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March 25, 2015March 25, 2015

Lock-in effect

In vibrations, the term “lock-in” (or lock-on) refers to the phenomenon of an object oscillating at its natural frequency in response to an excitation by a different frequency. The system is said to be “locked-on” to the natural frequency of the oscillator. In marketing the same term refers to the difficulty of switching to a new product, service or technology, if the the consumer has already invested (often psychologically) into the old product or process.

In both cases the term refers to some inertia associated with the status quo. Since this seems to be a universal phenomenon, it is reasonable to generalize and assume that most people tend to lock-in to their current way of doing things. This refers to the tools and methods they use, how they seek and provide feedback, how they form their opinions, etc. Therefore, a reasonable strategy for differentiating oneself from the crowd (which is pretty much a necessary step for an any artist) would be to consciously fight the lock-in effect, i.e. to be responsive to new inputs (learn new techniques, change the workflow, etc.)

Of course, reacting to every new input has its dangers. Borrowing again the concept from engineering, if the system does not have sufficient damping, it will become unstable, so even small disturbances would lead to huge oscillations. I think that in a creative process, ability to stay true to one’s own “voice” and “style” has the effect of damping: not every subject or technique would resonate with the given photographer, for example. In this case, the unique style is analogous to the natural frequency of the system.

March 24, 2015March 24, 2015

Making friends

Involving people in photo projects has tremendous benefits in terms improving the workflow, getting timely feedback, and developing skills, both technical (by learning from others) and social (by the very act of getting involved with people.) This process works best if the people, who are getting involved are friends of the photographer – they are keen to help, it is fun to spend time with friends, etc. Making friends, however, is fundamentally difficult, despite the proliferation (mostly, by social media) of the stigma of not having many friends. In fact, as the number of (superficial) social interactions for a given person increases, the quality (depth) of these interactions decreases. This is not surprising, as true friendships take time to develop, and time is a limited resource for anyone of us.

Gretchen Rubin, the author of “Better Than Before“, points out that a very effective way to make new friends is to befriend the friends of one’s existing friends. This notion, although intuitive, does not solve the problem of making friends initially (when you have none), but fortunately, most people have at least few friends in their lives. The key, then, is to spend more time with friends, explore mutual interests, ask them to involve their other friends… Photography might just be the perfect vehicle for it.

March 23, 2015

When to quit

There is a psychological stigma associated with quitting, yet most people quit many different undertakings over the course of their lives, from childhood hobbies to New Year resolutions to business projects. Seth Godin, actually wrote a book on the subject, called “The Dip.” He argues that quitting can be a valuable tactic, but it should be done not at the point when most people do it (e.g. the 23-rd mile of a marathon). It is best to either quit early in the project, when it is “cheap,” or to stick to it until the end. The definition of “the end” can vary, but imposing (early in the project) a limit on maximum amount of resources that would be spent can help alleviate anxiety towards the end.

I think that a similar approach can be adopted to photo projects. I wrote earlier about the importance of declaring a post-processing stage completed at some point instead of tweaking the image ad infinitum. Perhaps, additional insight can be obtained by analyzing when most photographers quit their processing projects. Once the typical quitting points in the workflow have been established, it would be best to either quit earlier or push beyond them.

March 22, 2015

Walk-around lens

I decided to follow an example of Alex Ogle, a street reportage photographer who was featured in October 2014 episode of “Pro Photographer, Cheap Camera,” to carry only one lens, namely a 35mm f/1.4L USM, for a family walk in a garden.

The absence of zoom is both limiting and liberating, as no mental energy is wasted on decision-making related to the focal length. Otherwise, the main feature of this lens that distinguishes it from cheaper, consumer-grade lenses is the very wide maximum aperture and excellent sharpness even when fully-opened (at f/1.4). This time, I was shooting in broad daylight, so there was no need to use the lens’s excellent light-gathering ability, but I still wanted to shoot wide open, to produce the subject isolation by blurring the background. To achieve the correct exposure, I had to decrease the shutter speed to 1/1000 s, which had a bonus effect of minimizing camera shake.

The main challenge with shooting at f/1.4 is that a common technique of pre-focussing by half-pressing the shutter button, recomposing and then shooting does not work due to the extremely shallow depth of field. Recomposing would shift the sensor plane sufficiently for the subject to become out-of-focus. Instead, the focus sensor has to be placed precisely on the subject (the front eye, in case of a portrait.) I usually crop the images in post-processing to improve composition.

In my opinion, the results of shooting with a 35mm f/1.4L USM are well worth practicing the shooting technique. The shallow depth of field immediately separates a photo taken with this lens from a mere snapshot.

March 21, 2015March 21, 2015

On training

Training to improve physical fitness not only directly benefits photography by improving work capacity through endurance and enabling certain types of shots that would have been inaccessible for a less fit individual, but it also helps improving one’s skills by developing relevant learning and traing methods.

I wrote earlier about the importance of overcoming self-imposed challenges for developing one’s craft – the photographer’s artistic skill set. This concept is similar to the principle of progressive over-loading used in strength training. Taking the analogy further, it is well know in the world of physical training that continuously increasing the load (e.g. the weight of the barbell) would result in over-training. Increasing the amount of the exercise would eventually lead to the same result: diminishing returns and ultimately, a burnout.

An effective way to challenge one’s fitness level without monotonically increasing the training intensity is to periodically learn a new sport or physical activity, which is known as cross training. I think that in art, such as photography, a similar approach of exploring a new genre or learning a new technique can help in breaking through a creative plateau. Moreover, the habit of regularly trying new things would have a cumulative effect on other related habits, such as involving other people in photo projects, exploring different workflows, composition, lighting, post processing, and publishing media.

March 20, 2015March 20, 2015

Motion in dance photography

Motion and emotion are two elements that can make a photo stand out. Dancing, by definition, involves both of these elements, so it makes an attractive subject for photography.

What makes motion attractive is that it represents something impermanent. Even though the instant is frozen in a static image, the lack of static balance in the dancer’s body implies that this moment is fleeting and therefore precious. Thus, the viewer subconsciously realizes that this photo is an opportunity to observe something that ceased to exist and cannot be recovered. This imbalance, the hint of the impairment nature of the subject is what resonates with the viewer’s emotions. As Allan Watts puts it in his “Wisdom of Insecurity“, “In sculpture, architecture, and painting the finished form stands still, but even so the eye finds pleasure in the form only when it contains a certain lack of symmetry, when, frozen in stone as it may be, it looks as if it were in the midst of motion.”

Incidentally, I generally find “frozen” motion images more appealing and interesting than those with (intentionally) blurred motion. As an engineer, I can speculate that this might be because motion blur implies averaging over time, which is a steady-state component of the motion. The emotional connection with the impermanence of the movement is thus lost in the blurred image.

Recently, I have been working on post-processing of photos that I took during a performance of a local dance school. There was no particular agenda for the photo shoot, i.e. I did not have to capture portraits of all dancers or even cover the entire performance. In that sense, it was the best possible scenario, where I was free to choose what and how to shoot and how many images to deliver.

I found that some types of dances were more photogenic than others. For example, I had far more interesting images of hip-hop than of tap. I think this has to do with the amount of large, exaggerated motion that happens during a articular dance. While hip-hop dancers are almost acrobatic in their movements, the tap performers rarely appear to be out-of-balance at any given instant.

March 19, 2015

Fitness for photography

Some types of photography require the photographer to be physically fit, to a certain degree. Shooting extreme sports, such as rock climbing, for example, naturally requires one to be proficient enough in the sport in order to be able to keep up with the athletes (if they are climbing in the actual mountains and not in a gym, where a photographer does not have to do any climbing.) Underwater photography is another obvious example, where physical ability is crucial.

However, even in less obvious situations, such as travel, street or action photography, physical fitness is a definite asset. Endurance, in particular, enables one to cover larger distances on foot, carry more gear and minimize camera shake while hand-holding heavy “fast” lenses. There many ways, of course, to compensate for the lack of strength or endurance, for example, by using some form of transportation, carrying less or lighter gear, shooting from a tripod, etc. (BTW, in my experience, a carbon fibre tripod is a must for travel use.) Over time, however, there would be certain situations where lack of endurance would result in missed shots.

I have recently heard an interview with Kelly Starrett, a trainer of high-profile athletes a the author of “Becoming a Supple Leopard.” He mentioned that the key element in improving endurance and physical mobility in general is to improve one’s posture. According to him, there are several fundamental postures and basic movements that are common in many types of activities (e.g. standing, squatting, etc.) Training to improve (or correct) these postures allows one to utilize the skeleton, rather than muscles, to absorb most of the stress of the motion (or lack thereof. )

Following this advice, I try to be conscious of my posture while hand-holding a 300mm f/2.8L IS lens during a soccer game or shooting from a sitting position at the side of a basketball court.

March 18, 2015

Daily practice

I recently read an excerpt from a relatively old (1992) article published by All Japan Kendo Association (Zen Nippon Kendo Renmei) about the status of kendo practice in foreign countries. One of the differences between kendo in Japan and abroad that the author pointed out is the frequency of practice. While kendoka in Japan practice every day, many European kendoka, for example, do not understand why it would be necessary.

Setting aside various dogmas about “the right way” to do something (there are many of them in the martial arts world in particular,) I think there are many advantages of doing some core activities (e.g. exercise, writing, kendo, reading, photography, etc.) daily. The benefits extend beyond simple quantity of practice, which is obviously important in its own right. Frequent engagement with challenging tasks reduces the psychological significance of a single event. Working on a particular task regularly, even if the length of a single session is rather short, has also been shown to be effective in the long run in the academic research and teaching.

Incidentally, blogging is considered an effective practice of overcoming a subconscious anxiety of creating a permanent public record of one’s opinions. Personally can subscribe to this idea, even though I am not particularly keen on receiving feedback on my opinions.

Of course, daily practice of any activity is the classical example of something that is easier said than done. The good news is that after a short while, a regular activity becomes a habit, which is self-sustaining by definition.

March 17, 2015

Seasonal references

Many traditional Japanese arts, such as calligraphy, poetry, tea ceremony, flower arrangement include seasonal references. Those can be specific words (kigo) or particular plants and flowers used for ikebana. In calligraphy practice, poems that represent the current season are typically used. This month’s calligraphy that my wife use for practice is an unusual example of seasonal reference (see image above). What refers to the season is not the meaning of the writing, but its pronunciation. It is pronounced “fu jyo ki kyo”, which is supposed to resemble a song of a spring bird.

I am fascinated by a subtle, indirect way certain references are introduced in Japanese art. In fact the subject is rarely addressed directly. Instead, the consumer of the art (reader, viewer, listener, taster, depending on the type of the art) is invited to complete the image by him/herself, making the whole experience more personal. The use of negative space in Japanese ink painting (sumi-e) is a prime example of this concept.

Another insight from this month’s calligraphy is how effective a reference to nature can be. This notion is directly related to the importance of including an element of weather in landscapes, which was first explored in photography by Ansel Adams, and even in an action photos. In the modern world, we are so isolated from the effects of the weather (indeed, almost all my daily activities are weather-independent) that an image, which references the effect of weather on the subject, has a strong potential to stir up some primal emotions in the viewer.

March 16, 2015

Inspiration for the old age

I notice that with age, it becomes easy to lose motivation for starting new projects or even continuing to work on something that I have been doing for a long time. Inspiring stories of people who start something relatively late in life and through consistency and perseverance achieve results that are beyond average in that field, even for much younger people, work very well for me in such periods of uncertainty.

There are many inspiring life stories that can be found in books. For example, I have just heard an interview with Jack Canfield, who specializes in putting together collections of such stories.

In my own experience, one of the most influential encounters was the one with a Japanese lady, about sixty years of age, who visited our kendo dojo several years ago as part of the delegation of rather high-level kendoka. After the practice, she asked how long I had been practicing kendo. I was then in my early thirties and had started only a couple of years earlier. I thought that it was a hopelessly late age for starting kendo and that I had no realistic chance to ever achieving the level that this lady was at. However, she said the she started practice even later in life, after her children had grown up and left home. Naturally, this made me re-evaluate my entire outlook at kendo practice.

Activities that require certain level of physical fitness are the prime examples, where such inspiring stories are most impressive. I think that in other areas, such as arts, photography, studies, etc. there are even fewer excuses for not starting something new at any age. In fact, I recently read that from a psychological point of view, it is the joy of new experiences, and as a consequence, active seeking of new activities, skills and knowledge, that constitutes the essence of a youthfulness.

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