In role-playing computer games (RPGs), the term “special ability” refers to a set of skills of a character, that is unique and cannot be acquired by other characters. In real life, people often develop special abilities due to their environment. Sometimes, these abilities are physical, for example, increased lung capacity and endurance of ethnic groups that live high in the mountains (e.g. Sherpas). In other cases, these are special skills, like horse-riding of Mongols in the middle ages.
In my case, working at the university, I have an opportunity to photograph sports competitions, in which our student-athletes participate. Doing so also supports the students and the athletic program, which makes me feel good. The other direction is photographing fluids in motion. It is related to my research in experimental fluid dynamics. In fact, exploring the artistic side of flow visualization has been on my mind for a while. One of the examples that I give in my class when talking about history of fluid mechanics is Leonardo da Vinci, who used his artistic capacity for observation to propose a surprisingly useful analogy for turbulent flows: he described them to be similar to human hair, moving in the wind – large waves carry smaller curls and kinks with them.
I think the relationship between the environment and the special skill or ability it creates is a two-way interaction, as an engineer would say. The special skill acquired because of the environment enables one to make a fuller, more complete and creative use of this environment. In case of the Mongols, for example, living in the steppes made them great horse-rider, which in turn, enabled them conquer the steppes (and much of the known world) under Genghis Khan
