Field Notes: May 2026

My youngest told me the other day that it would make more sense if May was the end of the year rather than December, and I don't disagree. It rained for half the month and even though I know we need the rain, I'm ready to see blue skies again. Add to that the end of year craziness and this was not a super productive month. Although, I did make it most of the way though editing Japan photos, so maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit.

On My Desk

This one falls under the category of items that are absolutely not necessary but surprisingly convenient but the Wireless Charging Gripand Wireless Charging Pad for the Leica Q3 makes this camera has a permanent place on my desktop. When I bought the Q3, wireless charging was not on the list of features I cared about. To wirelessly charge the Leica you need both the charging grip and the charging pad and to buy the two from Leica it's almost $500, which didn't seem worth it to avoid plugging in a cable. But when I was researching handgrips for the Q3 ( for ergonomic reasons) I came across a good deal on a used wireless charging grip. And instead of buying the Leica wireless charging pad for upwards of $200, I found this very similar Native Union charger for $60. Now the grip lives on the camera, and the camera lives on the charging pad and since it's my "grab and go" camera this means I know it's always charged and I can grab it as I walk out the door without having to think about batteries.

In my Camera Bag

I had to go back and check on this one, because I'm shocked I haven't already mentioned it as a favorite thing, but I am absolutely obsessed with my Profoto A2. I have a bunch of other Profoto lights, but the A2 hits the sweet spot for power and portability. It's is not much bigger than a soda can but packs a powerful punch. And like all my Profoto gear it makes studio lighting simple and painless. It  took a lot of finagling, and possibly a few injured fingers but I managed to get the Magmod Mag Grip onto the flash head and now it pairs with all of their lighting accessories making it infinitely more useful. I should note that MagMod does not list this grip as compatible with this flash unit, and it does partially cover the battery, but if you fold it back a little bit, the batter is still easily accessible, and I’ve been using mine like this for almost 2 years, and it has worked perfectly.

Listening to

I cannot listen to music with lyrics when I'm writing. Editing photos, sure. But writing anything nope, I can't have lyrics. Which makes the 2 Cellos the perfect writing background music. I love the cello- I have seriously considered taking lessons to learn it (I still might. I just need a little bit more time in my life) and cellos playing rock music is a literal win. The familiar melodies are made even better by the depth and complexity of the cello duet. I think the Pirates of the Caribbean theme might be my favorite.

Reading

As happens when life gets busy, I'm slacking on the book front. But I'm still on track to read over 100 books this year, I just tend to read a lot more over the winter and summer months than I do in the spring and fall.  Small Town Girls by Jayne Anne Phillips was my standout read of May. I'm biased towards anything set in West Virginia and this memoir did not disappoint. I was thinking about my affinity for memoirs in general, and I don't think it’s surprising. Like photography, memoir is just another way to hold onto time, and an afternoon spent reading a good memoir isn't that different of an experience from spending an afternoon looking at photographs.

Photographing

I finished out the month with a long day of photographing the promos for our local theaters upcoming season. I enjoy the photography, I don't enjoy lugging 5 bags of lights, c-stands, modifiers, and boom arms across town. But it was nice to wrap it all up in one long day of shooting, now I'm just working on the post production and the design of the actual promo materials.

 Summer is up next- full of adventures, travel, and hopefully a whole lot of time outdoors in the sun. I’ll probably wait for the end of summer and do one update for the whole season, so if I’m not back until September happy shooting!

(A sneak peek of Japan, while I continue to work my way through editing these)