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May 7, 2015

Photographing children

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.

May 6, 2015

Photo business

My original exploration of the business aspects of photography was focussed on stock photography. In retrospect, the passive nature of the stock photography income was the most attractive feature: you shoot, process, keyword and upload a photo once, and after that, it just keeps selling (that is the theory, anyway). Also, there is an interesting aspect of trying to figure out what type of image would be attractive to potential buyers. However, because the range of buyers is incredibly wide, what bubbles up to the top are rather generic and not particularly interesting, from my personal perspective, images.

Eventually, my interests shifted to sports and events photography. In part, this is because this niche provides more opportunities for interacting with people, who are involved in the photo shoots. From the business perspective also, the type of photography that delivers both a product (images for sale) and a service (event coverage) has been more successful (at least in my particular case).

May 5, 2015May 5, 2015

Applied art

I am quite pleased to see some of my photos enlarged to a rather enormous size and covering the interior walls of the new athletics centre of our university. Every time I go to the gym now, it feels as if I visit my personal gallery.

I think that at some level, art should have an application. This has certainly been the case with the works of the classics, but nowadays, the opportunities for finding these applications are even more numerous. The problem, as usual is in finding the balance between usefulness of a piece of art and fair compensation for its use. In the case of my sports photography, for example, the financial benefit to me is questionable at best, considering the amount of time and effort it takes. Still, I believe a fair balance is there, as I like the idea of supporting the school and its student-athletes beyond my main function as a faculty member. Also, having my photos integrated into the architecture of a new building is very nice.

My associate, who got me involved in the sports photography for the university and with whom we took these pictures, also thinks that this collaboration with the school has been quite productive, even just for satisfaction of knowing that our images have a life beyond our hard drives.

May 4, 2015

How to photograph people in glasses

As I was taking headshots of colleagues from the mathematics department for their website (in case it is not obvious, the photos in this post are not of them), couple of things became apparent: (a) many math professors wear glasses; and (b) glasses are a big part of people’s image, and they are attached to them. From the photography standpoint, glasses are problematic because they reflect light and produce glare, which obstructs the eyes.

In most cases, if at all possible, it is better to remove the glasses and take a portrait without them.

However, if removing the glasses is not desirable (see observation (b) above), it is useful to take into account the direction of the dominant light source. Specifically, it is easier to avoid the reflections in eyeglasses, is the subject is illuminated by broad lighting, where the most illuminated side of the face is the closest to the camera. In this case, the subject is facing away from the dominant light source, so the reflections of this light source are directed away from the camera. Broad lighting is the opposite of short lighting, where the most illuminated side of the face is farthest from the camera. It is more difficult to avoid the glare in eyeglasses in the case of short lighting.

May 3, 2015

On laziness

“…it is not only necessity, but also laziness, which is the mother of invention.”
– Alan Watts, “The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety.”

Conserving energy and economy of motion is important in many, if not all aspects of life. It is certainly true in the case of martial arts, academic research, teaching, and other areas, where creativity is important. However, there is a fine line between conserving motion and thus moving “skillfully – along the line of least resistance”, as Alan Watts puts it, and just being passive, procrastinating.

I think the difference is in taking a proactive, as opposite to a reactive approach to whatever is at hand. When we are in a reactive mode of operation, overwhelmed by whatever is coming our way, we might be busy, but not truly active, fro the creative point of view.

In kendo, there is an expression “bogyo no tame no bogyo nashi” – “there is no defence for the sake of defence.” I would not attempt a definitive interpretation (these sayings are notorious for having layers upon layers of underlying meanings,) but one way to read this is that even when we have to be defensive the reaction itself should be viewed as an opportunity to prepare to the next action.

May 2, 2015May 2, 2015

Frozen time

Alan Watts in his “The Wisdom of Insecurity” explains that we, as humans, cannot really compare any two experiences, because one and only one experience can occur at any given moment, and we cannot rapidly shift our attention to a prior experience – only to a memory of it, which is not the same thing (“A menu is very useful, but it is no substitute for the dinner.”)

Photography, in fact, facilitates this rapid switch between the memories, which are frozen in images. Because, as Watts explains, we tend to think about a memory of an event as if it was the event itself, photography can actually alter our subjective experiences in retrospect. This is why eyewitness accounts are not considered to be definitive evidence in courts – the memories of the witnesses can be affected by the information acquired a posteriori.

May 1, 2015May 2, 2015

Climbing

The photoshoot at the grand opening of our university’s new athletic centre turned out to be much more excited than I expected. I only had about an hour to spend shooting during the lunch break of a research workshop that I was attending across the campus.

The star feature of the new athletics building is a climbing wall, on which young athletes demonstrated their skills to the visiting public. The climbing instructors offered me to climb to the top and shoot the athletes looking down at them. I jumped at the opportunity, even though I have never climbed before in my life. It turned out to be a lot of fun, but I have to admit that for the first few minutes after I let go of the wall and spun around to face the climbers, who were coming towards me, I was too terrified to really think about photography matters, such as composition, exposure and focus.

In retrospect, climbing seems to be a very photogenic sport. It is a skill that is well worth learning, even just to gain better opportunities to shoot those, who are really good at it.

Note: Our university’s media officials asked us not to publish the photos, so they could use them first to promote the new building. So the photos in this post are, in fact, from another gym.

April 30, 2015April 30, 2015

Photography schedule

After returning from Shanghai, where I did a lot of photography without any agenda – strictly as a personal project, it would seem logical to put photography on a back burner and let the ideas for the next shoots naturally form in my mind. In reality, it turns out that over the next few days I will be taking photos at various university events – an alumni workshop of our research institute, an opening of the new athletic centre and a headshots photoshoot for the website of the mathematics department.

On the one hand, I am flattered that my colleagues value my skills enough to ask me to the the photos (so I am not ready to say “No” to these projects,) but on the other hand, I realize that doing shoots that are not motivated by personal interest ultimately lead to a burnout. Perhaps, the way to approach this dilemma is to turn the photo shoots into personal projects – to find certain aspects that are enjoyable in their own right. This necessarily means taking time with each project, even if just enough to think about what is interesting about it.

In terms of finding interesting aspects in an arbitrary photo shoot, I find it helpful to keep the following points in mind:

Any project is an opportunity to practice, to hone some photography skill(s);
Any project is an opportunity to learn something about the subject(s);
Most projects allow one to practice stepping outside of the comfort zone by trying an unconventional technique (e.g. composition, pose, lighting, post-processing).

April 29, 2015April 30, 2015

Keiko

Routine practice in traditional Japanese arts, such as kendo, ikebana (kado), calligraphy (shodo), etc., is called keiko. I came back to my kendo practice after a couple of weeks of absence and immediately felt the familiar sense of structure and certainty in the next action during the keiko.

With such a strong emphasis on routine and structure, it is almost surprising that, at a certain level, martial arts provide an opportunity for self-expression and creativity. I think creativity is linked to one’s ability to relax, both physically and mentally. Being relaxed allows one to make creative decisions without analyzing them (the much-talked-about state of “no-mind” or mushin,) but achieving this state is a skill, and such, it required some grinding and structured practice.

April 27, 2015

A jet-lagged impression of Shanghai

I shot quite a few photos while walking around Shanghai before and after the conference, both alone and in the company of colleagues. Because I didn’t have much chance to view or process the photos (my ability to share them online from behind the Great Firewall of China was severely limited anyway,) I went through and processed all of them at once, sitting in front of my computer late at night. My jet lag was relatively mild, but it was sufficient to hold me awake, while keeping the mind too dull to do anything except browsing through the images.

The next day, I looked back at the set that I selected, and was surprised at how random and incoherent it was in terms of the subjects, the techniques, the composition. Perhaps, it reflects my overall experience from this trip: random, contrasting images of Eastern and Western architecture, rich and poor streets, hot days and cool nights,..

It seems that Shanghai is full of great opportunities, but people living there are prevented from grasping them. For me also, those few days away from the university were an opportunity to collect my thoughts, both on research and in general, to slow down and enjoy the new and exotic place. In reality, the trip was a bit of a blur: I missed my family a lot, and the conference was a rater high-level meeting, where we did not get into the specific details of our research.

The biggest positive aspect for me personally was the chance to get to know my colleagues, some of whom I have worked with for years. During our walks through Shanghai, we talked about children, and photography, and books, and movies, and work, and travel, and languages, and music,.. I would not say that doing so is enough to really form personal friendships, but it is a healthy start, without a doubt. “Collegiality” is a somewhat nebulous term in the academe. I read somewhere that you do not really form a working collaboration with someone until you share a meal together. Exploring an new city together is probably even better.

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