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Still life

My daughter’s art teacher suggested a way of developing observation skills: setting up little still lives everywhere (at home using toys, at restaurants, at the playground) and drawing them either right on the spot or later, from memory. I thought it would be a neat exercise to try for myself, and yesterday I did it for the first time. I was sitting at my favourite cafe in the morning when I noticed that the direction of the shadow from a water glass on the table accidentally lined up with the milk pattern on the surface of my latte.

I cheated bit in terms of memory training – instead of sketching the scene right there and then or tying to remember it in detail, I snapped a picture on my phone and used it later as a reference for sketching.

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Developing new skills

At the last tournament, I repeatedly tried to hit the opponent’s kote (lower arm just above the wrist), but judges gave me no ippons for any of the hits. I think this is because my strikes were not sharp enough. There is a particular quality of hits that’s needed to score points in kendo. It is not the force that counts, or even not the speed per se, although speed is important. It is precisely sharpness, snappiness of the hit. And I cannot do it at my current level. At least not consistently.

This presents a conundrum that applies beyond kendo to learning any new skill: how do you practice something that you cannot (correctly) do yet? If you practice using your current, incorrect, form, you risk reinforcing bad habits.

One option is to break down the skill into its constituent parts and work on them one-by-one before trying to connect them. This is how I work on the basics of violin-playing: First, work on the rhythm of a new song using a single open string. Second, get the left hand into position for playing correct notes without paying attention to rhythm or quality of sound. Third, focus on the sound quality (bow movement). Fourth, try to connect everything together and circle back to the rhythm.

In the case of a kote strike, however, the overall motion is already so short and simple that it doesn’t make sense to break it down further. But the overall quality of my kote hit is lacking, so something needs to be done. According to my sensei, the answer is to practice a different, but related, motion, which will eventually support and enable whatever you are trying to perform. In the case of the kote strike, the supporting exercise is matavari suburi – large-amplitude, straight swing of the shinai with maximum speed and an abrupt stop at the end of the swing. I’ve began doing it as my morning warm-up, but haven’t done enough yet to see any qualitative difference in my kote strikes. If anything, it will teach me not to over-extend my elbows at the end of a strike – something that’s annoyingly painful and potentially dangerous.

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The best part of tournaments

In the past, when we went to kendo tournaments, driving at 5:30 am through the dark town on the way to catch the first ferry to Vancouver, we used to joke that it takes some kind of especially weird people to willingly get up that early and go somewhere to get hit by bamboo sticks, while having others scrutinize every inch of our movements. I think somewhere along the way I myself bought into this story and lost track of why we actually like doing this. I stopped noticing the best part of tournaments that makes all these things worth it.

It took me physically going to a tournament yesterday (lack of enthusiasm being no match to the force of habit) to recall what the best part of the competition was. For me personally, it is not winning matches (I wish it was one of the reasons, but unfortunately I mostly lose my matches), but the experience as a whole. I realized that I like meeting up early to carpool to the ferry, talking about kendo over ferry food, noticing the sunrise over the islands through the window and running to the upper deck with the camera to take some shots of it. And then, at the tournament, searching for my name in the lineup (it is fun to realize that I recognize many names after the years), feeling how adrenaline pushes away sleepiness right before my match, taking photos, watching matches, trying to see if I follow, and agree with, the shinpan’s decisions. On the way back, more kendo talk – what went wrong (inevitably), how things are not like they used to be, what we need to work on.

Overall, I am glad that we can to it every now and then. The actual best part? It’s hard to put a finger on. If pressed, I would have to say, it’s hanging out with others, who, for some weird reason, also find value in being hit with bamboo sticks.

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Contrast

In the spirit of paying attention to beautiful little things throughout the day, I snapped a picture of snowdrop flowers by the sidewalk. Somehow, they looked incredibly white and fresh, but not neat and pretty. The last few days/weeks were rainy, and the flowers were splattered with mud. I found another bunch of snowdrops nearby that were a bit cleaner, but for some reason, when I took a photo, it didn’t have the same sense of freshness.

I think it’s the actual mud that made the snowdrops look prettier by contrast – another reminder that context makes all the difference.

This reminded me of the essay called “In Praise of Shadows” by Junichiro Tanizaki. He talks there about the importance of shadows in accentuating bright elements of design in Japanese architecture, among other things. Looking a bit closer, he uses a juxtaposition of western and eastern cultures to showcase the latter – kind of a meta-contrast. It is fascinating and continuously surprising, a bit like the Japanese culture itself.

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Learning to see

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera.”
— Dorothea Lange

I’ve been watching a video of Richard Feynman’s lecture on the laws of physics, and he described the essence of the scientific approach like this: “This is the key of modern science, this is the beginning of the true understanding of nature – this idea that to look at the thing, to record the details and to hope that in the information thus obtained may lie a clue to one or another of a possible theoretical interpretation.”

The ability to observe is of primary importance both in science and in art. Leonardo da Vinci, who was an exceptionally keen observer, is a stunning example of a genius straddling both fields. There is some evidence that he, in fact, made no distinction between the two. Feynman also drew and played drums. He said at the beginning of his lecture at Cornell that somehow physicists and mathematicians always mentioned his artistic interests, but when he played drums at a club, no-one ever said that he was also a theoretical physicist. He attributed it to higher appreciation of arts compared to science.

The good thing is that the capacity for observation is a trainable skill. One exercise for developing it is to take photos of various random objects throughout the day. The idea is that the mere act of looking for subjects to take pictures of encourages us to be more tuned to our surroundings. I’ve decided to put to to practice and snapped a picture of a tree with multiple trunks as I was walking across campus yesterday. Then, I thought that it would be even better to turn it into a sketch. Here is the result – made on an iPad in ProCreate with an Apple Pencil.

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Splash dance

We have an ongoing research project in our lab, where we take closeup photos of droplets of water colliding with each other. The initial motivation was to explore the connection between fluid mechanics and visual arts. This week, we used water splashes a a special effect for a tap dance photo shoot. We didn’t pursue any science per se, but the artistic connection was even stronger, as dance is an art in itself, and photography is an artistic way of expressing it!

When I first started photographing dance performances, I thought that still images would be far inferior to video in the context of dance. After all, video direccaptures music and motion, which are both essential elements of the dance. But as I took more and more dance photos, I realized that the photos have something that the video doe not have – the ability to freeze the motion and to give the audience time to appreciate the fine details of it. If you think carefully, one of the aspects that makes a photograph interesting is offering the viewer a perspective that is not commonly available in real life. With sport photography, for example, the most interesting images show athletes up-close, at the moment of intense physical effort – something that a spectator cannot see from their seats. Likewise, during a dance performance, anyone in the audience can hear the music and see how synchronized the motions of the dancers are. But when the motion is stopped in a photograph, we have a chance to appreciate the details that are are too fleeting to notice otherwise.

This is exactly what makes high-speed photography of water splashes valuable from a scientific standpoint. It is a way to examine the details of the fluid motion that normally happen very fast.

So combining splashes and dance makes a perfect case for creating interesting photos. Typically, we see both dancers and water droplets in motion, so it is fun looking at either (or both, in this case) frozen in time.

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On dedication

As I am going through the photo coverage of the dance classes that take place throughout the year in the studio where my daughter practices, I continue to be amazed by the level of dedication shown by the senior, but still very young, students. I see them at the studio after school literally day in and day out. Hopefully, the photos will help balance the impression one might get by observing only their year-end show that skills and grace, which they demonstrate on stage, are effortless. The result might be graceful, and working towards it is fun, but the effort is certainly paid upfront both by the students and by their teachers.

And I think the fact that the dancers are engaged in training every day plays a large role in sustaining their motivation. I’ve been thinking about the value of daily practice, incremental progress and the attitude of creating a body of work for a while, but it has been very satisfying today to come across a quote of someone widely regarded as a genius that perfectly resonates with this idea:

“Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or almost every day, it’s not good any more.” – Andy Warhol.

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Missing shots

Today, I once again confirmed for myself that being a shinpan (referee) at a kendo tournament is more exhausting than actually participating in a match. When you fight, you control your own actions, so you can anticipate at least 50% of what’s going on (the opponent controls another 50%). But when you referee, both competitors can strike at any time, so you cannot relax even for a second – or you will miss a shot. It is kind of similar to photographing kendo. Only the responsibility of missing a shot (or ippon) is higher when you are a shinpan.

I was both refereeing and taking photos at the Intercollegiate Taikai today – not literally at the same time, of course, but enough mixing of the two activities that I was often thinking about judging while shooting and about shooting while judging, missing shots in both cases as a result. It was still a great practice, both in terms of kendo and photography, not to mention a great time with friends.

Oh, and as a bonus – our club had two teams in the tournament, and they both met in the final! (No, we were not judging our own dojo’s teams, in case you were wondering…)

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Treats and rewards

I often thought about treats and rewards as interchangeable terms, but lately I’ve realized that they are quite different. Rewards imply expectation of a certain performance, and this makes me a bit uneasy, particularly in the parenting context. I think that developing a dependance on external approval, especially of performance rather than effort, can be counter-productive. It removes the sense of control and agency. For adults too (I am thinking about myself here), the expectation of a reward can substitute the original motivation for doing something.

On the other hand, a treat, in my mind, is something entirely positive. It is doing a pleasant thing for someone (or for oneself) simply because we want the person to feel good. There is no expectation that a treat has to be earned or that it is due regularly. Actually, I think that regular treats are good, but they have to different in nature from one another to avoid Hedonic adaptation to their positive effect.

With my daughter, I like celebrating seemingly insignificant milestones like the first day of a school term or the first day of vacation by doing something outside of our daily routine.

For myself, a change in activity is often a nice treat in itself. I think I somehow developed a pool of go-to treats that I can rotate and that I know would be good for me in general, like reading a non-technical book while eating lunch (my current one is the biography of Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson) or working on a personal photo project for a couple of hours a week.

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Things I like

One of the things I look forward to every week is waiting for my daughter while she goes to an art lesson after school. I sit at a cafe next door to the studio, and the one hour I have there feels like a bonus time to catch up on things that usually get crowded our of my day. I am glad that she is doing something that she enjoys and that, at the same time, I can work on something without the pressure to be productive.

Surprisingly, productivity takes care of itself, probably because I don’t rush to finish anything in particular and can actually think about what I am doing. I can think about the paper I’ve been reviewing and how it relates to my own research instead of rushing to finish and submit the review, as I often do in the office during “regular” work hours. Or I feel free to play with photos on my phone or computer to explore new processing techniques. Or I can read my own notes on the books that I’ve read in the past. Sometimes, I surprise myself with the ideas that I had at the time, but completely forgotten.