Sometimes stupidity is a bad habit—or that’s how I feel about making immensely idiotic mistakes mishandling the Leica Q today. A camera with manual controls demands that the shooter be smart enough to check the dials between outings. Last night, while hunting for subjects to add to my “Cats of University Heights” series, I set the shutter to 1/125 sec. Couple evenings earlier, motion blur spoiled several potentially good portraits of a black and white that I call Fraidy and another not yet featured. Because the digicam’s auto-mode had preferred low ISO and slower shutter speed, I chose what seemed right for late-yesterday’s lighting.
I should have sorted out my mistake this afternoon in San Diego’s South Mission Hills neighborhood. My wife had taken me on an outdoor expedition to two close-by destinations: The Spruce St. Suspension Bridge, which crosses a deep canyon in Banker’s Hill. Edwin Capps designed the pedestrian walkway, completed in 1912. I stupidly shot no photos there. Doh. From the footbridge, we drove to the “Edna Scissorhands” (e.g. Edna Harper) topiary garden on Union Street, where distracted by two cats, I turned attention first to them without checking the shutter—dumb, dumb, considering I took time to turn the aperture to f/5.6.
