Magazine. Query the REGISTER and DAILY PILOT and L.A. Times OC and Sports sections. They buy and they call when their regular staff shooters get assigned to a society wedding or political event.
Shoot the hot local kids on school teams and the inter-club meets, or the small-but-important local contests such as Laguna Beach's Brooks St. Contest -- the longest-running contest in the world.
Develop a specialty. Get known for doing one thing nobody else does as well. Don't limit yourself to just the hotties grabbing air. Find a niche-topic that can offer an editor enough strong image-quality to sustain a one-or-two pages article -- such as shooting the shooters as you did, that's a story in itself -- but go in and go tight with a 24mm prime and shoot faces. The Journal does pieces like that -- not to mention the straight photography mags. They love gear-shots that detail how and why specialized shooters are shooting what they shoot. And don't give up. It's a tough game. Slop on the sunscreen. /cl

As an old film shooter who's new to digital, and shooting only B&W with a Leica Monochrom, my only, and very limited, experience so far is with Lightroom.

Which is OK, but I'm interested in alternatives which will allow being able to use RAW/DNG as I once used one of the specified high-quality developers with TriX 400, in the field, with the objective of limiting or even eliminating as much of the digital post-processing as possible for an as-shot experience.