It is fascinating that in 1960’s, in the Soviet Union, fictional Cheburashka and his friends were bringing small groups of friends together, which is not unlike “blue zone” social projects that occupy progressive minds of the present day US of A.
Travel plans
One important aspect of travel planning is that it forces us to address the issues at work and at home that otherwise would have lingered on the background of daily business for a long time. Travel dates, defined by the booked airplane tickets, serve as a rigid deadline for either completing or dropping projects on the to-do list. Either way, addressing these lingering projects in a definitive way, gives the future trip a sense of reality by freeing up mental energy and distraction-free time for it. In this sense, doing the work that enable the travel is the first and fundamental part of the travel experience.
Art and science: recipe for a breakthrough
“Although motorcycle riding is romantic, motorcycle maintenance is purely classic.”
-Robert M.Pirsig, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
For example, one could use analytic classification as an approach to art. This, in fact, has been done throughout the ages by using the principles of geometry, psychology and optics in architecture and painting. An extreme example of perfect symbiosis of the “classic” and the “romantic” approaches in Seurat
The inverse (applying the “romantic” approach to science) is a bit less obvious, but I believe it can be done very effectively. There are two points of opportunity for this in a scientific workflow: 1) examining and communicating the impact of the phenomenon under consideration as a whole, before it has been analyzed and 2) looking for and pursuing the aesthetics in the analytic process itself.
Foreground interest
In Robert Pirsig’s book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance“, there is an episode when the riders marvel at the expanse of the prairie and John, one of the main characters, comments that landscapes like that are difficult to photograph, because there is nothing there: “This is the hardest stuff in the world to photograph. You need a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree lens, or something. You see it, and then you look down in the ground glass and it’s just nothing. As soon as you put a border on it, it’s gone.”
Actually, one straightforward way to address the apparent lack of the compositional focus is to include a foreground element that would serve as an anchor point for the composition and a scale reference. In the case of the motorcyclists, their machines or even one of them could have made an excellent foreground.
Alternatively, setting the camera very low to the ground can allow a flower, a rock or a blade of grass to be included in the frame in the foreground. It should be noted that achieving sufficient depth of field becomes an issue is this situation. Even at high f-numbers (f/16 or f/22), it is usually impossible to keep both the foreground and the background in focus (and this is what is usually desired in a landscape). One needs to make choice what to focus on and where to sacrifice sharpness. The ultimate solution is to use composite focus, where two frames with different focal points are taken and later combined in post-processing.
Over-processing
Image post-processing is most effective if it is either so subtle that a viewer does not notice it or, on the contrary, so dominant that there can be no mistake that it has been done deliberately.
Having post-processing as the main ingredient of the image is challenging because it can compete for the viewer’so attention with other elements (composition, subject, etc), so that the effect of each of them will be reduced.
Having said this, it has been widely speculated that still photography would soon be replaced by grabbing frames from high-resolution video, but this proposition over-simplifies the relation between stills and video. The latter is typically shot at relatively low shutter speed to produce blur in the individual frames, which makes the motion look natural.
In any case, even if a photo is taken with heavy post-processing in mind, it is important to be aware of the general desired effect and where it can be achieved more effectively and/or efficiently during shooting.
When less is more
Using self-imposed constraints in the way the information is delivered can make the message more powerful. Similarly, economy of information, i.e. how much of it is being transmitted, is also an important concept. Amanda Palmer pointed this out in her interview with Tim Ferriss in relation to music, but I believe it also applies to visual arts and teaching.
On a similar note, teaching often fails by providing the students with too much content (for their level of knowledge, duration of the class, etc.) and rarely (if ever) by giving too little information. Leaving something for self-study allows the students to engage with the material and make it “their own”. I must say that having just finished teaching a relatively large course, I am looking forward to limiting the course-related information that I both receive and transmit to bare minimum for the next few months.
Definition vs. understanding
In his book “The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
By extension, the same principle applies to photography. It is not sufficient to mentally grasp the concept of camera shake, for example, that is caused by excessive rate of pressure on the shutter release button. To really understand the effect in conjunction with various focal lengths, shutter speeds and lighting conditions, one needs to practice rolling his/her finger over the shutter button hundreds of times and examine the results.
Learning to be an extrovert
Any personality type has unique advantages and disadvantages. At certain times, though, it is important to be, or more precisely, to act, like an extrovert. This is particularly true in the case of teaching, where engaging the student(s) is of primary importance. Incidentally, this is a challenge to many academics in analytical areas, such as mathematics, where concentrated, solitary thinking process is an effective, perhaps even necessary, mode of operation, which naturally favours introverts. But since teaching is a necessary stage of any learning process, sometimes, even the most introverted person has to summon the ability to gladly engage other people at an emotional and intellectual level.
I do not suggest that one needs to change his/her natural behaviour in general. On the contrary, trying on a different personality type can enhance the inherent character strengths and, at the very least, help understand the other people’s perspective on the common issues.
Creative direction
Although it sounds like an oxymoron, good creative direction can be very effective and make the creative process a positive experience. A good example of this are the instructions that come with LEGO
I took the photo above with my iPhone. Its wide-angle lens is perfect for this kind of close-up shots. In fact, a combination of the focal length and sensor size in a smartphone camera would often outperform a DSLR in close-up photography, provided that the lighting is adequate.
Image vs. reality: telling a story to yourself
The question of whether the act of photography detracts from the actual experience of whatever is being photographed is not an unreasonable one. After all, a photograph is only an image of the a event, place, person, object or situation. A still photo cannot even adequately represent motion, which is arguably one the most important components of an artistic image. A still image is just representation of motion, a conventional way of describing the concept of time-dependence and change, which is inherent to everything that surrounds us.
On the other hand, I believe that the effect that photography has on the experience is well worth the effort and attention that it requires. To be clear, I don’t think that the main value of photography is in documenting the experience. Rather, it is in forming the experience. In this respect, photography is similar to writing, which does not simply express a pre-existing idea, but serves to crystallize the idea or a viewpoint through the writing process itself.
In the case of travel photography, researching the destination for possible photo locations, looking for shots and taking time to take them is what allows me to formulate my impression of the place and people, who live or visit there. Carrying a camera is then similar to an artist’s carrying brushes and sketchbook. As to the question of whether a DSLR is necessary or if an iPhone would suffice, I prefer to paint with high-quality brushes on good watercolour paper rather than with a blade of grass on a napkin. In other words, I find it very liberating, from the creative standpoint, not to be limited by the equipment.
It would certainly be sad to pursue an experience merely for the story that could be told about it in the future (as this is what a photo is – a condensed story in a single picture, the one that is, hopefully, worth a thousand words). But creating that story can actually shape the experience itself. I think that in this the storytelling has a tremendous power.
