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Ramen

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In Japan, rituals are important. For example, the proper way of eating food, the order in which it should be eaten, etc. can be very intricate. But the neat thing is that these rules often originate from practical considerations.

With ramen, for example, it’s good to take a few sips of the broth first, before eating the noodles. There are at least two reasons for this:

First, the broth is what makes a ramen bowl distinct. It usually takes hours to make and there are various kinds of it. My favourite, at Kuma Noodles in Victoria, BC, is the miso flavour. Besides the broth, what makes ramen unique to a particular region and to a particular chef is the level of saltiness, the type of noodles and the toppings.

Second, the noodles are still cooking while you are tasting the broth. By the way, it is considered polite to slurp the noodles, and there is a practical reason for this too: slurping actually cools the noodles, which are very hot. Also, because ramen is best eaten while it is hot, it is polite not to talk while eating it and to eat it quickly.

Having said all this about table manners, I was told once by a Japanese friend that the best way to show respect to the chef is to relax, enjoy the food and not be concerned about the rules. …Of course, it might have been just a polite way of making us, the gaijin, not over-think reigi too much. As with many Japanese things, I will never know…

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Exhibit setup – behind the scenes

Panoramic view of Siena. Italy.

When my wife and I came back from a 3-week-long trip from Italy in 2009, we brought back about 15,000 photos, which now seems like not a big deal, but at that time it was a huge amount and a logistical challenge in terms of storage, processing, etc.

Now, as I was re-visiting them 7 years later, to prepare an exhibit at a local coffee shop, the challenge was to select just a few images from that set and to decide how to display them them next to each other: what sizes to print, for example. So I chose my favourite photo from the entire trip – the Florentine sunset, and printed it as the larges gallery wrap I knew we would be able to display – a 24 x 36 in canvas. We brought in to the cafe, held it against the wall, and at that point in became apparent what other images would work, at what size, how to position them relative to the main print.

The rest was, as you can see in the video, a matter of sticking the hooks to the wall, after double- or triple-checking the measurements, and voilà – we have a personal exhibit!

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Coming back vs never leaving

Ha'penny Bridge. Dublin, Ireland.
Ha’penny Bridge. Dublin, Ireland.

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”

― Terry Pratchett, “A Hat Full of Sky”

Settling down, becoming attached to a place where you leave is definitely efficient. When you know your town, for example you free up significant decision-making bandwidth by not having to decide on the bets route for getting from point A to point B, where to buy the best bread, and many other elements of the everyday logistics. In other words, you can put yourself on an autopilot and delegate processing of many daily situations to already-developed habits.

It can also be argued that the feeling of being settled, content with our environment is healthy from the psychological standpoint. However, there are drawbacks to becoming too comfortable. Relying exclusively on pre-existing habits day in and day out diminishes our present state awareness. If our environment never changes, there is little incentive to continually sharpen our skill of creating mental models. Changing our physical environment is an effective way to force ourselves to be more aware, more open-minded, more flexible and agile in forming our view of the world. When we travel, we train ourselves to become less dependent on having the life unfold exactly on our terms.

The concept of going away and coming back to the same place is much broader than just travelling in the literal sense. In photography, for example, it is useful to periodically shake things up by shooting different subjects, using different gear or post-processing techniques. If after trying the new workflow, style, business model, etc., you decide that it is not for you and you find yourself exactly at the starting point, this is an illusion. The point only appears the same. By coming back to it after taking a detour, you gain experience, skills and a broader view of the field of your work. And this makes you a different person, compared to those, who never left the comfort of their niche.

Ponte Vecchio. Florence, Italy.
Ponte Vecchio. Florence, Italy.
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On creating mental models

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At my daughter’s art studio, “4Cats”, there is a poster that half-jokingly lists the benefits of art education. Among these benefits are improved study skills and a possibility to make a fortune of selling your paintings.

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There is another skill that did not make the list, but which is taught through the practice of art (or any other creative process) – it is what psychologists call “creating mental models”.

Charles Duhigg wrote an entire chapter on this in his book “Smarter Faster Better.” According to him, some people are better than others at creating mental representations of current and future events. In other words, they continually narrate a story to themselves as they go about their day. By doing so, they work out a model of how the world works. The more detailed the story, the deeper the focus that these people are able to maintain. Also, when the life events actually unfold, people who are good at creating mental models are capable of making better decisions, because they already fave a forecast of the event, which can be compared to the real situation. Duhigg quoted Andy Billings of Electronic Arts, who said that modern companies are looking for people, who habitually tell stories, because this trait is an indication of the person ability to apply analytical observation to their experiences.

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As it is the case with many useful traits, creating mental models is a true skill, rather than an innate ability. In other words, it can be developed through practice. In fact, this is what children do when they play make-believe games, play with toys and, particularly, when they practice art. In regular, structured art lessons, the teacher outlines a plan for the process and then provides feedback on the progress at various stages. This way, the children are taught to imagine the final painting/drawing/sculpture, at least in some detail, and then compare what actually emerges as a result of their work to the mental images.

So art really is good for everyone – both to those, who create it, and those, who consume it – because it involves storytelling at every stage. And telling stories, it can be argued, is the most effective way of communication.

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Tipping for quality

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Recently, there has been some discussion in North America on whether it is feasible (indeed, appropriate) to eliminate tipping at restaurants and other service-type businesses. This custom is much less common in the rest of the world. In Japan, for example, it borders on offensive to offer a tip or to negotiate the price of a service or a product. It is assumed that the providers of services are already doing their best, so offering additional pay for better quality is inappropriate.

This brings up an important fundamental question about quality in professional photography, which in many cases constitutes a service-type business. If you are doing a high-volume project where financial compensation per image is not high, is it appropriate to lower the quality of your work?

Perhaps, the answer depends on the definition of quality. Incidentally, I found one of the best explorations into the subject of quality in Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance“. It is tempting to say: “Of course, compromising quality is never Ok. It is a staple of professionalism.” Realistically though, something has to be sacrificed in high-volume/low-cost shoots, like run-of-the-mill school portraits. I think that it is creativity that suffers, which allows technical quality of the photos to be maintained. After all, it is impossible to establish effective communication with the subjects, to experiment with various poses, lighting arrangements and camera settings, when many images need to be taken in a limited time.

On the other hand, it can be argued that creative content is an integral, if not the fundamental, part of quality. If this is the case, and if we agree that quality cannot be compromised, then the logical conclusion is that high-volume/low-cost projects should never be undertaken. If the volume of work is high, the price has to be high too.

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Decluttering the tollbox

Portrait of a girl with camera.
Portrait of a girl with camera.

Consciously limiting the set of tools used in a given creative project is an effective way of focussing on the most important message. Artists often choose to limit their palette of colours for a particular painting, or even de-emphasize the role of either form or colour, as the Impressionists or the Cubists did, for example. Likewise in photography, it might be beneficial to work around the limitations of your gear instead of lugging around an enormous set of lenses and camera bodies.

I have been often referring to Cal Newport’s “Deep Work” lately, and he has an important point on using only a limited set of tools. There is a cost associated with adopting and using a new tool in your typical workflow. There are tangible resources, that are required to learn the new tool or technique, to keep it sharp (figuratively speaking), and to make decisions regarding whether using this tool would add to or detract from the process and the product. In other words, adopting and using a particular piece of gear or a technique has both advantages and disadvantages. A conventional craftsman would not adopt a new tool, unless it offers a net improvement of the process.

There is another benefit of limiting our toolset. If we don’t have many tools that have an overlapping set of capabilities, we learn to use the tools that we do have more effectively, i.e. we utilize them fully. This increases the efficiency, or return on investment, of these tools.

I find this happening with my use of iPhone camera apps. I have three of them – the built-in Camera, the Camera+ and the ProCamera. They are slightly different in terms of functions, and each is slightly better than the others at a particular aspect of the workflow. For example, I find the native Camera to be the best in terms of the synchronizing with the Photos app, instant sharing and shooting panoramas. The Camera+ is the most convenient for shooting in general – using pick focus and pick exposure, etc. (although lately it has been giving annoying delays and lag on my iPhone 6 Plus… Hm-m-m, this might be a good excuse reason to buy a faster phone…) The ProCamera is most convenient for shooting video. Having said this, the native Camera app is reasonably good overall, and not having to make decision on which app to use might make a difference between capturing a moment in time or missing it.

Old truck selfie.
Old truck selfie.
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Choosing the subject: how I became interested in dance photography

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Professional photographers often give the following advice on choosing the area of specialization: shoot projects in the field, to which you already have some connection. For example, if you play a particular sport, try shooting that. If you are interested in street photography, try shooting in your home town. If you travel a lot, try travel photography…

This is a sound advice, because choosing the subject based on your current activity makes use of your pre-existing interest and expertise in this area. In my case, this natural selection of the topic happened several times. First, I became interested in travel photography, because my job took me to conferences all over the world. Second, working at the University, I started shooting sporting events involving our student-athletes. Now, I am doing dance and performance photography for a local school, where my daughter takes ballet classes.

Dance photography is a fascinating area. I find that because dance itself is an inherently beautiful form of art, it removes a lot of pressure to create a beautiful image from the photographer – the subject is already beautiful! Perhaps, people like photographing flowers for the same reason.

On the other hand, I was never seriously interested in dancing myself, but through my daughter’s fascination with dance and through learning how to photograph it, I find that my interest in and knowledge of various aspects of it (training methods, performance production, dedication required form the students and the instructors, etc.) also increases. In fact, the idea of enrolling my daughter in a dance class at an early age first came to me when I was assisting another photographer with covering a large year-end performance for the same school. Of course, there were other clues, like her spontaneously starting to dance while watching a DVD of “Tales of Beatrix Potter” ballet in the gift shop of the Palais Garner in Paris, when she was less than two years old.

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How to go down in history: being the first or the last

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In a recent interview, Chuck Klosterman, the author of “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs”, mentioned that while it is difficult to predict, which musician/artist/scientist would be considered the most historically important figure of the current period many years from now, it is unlikely that it would be someone, who is considered as the leader of his/her field right now. Klosterman suggests that in order to have retrospective historical weight, an author (or a piece of art, scientific work, etc.) needs to meet at least one of the two criteria: he/she/it needs to offer true innovation, i.e. to be the first the first ever in the specific field, or he/she/it must represent the culmination of the development of the field that changes how people think, i.e. to be the last in the field – the finishing touch that completes it and points to a fundamentally new paradigm.

Basically, history likes those who are are either the first or the last in their area of work.

This concept has some parallels with the strategy for creating innovations outlined by Cal Newport in “Deep Work”: be on the leading edge of your field and then look just beyond it using patterns similar to those that exist (and are already known) in other fields.

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Of course, following the Newport’s strategy does not guarantee that the future generations will pick your work as singularly significant. However, stepping beyond the leading edge of your field gives you the chance to be the first in a completely new area, while getting to the leading edge gives you the chance to be the last in your field – the one who applies the unifying finishing touch to the existing body of work.

There are a couple of implications of this concept. First, you cannot be a narrow specialist. In order to apply known patterns from other areas, you need to have at least some knowledge of the fields beside your own area of expertise. As Miyamoto Musashi wrote in his famous “The Book of Five Rings, “Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything.”

Second, you cannot be a pure generalist either. You need to specialize in something in order to develop the deep expertise that would enable you to do cutting edge work in this area. Becoming an expert of that caliber is, of course, the hardest part of the process.

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The big picture

Ukai in Inuyama, Japan.
Ukai in Inuyama, Japan.

At my daughter’s school, they told a story about how when we like something, there are usually some aspects of that “thing” that, while not pleasant by themselves, can be tolerated or even enjoyed when taken as part of the entire experience. For example, we may love our puppy, and because of that we learn to like waking up early to take him for a walk, which is a part of the experience of having a puppy.

I recently came across a similar concept in Charles Duhigg’s “Smarter Faster Better” in the context of psychology of motivation. During basic training, when faced with particularly gruelling exercises or harsh conditions, the US Marines are taught to ask each other questions containing the word “why?” This is done to focus the attention on the underlying motivation for doing the big job and to add meaning to the seemingly meaningless, tedious task at hand.

This techniques is effective in many settings, but it is particularly useful in creative endeavours. In photography, for example, the most fun part of the project might be to shoot beautiful subjects or to receive the compliments on our work. Getting to these fun stages, however, requires significant background work in terms of planning, production and post-processing. Doing many of these tedious tasks can easily snuff out the initial motivation for the project, unless we remind ourselves in the process, that it is all part of the big picture and a necessary component of getting to the really enjoyable part.

I experienced a perfect case of this during my trip to Japan a few years ago, where I had an unplanned opportunity to photograph ukai in a small historic town of Inuyama, close to Nagoya. Ukai is a fascinating traditional way of fishing that uses trained cormorants, who chase the fish underwater, catch it and then release it to their human handlers. I really wanted to see the process, take pictures, and show them to people, but in order to do this, I had to wait for several hours for the ukai tour to start. The waiting itself, in the humid heat of the Japanese summer, with heavy photo gear on my back, in the town where all tourist attractions were located within a couple of blocks (and most of which I had visited by that time) could have been quite miserable. However, I knew that it was a part of the entire experience, and in retrospect, I enjoyed it almost as much as watching the fishing itself and capturing one of my most popular photographs to date.

Another example, where the tedious part is integral to the entire experience, is travel. Dealing with pre-trip planning and arranging the logistics can be stressful. On the positive side, this preliminary stage not only makes the destination more enjoyable when we get there, but it also becomes a significant part of the travel experience itself by priming us (through anticipation) to what we are going to see, eat, and photograph. In order to appreciate this stage, we need to remind ourselves why are going on the trip as we are booking tickets, packing the bags and standing in line at the airport. Not all parts of travelling are equally fun, but all can be enjoyed if we remain conscious of the big picture.

Artist Kyoko Takatsu at work in her studio in Inuyama, Japan.
Artist Kyoko Takatsu at work in her studio in Inuyama, Japan.
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No big deal

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At my daughter’s birthday party, which was held at a local art studio, the children were reminded about one of the “rules” of conduct at the studio. The rule was “No big deal!”, as in “If I accidentally get paint on the floor, it’s no big deal” or “If I mess up my clay dragon and have to redo it all over again, it’s no big deal.”

For a creative process to be effective, it is important not to take things, particularly your own work, too seriously. That is why it is sometimes useful to choose disposable media for your work to avoid putting excessive emphasis on the result, where the process is inherently more valuable. Julia Cameron wrote in “The Artist’s Way” that in order to make art, we must be ready to make bad art, at least initially. I heard some writers say that if you work for hours to write a thousand words, and then end up throwing out everything except the last couple of sentences in revisions, the hours spent on this should not be considered a wasted time – writing the text that was ultimately thrown out was a necessary step in creating the last two good sentences.

In other words, it’s no big deal that it takes longer than what we thought it should have taken to create something of value. We should just accept it and enjoy the process. After all, they said at my daughter’s party that the main rule of the art studio was “Have fun!”

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