Fort Worth – Somewhere In the Middle

For a change of pace today, I’m posting something from my other blog, something non-techy. A bit of actual culture – I dare say “humanities,” which was my first love (since, as a little baby in Detroit and small child on the outskirts of Rochester, NY, we didn’t have “tech” that was personally accessible to me; it was nothing but books, and history was the thing – dinosaurs, the Bible, you name it). Although it shares the spotlight of my life’s attention fairly equally with tech for the past several decades, it will always remain nearest to my heart. It will be there with me at the end, tales as old as time, and my dream has always been to work more and more of it into my life. Thanks to technology, I can. So here’s what I did a few days ago.

The day finally arrived: Saturday morning, June 15, 2024. The lecture auditorium at the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

Listening to the world’s foremost expert on medieval and Renaissance tapestries, a gentleman who has earned the moniker of “Tapestry Tom” (aka Thomas P. Campbell of Oxford, the Met, and now San Francisco’s museums), exceeded all of my lofty expectations. Envious of one who had afforded himself the luxury of dedicating his life to the pursuit of something not of this world (“this world” being comprised of both place AND time), I was also keenly aware that I could have just as well done so, were it not for my younger self prioritizing the pursuit of immediate financial reward above a lifetime of personal and professional fulfillment.

The Battle of Pavia, near Milan, was part of the wars around the Italian Peninsula in the late medieval/early Renaissance period. Everyone wanted a piece of Italy, but the two major belligerents were the kings of France and Spain, Francis I and Charles I, respectively. Charles also happened to hold the title of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (not I, but V) for good measure, and his coffers were overflowing with the ongoing plunder of overwhelming riches from New Spain. He had money to burn on mercenaries, and burn he did. But Francis I (or “Francois Premier” as Tapestry Tom’s British accented voice repeatedly referenced him) was a formidable opponent. The battle came down to guns, specifically arquebuses, triumphing over armor, and it was over quickly. Charles had them, Francis did not. What remains are the exquisite tapestries that were created to commemorate the conflict, as they have done for the last 500 years. In fact, this first visit of the 7 Battle of Pavia tapestries to the U.S. will still be in America on the 500th anniversary of the battle in February 2025 (the exhibit will grace first Fort Worth, then San Francisco, and finally Houston, before making its way back home to Italy).

The tapestries are enormous, 28 feet wide by 14 feet tall, and breathtakingly detailed. To give yourself an idea of the size, just go step off 28 feet in a large room (which will likely not be wide enough of a room, so find a bigger one) with tall ceilings (which will likely not be tall enough, so find a taller one), then imagine 7 tapestries of this size. With threads of wool, silk, and even gold and silver, only a few people in the world would have had the wealth to produce such a multi-year undertaking by the best weavers and equipment in the world (found only in Brussels due to a variety of factors) as the creation of these works of art and propaganda. Among them were the aforementioned combatants, along with King Henry VIII of England (whose country would have its own invasion by the son of Charles V, Philip II, thwarted 63 years later when the Spanish Armada sank). But what does this have to do with Faith, Reason, and Truth (the url of my other blog)?

These monarchs of Europe, be they Kings, Emperors, or Popes, all derived their legitimacy in one way or another from God. Without that, they would not have had the necessary authority to rule over the people of their realms. Still, they also very much relied on their reason to formulate not only the plans and strategies of warfare, of attack and defense, of diplomacy, of logistics, of alliances; not only those, but also for weaponry and armor. They needed all of their human faculties to create the kingdoms and empires whose achievements and failures have come down to us through the centuries. As for truth, we see once again that any true king would need both faith and reason in order to rule, as has been the case throughout human history. That is the truth.

Fuji X-T3, Fuji 35mm f/2 lens

Downtown Fort Worth is pretty perfect for a late afternoon photo walk. I’ve done quite a few over the years, often (but not always) testing or comparing different cameras or lenses. A few days ago, for instance, as the media spent the entire week boosting their ratings by scaring us all into believing that life as we know it was once again about to cease due to an impending weather disaster, it was 70 degrees here, deep blue skies, crystal clear and windless. A better day for meandering around the stately courthouse, the serene Trinity River along whose banks the original Camp Worth was located, and the outskirts of Sundance Square with a couple of cameras dangling from one’s body simply could not be asked for. This was an afternoon for shooting some of my tried and true favorites illuminated by the setting western sun, shadows and sidelight in full effect.

New-to-me locales are my usual preference when it comes to photo walks, but there are decided advantages to hitting certain places over and over, provided they are photogenic enough to merit it. Case in point: the photo at the top of this post. When I drove by the Bass Performance Hall around 4:30pm, the famous angels were in complete shadow. This is downtown after all, and despite the fact that sunset was a little over an hour in the future, the long shadows were already cast. I knew from my summer shooting, however, that the shadows move as the sun sends its rays out into the solar system, creating shafts of light that find their way in between some of the buildings. It changes drastically over the course of a few minutes, so I made a point to walk over to check on things after about 30-40 minutes over by the courthouse and the river behind it and lo and behold, there it was! The angels and their trumpets blaring with a solar spotlight highlighting their magnificence.

Fuji X-T20, Rokinon 12mm f/2 manual lens, June 2018

Getting back to the difference that is made by not only the time of day, but also the time of year, let’s look at the shot above. This was taken 5 and half years ago, soon after settling on the X-T20 as my first official foray into mirrorless. I had tried out a few others, including the Canon M50 (new at the time, and a year newer than the X-T20), but it felt so flimsy and plastic-y compared to the rock-solid, Made In Japan X-T20. And the quality of the lenses in my price range were simply no comparison. The 18-55mm variable aperture kit lens with the Fuji was jaw-droppingly good, and I had also picked up a very reasonably priced manual lens, still to this day the only manual I have ever owned: the Rokinon 12mm f/2. When I tried my hand at being a “real” photographer for a few hours, heading to the Trinity that snaked through Fort Worth and Dallas with a camera, a couple of lenses, and a tripod, this was the shot that I loved most. A few years later, this same camera+lens+tripod combo produced my best astrophotography session (not that there have been that many), but that is an adventure for another post.

Nikon Z6 II, Nikon 24-120 f/4 lens, January 2024

The above was taken this past week. Exact same concrete platform overlooking the river from which the June 2018 image was created. This one was handheld though, as it was immediately obvious that where the sun was setting was not going to give me the image I wanted. Not at all surprising, by the way; I did come prepared with the tripod just in case, but fully expected the tilt of the earth to be wholly uncooperative at this time of year, based on my vantage point.

That is probably enough blathering on about time of day, time of year, sun and shadow. Another part of the beauty of downtown Fort Worth is how compact everything is. Total time from exiting the highway, including driving through downtown, parking, walking, and getting back onto the highway after leaving, was roughly 4:30pm to 5:45pm on a weekday. Try doing THAT in most big(ish) city downtowns!

Here are a few more shots from last week’s walk (everything in this post, with the exception of the June 2018 image of the Trinity at sunset, are with the Nikon Z6 II + 24-120mm f/4 or the Fuji X-T3 + 35mm f/2, straight out of camera JPG; the last 2 of the radio station give you an idea of which is which, and it should be fairly obvious for the ones that are not labeled):