MUBA – experiencing the world first-hand

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We thought that Milan children’s museum (Museo dei bambini – MUBA) would be a good place to visit as a change of pace from more conventional museums we’ve been to in the past couple of weeks.

The MUBA is a neat place. The building itself stands in the middle of a garden, enclosed by a hexagonal baroque colonnade, Rotonda della Besana, which used to be a cemetery. It has multiple gates, but only one of them was open, so the inner courtyard was like a quiet oasis in the middle of a busy neighbourhood. Groups of teenagers were sitting on the steps of the colonnade, listening to music, hanging around, chatting, doing nothing. There was also a playground for small kids, but no-one was there, so our daughter had it all for herself, until she became cold, and we moved on.

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I realized that we’ve been pre-conditioned by our North American lifestyle to view teenagers hanging around as kind of delinquents by default – “Don’t they have anything better to do?” If there would be a bunch of 5-year-olds running around the playground, this would be another story – they would be playing, and playing is what 5-year-olds do. It is their job. They learn about the world through play.

I think this is not fair to the teens, though. Actually, hanging around in groups is what teenagers are supposed to do too. This is social networking in the best sense of the word. Teen years is when people learn to interact within the social groups, so hanging around together is, in fact, the best thing those guys and girls could do with their time. They were also learning about the world.

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The MUBA concept itself reminded me of Montessori system of education – the kids get to touch, scratch, push, kick everything, and through all this get some sort of educational input. The show, if it is the right term, that we went to was called “Forbidden not to touch”. It was design to showcase the ideas of tactile and kinesthetic learning developed by Bruno Minari, an artist and inventor, who was a native of Milan.

The museum website implied that it would be well suited to English speakers, but it turned out to be almost entirely in Italian. That was not a problem, though. The nature of the activities the kids were doing and the body language of the group leader were so self-explanatory that our daughter had no trouble following along with the group. That in itself was an impressive illustration of Munari’s concept with its departure from the conventional instructional mode.

Initially, our daughter was missing the group leader’s feedback. In fact, the leader was encouraging the kids to share their impressions after exploring each station. At that point, she did realized that our daughter did not understand Italian and switched to English with her.

To be fair, the crawling-touching-rubbing nature of the activities gave plenty of tactile feedback. It was certainly fun to watch, photograph and videotape (does anyone actually use tape anymore?). Incidentally, each child has to accompanied by an adult in these shows and vice versa – an adult is admitted only with a child.

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One serious drawback of this hands-on group activity is that it is a very efficient way for kids to contract and spread viruses. In fact, our daughter came down with a nasty stomach bug the next day after the visit to the museum. We even had to call a doctor for her. A home visit from a pediatrician is a luxury that doesn’t exist in Canada, so we were pleasantly surprised by how smooth and ‘human’ this experience had been.

It does put things in perspective when I think about he quality of life in Europe and Canada.

There is no way to say which place is better for living in the most general sense. The dottoressa, who treated our daughter was very nice and caring (and did I mention she came to our home right away?!)

That is all very nice, but the doctor said that the winter is not a good time for kids in Milan. The pollution is so high, that she said she always suggests leaving the city and going to the lakes “to breathe fresh air” at every opportunity. There is certainly a nasty flu going around the city. The doctor said the things would improve by March, when the weather changes. There is no ignoring the fact that we now live in a large, noisy, crowded, polluted city. The contrast with Victoria is particularly striking. Over there, we take the cleanliness of the air and the streets for granted.

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Drinking water is another thing that is very different here. A waitress asked us after learning that we were from Canada: “Is it true that the water in BC is so delicious that you can drink it right from the tap?” Yes, you actually can. Here in Milan, this is an impossibility. No restaurant serves tap water, and people use enormous numbers of plastic. Empty plastic bottles is the main material that children use for DIY projects in our daughter’s school.

It is a curious disbalance: the European lifestyle is distinctly more progressive, socially responsible, cultured and sustainable than the North American one in some respects, while distinctly backward in others. Some of the details that make up the country’s way of life are impossible to notice during a short visit. It takes living here over a substantial time period to start interacting with the place in more meaningful ways: finding were to buy good food, how to get plain point A to point B efficiently, how to call a doctor and where to go with a child on a rainy weekend.

Painting

Poppies.

Painting can be a very effective excersize for facilitating creative decision-making. Robert Rodriguez, a movie director and an accomplished artist, mentioned in a recent interview that he used to make actors paint on the movie set between their filming sessions. The idea is that making creative decisions related to colour choice, composition, etc. are fundamentally more challenging than trivial details that people are often obsessed about in their everyday situations (e.g. props or makeup/wardrobe/lighting issues on a movie set, for which there are often very efficient workarounds that are not even worth fussing about.)

Followed this example, I decided to paint for an hour or so alongside my four-year-old daughter, using a photo of flowers in the courtyard of the Sforza Castle in Milan that I took earlier this year. It was certainly fun to paint together with my daughter, and I am amazed at how quickly she is growing up and delighted to be able to share this time with her. In this sense at least, painting definitely puts things in the right perspective for me.

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False mirror

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I went into a false mirror room with my daughter when we visited an amusement park in Voronezh. This was a first time for her, and she really enjoyed it, but I think part of the fun was that I brought my camera and tried to snap as many photos as I could, capturing her reaction to the funny reflections.

This is a good example of how photography enhances everyday activities, not just by capturing memories, but by truly adding value to the experience. My three-years-old daughter is used to being photographed, and she likes the process of taking pictures. I can see rudimentary signs of acting in her behaviour in front of the camera. I wonder if her interest in photos will grow with age or she will eventually become annoyed with parents taking her pictures. I have seen examples of the latter scenario in our friends’ children, but hope that being aware of her reactions will help me avoid pushing the photography beyond the point where it would lose its fun aspects for her. I would love to pick the brain of someone like Elena Shumilova on how to achieve this balance.

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Documenting the process

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I have been thinking about shooting a photo documentary of some sort, and recently decided to take an opportunity to practice by taking pictures of my daughter, who has been enjoying baking with her grandmother. I read that one of the most important educational aspects of baking for young children is learning the value of a systematic process, so baking makes a perfect subject for a documentary.

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In this particular case, I was very thorough in terms of capturing all the stages; my focus was on the mood and the emotional content of the process instead. One effect of taking a systematic approach to an otherwise very casual shoot was a greater variety of shots, even though my view angles were limited by a rather cramped kitchen and less than ideal backgrounds (mainly, in terms of colours).

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Aquarium: focus on people

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The reception at my conference in Genoa was held in the Aquarium, one of the largest in Europe. At that time, I realized that the most interesting photos of aquaria are actually images of the visitors, not the actual exhibits of fish, reptiles, etc. While the panorama of Genoa at sunset that I shot from the rooftop of the aquarium was impressive, I did not find many photogenic subject inside the exhibit itself.

A couple of weeks after, when we visited a much lower-profile “oceanarium” in Voronezh with my family, I shot almost exclusively my daughter enjoying the site, and the opportunities for interesting (from my, very subjective, perspective) shots were numerous.

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From the technical standpoint, flash photography is usually not allowed in aquaria, so a fast lens is a must. I used my Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM exclusively. It is wide enough to allow some flexibility for cropping, but does not distort the image as much as wider lenses do. In addition, it is light, compact, and has great bokeh, which makes it my favourite walk-around lens.

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Background colours in candid portraits

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The main challenge in shooting candid portraits is the lack of control in general (in terms of composition, lighting, etc.) This also applies to the colours in the image – the clothes of the subjects and the background. Sometimes, the colours are so loud and clashing that the best thing to do is to ignore them during the shoot, and simply convert the image to monochrome in post-processing.

When I took photos of my mother and daughter baking together in a small kitchen, the quarters were so tight that I did not have much choice in terms of the composition. Fortunately, a 35 mm lens provides a wide enough field of view to allow some cropping afterwards. In terms of the colours, I did not want to convert the photos to black-and-white if at all possible, so I tried to position myself so that the brightly coloured background elements (e.g. a wall calendar, etc.) would not be in the frame. In this particular case, the scene itself, which has a lot of sentimental value for me, outweighs the technical shortcoming.

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Mother’s Day

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When taking family pictures on a holiday like Mother’s Day, it is best to let the children and parents interact and play naturally, without imposing on them with lighting, wardrobe and posing directions. The profound nature of our relationships with our mothers makes it difficult to convey this connection in a picture, which freezes only one short instant in the relationship. It is common knowledge that conventional, posed family portraits are often boring (partly, because they reflect the experience of taking these photos – tired parents, uncooperative children, stressed-out photographers…) On the other hand, a candid portrait can potentially provide a unique glimpse of a genuine emotion that connects the family members through their “normal” interactions.

The chances of taking a good family portrait are greatly improved if children are used to being photographed. If taking pictures is not a special occasion for them, but rather a part of daily play, they are more likely to “forget” about the camera and display their genuine behaviour.

The same argument applies to adults (in this case, parents.) Despite the wide-spread obsession with selfies, typically, our mental self-image is different from the more objective view provided by the camera. This is why we often don’t like how we look in photographs. Accepting the image of oneself as others see it takes practice. A positive side effect of being photographed regularly is that we can learn which poses, camera angles, clothes etc. are most flattering for us and repeatably reproduce those conditions. Thus, we can objectively become more photogenic.

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Photographing children

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Russian photographer Elena Shumilova became famous online for idyllic portraits of her children that she has been taking at a farmland in beautiful golden light. Recently, she shared her thoughts on what makes a good children’s portrait.

Her main advice is to take photos of one’s children regularly, as often as possible. Doing so helps children relax in front of the camera. This advice is not surprising, as daily practice is crucial for developing any skill. In this case, it applies both to the photographer and the model(s). I take many pictures of my daughter, and although I do not do it daily, I do notice that she is very comfortable with the camera (if fact, she often wants to take pictures herself).

Elena also notices that the most photogenic age is between three and five years old. This is a bit sad, as time flies incredibly fast, and my daughter will soon outgrow this “golden window.” Perhaps, focussing on child photography when his/her own children are of the most photogenic age is a good strategy for a parent-photographer.

Elena’s other suggestions are regarding persistence in photographing children and avoiding brightly-coloured, distracting clothes. Both are deceptively simple and obvious. In practice, even such trivial thing as wardrobe selection can be tricky, as modern children’s clothes are often overly bright and covered with cartoon characters and company logos. If we want to be able to capture spontaneous, genuine images that would have some artistic quality on a moment’s notice, it is not sufficient to keep the camera handy and have a good sense of composition. We also have to be conscious about colours, fit, etc. while picking the children’s clothes.

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Easter egg hunt

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Photographing children is often more challenging than shooting sports, because the clildren’s action is more unpredictable. For today’s Easter egg hunt with two three-year-olds, I used a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens lens on a 1D X body. I wanted to keep the aperture wide open for background isolation, so I had to reduce the shutter speed to about 1/1000 sec to avoid over-exposure. Also, I tried to position myself so I would shoot against the light.

Leading the children by playing with them in such a way that they would be well-positioned with respect to the camera makes a huge difference in child photography. This leading has to be done by someone other than the photographer. My wife is very experienced in this role, as she knows what angles and types of shots would work well for the pictures. As a result, my favourite pictures from today’s outing are of her playing with the kids.

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Walk-around lens

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I decided to follow an example of Alex Ogle, a street reportage photographer who was featured in October 2014 episode of “Pro Photographer, Cheap Camera,” to carry only one lens, namely a 35mm f/1.4L USM, for a family walk in a garden.

The absence of zoom is both limiting and liberating, as no mental energy is wasted on decision-making related to the focal length. Otherwise, the main feature of this lens that distinguishes it from cheaper, consumer-grade lenses is the very wide maximum aperture and excellent sharpness even when fully-opened (at f/1.4). This time, I was shooting in broad daylight, so there was no need to use the lens’s excellent light-gathering ability, but I still wanted to shoot wide open, to produce the subject isolation by blurring the background. To achieve the correct exposure, I had to decrease the shutter speed to 1/1000 s, which had a bonus effect of minimizing camera shake.

The main challenge with shooting at f/1.4 is that a common technique of pre-focussing by half-pressing the shutter button, recomposing and then shooting does not work due to the extremely shallow depth of field. Recomposing would shift the sensor plane sufficiently for the subject to become out-of-focus. Instead, the focus sensor has to be placed precisely on the subject (the front eye, in case of a portrait.) I usually crop the images in post-processing to improve composition.

In my opinion, the results of shooting with a 35mm f/1.4L USM are well worth practicing the shooting technique. The shallow depth of field immediately separates a photo taken with this lens from a mere snapshot.

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