Field Notes: March 2026
Last month I complained that for the shortest month of the year February felt incredibly long. March was the opposite, it flew by. In part it is likely the weather, the warm days that are occasionally sprinkled into early March become more and more frequent until one day I look at the weather app and realize there are no more cold days in the forecast. Partly, it is just legitimately busy. Spring travel and events and sports are pending and need planning and scheduling. Plus, I’m thankful it’s kayaking season again. So here’s a belated nod to a fast-flying March.
On My Desk
A while back Microsoft killed off the Surface Studio line, which admittedly I'm still bitter about. That all-in-one touchscreen device was literally my dream machine, and I used mine until it died at which point it couldn't be replaced . After lots complaining, I decided to just use my Surface Studio Laptop instead of replacing it with another desktop. Admittedly there are a ton of advantages to having just one machine (especially when it comes to using Lightroom) and the Surface Dock makes it super easy to convert my laptop into a pseudo-desktop. Drop it on the desk, plug it in and my monitor, keyboard and mouse are ready to go. And the Dock has a whole pile of USB ports. The setup is almost (but not quite) enough to make me stop whining about how much I miss my Surface Studio.
On My Bookshelf
M.L Stedman's first novel, The Light Between Oceans has a secure place on my top 5 books of all-time list (which admittedly, now that I'm thinking about it, might have more than 5 books on it). It took her 14 years to release a second novel and my expectations were high for this one. Sometimes high expectations are a recipe for disappointment, but A Far-Flung Life held its own. Not sure it’s a top 5 but its still a 5 star read, and it definitely gave me a bit of a book hangover.
Light and Life (Joe McNally) This is a slightly oldie (only slightly, it's one of Joe's newer books) and I'm not sure why I didn’t' read it until now. It's a compilation of some of his top blog posts spanning a decade or more. They're divided into two categories, Essays on Light and Essays on Life. Both relevant, both comfortably capturing the balance of art and technical that makes photography what it is. (I couldn’t find a link for this one on Bookshop.org, but here is a link to another fantastic Joe Mcnally Book)
In My Camera Bag
A return to spring has me dusting off my Macro gear. I wrote a guide to all the different options for macro photography, but I have been playing with the Leica M 90mm lens + Macro adapter. The M is not the obvious choice for Macro, but since I was picking up the 90mm anyway I grabbed the macro adapter just to keep in my bag when traveling. Last fall I wasn't comfortable enough with the M yet to understand the brilliance of the Macro adapter with the helicoid…The biggest downside of extension tubes vs. a dedicated macro lens is that your lens really only works for up-close focusing with it attached. But because of the pull out design of the 90mm and the flexible focusing range of the macro adapter you can achieve a much larger focusing range with the adapter still attached. But honestly the fun of extension tubes is that they can be used with lenses that you might not otherwise use for close-up photography and spring is the ideal time to experiment with such things. (see my guide to getting started with macro photography here).
Working on
I edited my Barcelona trip pictures, which is actually more of an accomplishment than it should be. Not only am I months years behind on editing, but I have a tendency to tag the selects from a trip and then sort of dip in and out of actually editing the photos, choosing a favorite or two or one that might end up as part of another collection. I'm not good at editing straight through an entire trip. But I did it with Barcelona, and my goal is to get though another trip this month (maybe New Zealand?) but I do have some busy weeks coming up so it might be May.
Listening to/Watching :
This isn't current, I'm just getting caught up but This episode of the Photowalk podcast, with guest Steven Seidenberg, was especially good. I also discovered This Video with Stephen Shore on MOMA's Youtube channel. I’m not sure how I came across it, since it’s like 8 years old, but its a classic and still worth a watch today.
Another on my list of things that are not current but worth a mention, my daughter and I watched the video of the National Theater's production of Life of Pi. I am always camp "book was better" and while Life of Pi was no exception, , the West End production was not only remarkable theater, but it focused on some element and themes that I had considered secondary in the book and as a result I left feeling like it added another dimension to the story. (Also, for those of us who love West End theater but live too far from London to make it a regular occurrence, I just discovered The National Theater At Home streaming service. Not as good as live, but still a fantastic way to spend the evening.
Photographing
As I mentioned above, I've had some fun playing with the 90mm + Macro adapter on the Leica M. I also had a few free hours on a windy day up in the mountains and decided to experiment with some long exposures, to capture the effects of the wind on the landscape. Funny story though- it was really windy and I had my RRS travel tripod with me which is fairly sturdy but not guaranteed to be a match for the wind on those really long (10-20 min exposures). So I pulled my car up to block the wind, and then after pushing the shutter I realized the tripod was in range of the car door which the wind was desperately trying to whip shut. I ended up sitting in the driver seat with my feet wedged outside of the car to keep the door from slamming for the entire length of the 20 minute exposure. Oops. On the plus side the tripod was really sheltered from that wind by the door and the 20 min exposure was nice and sharp.
That’s a wrap on March before I set off for all sorts of April Adventures. Share soon.
Harper’s Ferry Long Exposure on a Cloudy Day