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Body of work

Yesterday after work, I had a five-hour long photo shoot of dance classes in a local studio. I shot around 3500 images, which take approximately 150 GB of hard drive space. I like shooting dance, and I have a personal interest in the subject, because my daughter goes to that dance school. I also like the fact that this a great opportunity to practice my action-shooting skills. Having said this, I am glad that I don’t do this kind of photography every day. In fact, I believe that shorter, but more regular and varied shoots are better for developing skills and creativity.

I recently heard about the value of creating a consistent body of work. I am not sure who said it, but I like the idea that what we do every day is more valuable than what we do every once in a while. For example, my yesterday’s shoot was a big one-time effort, but shooting daily, even a little bit, even just using my phone, is probably more important. Ironically, the next day after a big shoot I am reluctant to pick up the camera at all.

I can really relate to treating all projects not as one-off opportunities, but as stepping stones for creating a consistent body of work. Of course, as many useful concepts, it is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it removes pressure of “successful” performance from each individual project (e.g. a research grant proposal or journal paper submission). On the other hand, if you are always contributing to your body of work, you cannot slack off at any time because you might think a particular project at hand is relatively unimportant. You have to be always “on”, delivering your best work.

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Making something that lasts

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Back in high school, when I started going to the gym to lift weights regularly, a read a cautionary bit of advise in a magazine: motivation [for training] is easy to get, but difficult to maintain. This is true for practically everything, not just sports. But simply knowing this helps to prepare and compensate for flagging motivation.

One motivation-inducing concept that resonates for me personally is working on something that I think would last a long time. Actually, most things I do fall into this category: doing research and writing papers about it, teaching, drawing, photography. Playing with my daughter is there too.

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Tim Urban nicely described the concept of transcending time by raising children in his blog post about Elon Musk. Elon reportedly views people as computers, hardware being the physical body and brain and software being the things people learn throughout their lives. In this framework, our children are one-half of ourselves in terms of their hardware, and we have a unique opportunity to contribute to development of their software by spending time with them.

Interestingly, this mind trick of convincing myself that I am working on something potentially long-lasting doesn’t work for personal development things, sports included. Old Japanese kendo sensei like asking novices, especially foreigners, “Why did you begin practicing kendo?” I think a more difficult question would be: “Why do you continuing practicing?” For me, habits really help here. Often, I go to practice simply because I’ve been doing for a long time. And then, another truism kicks in: motivation follows action.

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Habits are also dangerous, of course. if you do something mindlessly long enough, you lose the sight of what made you start in the first place. With lifting weights, I had exactly that experience a few years ago. What helped me shake this off was the fact that I injured my back and could not do my regular exercises. At that time, we were on vacation in Venice Beach, staying at an Airbnb for the first time. The place was owned by a young lady, who had lots of books on healthy lifestyle, fitness, etc. I must be in California after all, I thought. Also, the nearby Muscle Beach was bit of a holy land for me, because of it’s association with Arnold Schwarzenegger, my childhood hero. So I saw all the people, from muscleheads hanging out in the gym to wannabe Hollywood starlets shopping for healthy foods at the local supermarket, who were so different, but for whom dedication to physical training was obviously a core trait. I didn’t find any role models there per se, but I my motivation to thoughtfully train and a sense of fun of daily exercise was definitely renewed.

Perhaps, I need watch more kendo videos on YouTube or go through my favourite samurai movies?

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Value of (boring) blogging

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I’ve been wondering, why daily blogs, vlogs and photo logs are so popular. For example, when I decided to learn about making videos, I started following Casey Neistat on YouTube. His vlog, which he used to update daily (now – once in every couple of days), is tremendously popular, and it shows how much effort it takes to publish something like that consistently. But surprisingly to myself, I also find it quite entertaining. Large part of the reason for this, I am sure, is that Casey is a great storyteller and a skilled and talented videographer. But another part, I think is the consistency of his vlog updates.

The individual episodes are often not particularly impressive, in my opinion. Mainly, because the subject matter is rather mundane. After all, with all the skill and talent you can make opening mail exciting only to a certain degree. But taking together, the many individual episodes make up something that is much more compelling than the sum of its parts. It’s a fantastic example of quantity being converted to quality.

So what is it about consistency that’s so valuable?

In a recent interview, Gretchen Rubin mentioned that she noticed that sending regular updates on her daily life events to her relatives had a tremendous positive effect on their relationship. In fact, they send each other update emails with the implicit understanding that these emails are allowed to be boring and that no response is necessary. The surprising effect is that even though the individual events described in these updates are often mundane, the overall cumulative affect of staying in charge is profound.

According to Rubin, relationships thrive on the mere act of showing up. For example, when two old friends, who were out of touch for many years, meet, they often have nothing to talk about beyond “How have you been?” – “Fine.” But if people are “caught up” on each other’s life details, no matter how insignificant, they have all these little things to chat about.

I think blogging is also a kind of relationship: a one-way communication between the author and the audience (it can be two-way, if comments are enabled, which I am currently experimenting with). To maintain this relationship, the updates need to be regular. The flip side of this is that it is sort of expected that some of them would be pretty boring. So my apologies in advance to anyone who is reading this and is considering returning.

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Habits are synthetic

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I have started reading “Better Than Before” by Gretchen Rubin, and in the introduction, she writes that habits are powerful because they eliminate the necessity of decision-making, which, she also argues, is a finite resource. Basically, you make decision once and then follow a habitual sequence of steps to the desired result without thinking about the individual steps.

This reminded me of the “Creation and Destruction” essay by John Boyd, which I came across a month ago. Boyd was a military strategist and an instructor of fighter pilots. His theory of making creative decisions is based on a continuous loop of analysis (destruction) of the current reality (and one’s mental model of it) and synthesis (creation) of a new and improved mental model. In this context, a habit, as Rubin describes it, is a synthetic process – you don’t analyze the components of a habit, but instead string them together into one complex action.

Acting without thinking, but in a way appropriate to the situation is, of course, a central concept in martial arts. In kendo, it is called mushin. And just as an everyday habit, the instinctive reaction in a fight is developed through repeated practice.

Being a fairly universal principle, habit-forming can be applied practically to everything. For example, in photography, say, I decide that I want to freeze action of dancers during a performance. I select a ‘fast’ lens, open the aperture wide, set the shutter speed high, autofocus – to continuous tracking mode, framing rate – to ‘high’ and from that point on worry only about composition and catching the dynamic moments. Actually, even this preliminary setup becomes habitual with practice. I only need to think ‘freeze action’, and the rest happens more or less on autopilot.

Of course, as Gretchen Rubin also mentions, habits are great servants, but terrible masters. They makes us more efficient, but in doing so rob us of the actual experience of the action. When you hit a pause on Boyds Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action (OODA) loop and delegate part of the sequence to a habit, you sacrifice present-moment awareness. Autopilots, after all, are not famous for their creativity.

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Getting sick abroad

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Falling ill or getting injured abroad is certainly not fun. We have had several brushes with foreign medical services during our travels. The first time, it was in Czech Republic, when my wife got bitten in a leg by an insect while taking a long-exposure night photo on Charles Bridge in Prague. The bite got infected, and, following doctor’s orders, my wife had to spend the next few days in our hotel room with her leg elevated. “But we have vacation plans. How would I get around?” my wife asked the doctor (they were communicating using equal parts of English, Czech and Russian). “You’ve got a strong-looking husband,” she replied, “he should be carrying you in his arms.” I took it as a compliment. This happened on the second day of our trip, so fortunately, she had time to recover while I was attending a conference, and our subsequent vacation travels were not interrupted.

The other couple of incidents happened when our daughter became sick abroad, most recently a year ago in Milan. Just a few days ago, it was my father’s turn to get injured, while visiting us here in Victoria.

Dealing with all the stress and logistics, I thought that it was amazing how time heals the wounds, metaphorically speaking. The worry, the pain, the frustration eventually became blurred in our memories. My wife and I mostly remember the funny details of dealing with the language barrier, the universal kindness of doctors and nurses, the interactions among ourselves during the difficult times.

To be philosophical about it, health issues are a part of life, and they are bound to happen on the road as much as they will occur at home. And a far as travelling with family is concerned, I think that such trips are not so much about the destination itself or sightseeing, but more about spending time with family while travelling. Being on the road only adds a common element of novelty and excitement (and a bit of stress) to experience together. And the sickness or injury, as the time passes and the wounds heal (in the literal sense), eventually becomes just another experience – something that adds to the overall impression of the trip. Just buy insurance before leaving home.

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West Coast

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French Beach is a special place for me. When we first moved to Vancouver Island, we drove there to explore our new surroundings, and this is where I was really struck by the beauty of the local nature. It is very much tamed by the park setting, but it doesn’t detract much from the impression. To me, French Beach has all the essential West Coast elements – waves, tall trees, large pebbles and driftwood on the beach.

It all typically comes with West Coast weather too – rain, fog, wind. Last year, just after Christmas, we decided to go for a drive along the coast of the island despite the gloomy weather forecast.

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We thought that we would explore the Sheringham Point Lighthouse, which we have never seen before. It is hidden among the private lands, and the access point from the main road is not obvious. The lighthouse was a bit underwhelming, but still a nice find, considering how long we have lived here without being aware of it’s existence.

The weather that day, was a real gift, though. An almost clear sky without any wind. I was just a single fine day in a row of cold and gloomy ones – perfect for getting out to the coast. Being able to look out of the window, grab a camera bag and some sandwiches and be out by the ocean at one of the most beautiful spots I know – this is what I like about living here.

I am also conscious that I cannot take for granted how easygoing our six-year-old daughter is. The fact that she can cheerfully switch from her Playmobil figurines to the idea of going to a picnic is impressive to me. Flexibility. It is yet another thing I am learning from her.

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Honey cake

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My mom baked a honey cake for the New Year. It is my childhood favourite. She wanted to write “2018” on it, and I suggested making a paper stencil and shaving chocolate over it. When I was a child, she would decorate the cake with chocolate shavings all over the top. Now, my mom thought that stencil was a great idea, but she understood it so that the chocolate would be inside the digits. Instead, I thought that the image should be inverted – everything but the digits would be chocolate-covered. She went with my design, naturally – the more chocolate the better!

A note for the next time: the dough crumbs on the top are not necessary at all. Having a white cream background would make the writing more contrasty and would make the chocolate shavings stick better. As Winnie the Pooh told Piglet in the Russian version of the cartoon, “Both jam and honey, please, and you can skip the bread!”

My mom’s honey cakes are very close to the top of my sweetest childhood memories, but more recently, my notion what a fantastic honey cake looks and tastes like was re-calibrated when my wife and I travelled in Czech Republic in 2008. I had a conference in Prague, and after that, we travelled around most of the Southern part of the country by car over a two-week period. Two things impressed me in terms of cuisine: beer was cheaper than (bottled) water and honey cakes (called medovik) were served nearly in every cafe. The recipes were slightly different, but they were were all very-very good. Maybe, this is why that trip is one of my all-time favourites? After all, we all have incredibly strong emotional relationships with food one way or another.

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Portrait of a young woman on a Charles Bridge in Pargue. Czech Republic

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Sketching at the museum

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We discovered that our daughter loved drawing in museums when we are on sabbatical in Milan last year. We would bling her sketchbook and pencils wherever we’d go, and she would stop in front of every sculpture to draw it.

Today, we went to the Royal BC Museum in Victoria to see the wildlife photography exhibit, and there were some interactive setups aimed, I suppose, to teach kids the “rule of thirds” of composition. One could look at an animal figure through a frame with some wire grid and sketch it on a piece of paper.

Our daughter was happy to draw the animals, and she thought that the frame was cool, but as far as I could tell, she did not use any composition rules. I am glad that she she feels in her element drawing in public. And I miss our Italian museum trips, where my daughter and I sat side by side, sketching something. We should start drawing together again, while she still wants to do it.

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Career plans

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I am sitting on a couch next to my six-year-old daughter, watching “Whisper Of The Heart” for the n-th time. She asks:
– Do you know what I want to be?
– What?
I half-expect the answer to be “A Pokemon Master” (it’s this kind of period for her).
– I want to make books.
– To be a writer?
– Yes.
The context of the movie we are watching is obvious – Shizuku Fukushima, the main character wants to be a writer. Then, my daughter asks if I want to be a writer. I don’t want to dismiss it, so I really think about it.
– Yes.
Then, I think some more.
– Actually, I am already a writer. You see, I write all the time.
After all, my work requires me to write. But if I think more, this is not what she is asking. Would I like to tell stories? I think the answer would still be yes. Or maybe, because a picture is worth a thousand words, I would rather be a photographer? Oh, wait, actually, I am already one. You see, I take pictures all the time…

Not to take anything away from the “Pokemons” (lots of exiting career choices there), but “Whisper of the Heart” is a truly special film. It doesn’t stop surprising me. I might be biased, because this is one of the few movies that I pay close attention to as I watch it. I know that it is my daughter’s favourite, and I want to know what she see in it. There are so many fascinating details that I notice one-by-one each time I am watching the movie. For example, I am wondering, what is the significance of airships to Hayao Miyazaki? There is a blimp flying past Shizuku’s apartment at the beginning of “Whisper of the Heart”, and an airship plays a major role in “Kiki’s Delivery Service” – another favourite of ours.

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Cookies for Santa

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I am quite positively pretty much almost completely certain that my six-year-old daughter doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. But she is willing to play the game with full commitment, without skipping the beat. So today we were doing the Christmasy things all day – hanging lights outside our house, hanging stalkings on the mantle, putting out milk and cookies for Santa… Our daughter even pulled up a rocking chair for him “because he’s old”. So I even starting to think that she might be believing in Santa, at least a little bit.

I think, once again, that she is teaching me something here. That this is the way to do go about things: not to deny some magic in our lives, but not to lose the sight of reality either – simply enjoy the process as much as possible. As Yoda said, “truly wonderful, the mind of a child is”.

And then it started snowing – for the first time this year, in our neck of the woods anyway. Isn’t it magical? Probably not, but we’ll take it.

After our daughter went to bed, my wife and I were wrapping the gifts and stuffing the stalkings. I think I kind of believe in Santa too – specifically, that it’s my turn to be It.

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