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February 3, 2015February 3, 2015

On balance

In shodo (Japanese calligraphy), one of the most difficult aspects is the balance between the individual characters (kanji) and the overall image, which often contains many kanji. In the image above, the orange marks, made by my teacher, point out the individual kanji and, in the case of “water” in the lower left, the elements of the kanji.

While drawing the details of each kanji, which has to be done in a particular order, I have to keep in mind the overall balance of the final image. If a particular brushstroke is out of place or proportion, the brushstrokes that follow will be out of balance. At the same, it is important not to become too concerned about the outcome and instead concentrate on what is being drawn at any given moment.

This balance between the details and the whole is one of the parallels between shodo and kendo. It also translates to practically any other activity, such as teaching, studying and photography.

February 2, 2015February 3, 2015

Why stock photography is boring

Stock photography is not often recommended by professional photographers as a single niche to focus on. One of the reasons is that stock images are aimed at a ver broad audience and therefore do not offer much opportunity for creative self-expression. In my experience, I find this to be true. In fact, I am often surprised that my most popular/successful stock photos are not the ones that I personally like. This make

In the 1940’s, a term “narrowcasting” was introduced as the opposite to broadcasting (of radio and TV programs). It refers to transmitting messages aimed at a narrow audience, not the broad public. Many of the modern-day podcasts are examples of narrowcasting. Their authors are counting on the fact that the Internet-based audience is so large that it contains a significant number of listeners, who have common interests, views and tastes. This enables the podcasters to focus on the specifics on the niche area without spending time on explanations and justifications for the broader audience. In contrast, broadcast programs can reach larger numbers of people, but they are necessarily less personalized, more watered-down.

I think the same principle applies to photography. Since most of the photos are distributed online, we can count on the vastness of the Internet that somewhere out there there are people “like us” in the sense that our favourite images would resonate with them as well. These people are similar to us to begin with (perhaps, in their tastes, background, interests, etc.), so they don’t need to be convinced about the value of photographs that are meaningful to us, as authors. Perhaps it is not surprising then that many Internet followings start with small groups of family and real-life friends and later expand to social media friends and so on.

Of course, it is impossible to consistently shoot only photos with great personal significance and emotional content. For the rest (I always think about photos of the Eiffel Tower or other famous landmarks taken from touristy viewpoints), stock photography market is a perfect outlet. After all, vanilla is the most popular flavour of ice cream (it is my personal favourite too, by the way).

February 1, 2015

Children’s books

My three-year-old daughter loves books. Some of her favourites are “Lost and Found” and “Up and Down” by Oliver Jeffers. Because she likes them so much, I started paying attention to them myself and became fascinated with the illustrations and how masterfully they complement the story.

At first, I could not quite put my finger on what makes Jeffers’ images so special. Now, I think that it is how he uses negative space. Both in his text and pictures, what is not shown (or said) is at least as important as what is.

Couple of days ago, I came across Jeffers’ “Once Upon an Alphabet” at a bookstore and liked it so much that I had to buy it, even though it is still too advanced for my daughter’s age. This made me think that books and illustrations (as well as music) that are originally aimed at children and span several generations are probably some of the most important contributions to society that an artist (or writer, or musician) can make, because the audience is at its most perceptive and innocent state.

Not being so presumptuous as to aim for “a giant leap for mankind” with my photographs, as an experiment, I will try to (a) look for subjects/themes that a child could relate to and (b) work more with negative space in my composition.

January 31, 2015January 31, 2015

Pre-meditated spontaneity

On a dark and cold Saturday morning, I walked to a local cafe only to find it closed – the guy, who was supposed to open it, did not show up. While my original motivation for these Saturday morning walks was to break my usual morning routine, in other words, to deliberately have no defined pans, it turned out that looking forward to a hot cappuccino is itself a plan. Not surprisingly, unmet expectations are not fun.

It is well known that fear of not meeting one’s expectations often prevents us from trying new things. It turns out, though, that the so-called “worst case scenario,” in many cases, is not that bad in the big scheme of things. In the trivial case of the closed cafe, for example, I ended up having a (probably better) cup of coffee at home together with my wife.

Stoic philosophers like Seneca (whom, by the way, some consider to be a bit of a hypocrite, because he was a very wealthy person, despite his stoic teachings) recommended practicing coping with worst case scenarios as an effort to face one’s fears. They would pick certain days, during which they would limit themselves to the most basic food, clothes, etc. The idea is that if one learns to be content with the worst conditions, he (Romans were not politically correct, so they probably did not think that any of this applied to women) would be more confident in handling typical daily challenges.

So, if one can deliberately experience poverty or shame, can the same be done with spontaneity? I don’t see why not. I think it would be quite useful to anticipate that at some point in a project things will not go according to plan, and anticipate that it would be necessary engage intuition and creativity to the maximum. In fact, I sometimes engineer these creative or technical challenges by imposing constraints on my photography workflow. …Ok, sometimes, I just don’t plan ahead well enough, so the challenges arise naturally. Still, I’d like to think that treating the challenges as opportunities for learning is what the stoics would do.

January 30, 2015January 30, 2015

Seeing the big picture

“You should not have a favorite weapon. To become over−familiar with one weapon is as much a fault as not knowing it sufficiently well.”

– Miyamoto Musashi, “The Book of Five Rings“

In my academic research, I am often faced with a choice of exploring a new subject or focussing deeper on my core area of expertise. It is the well-known dilemma of specializing versus generalizing. Professional photographers face the same question when they decide to niche down on a specific subject or remain generalists.

Tim Ferriss, who wrote a very popular book about learning called “The 4-Hour Chef,” made compelling arguments for being a generalist. Specifically, being proficient in many areas allows one to see the big picture, recognize and explore connections and similarities between these areas. Aspiring to be the “jack of all trades and master of many”, as Ferris puts it, is also inherently more fun, and thus more conducive to happiness in daily life than forcing yourself to niche down for the sake of rapidly diminishing returns on your investment of effort in one specific activity.

I think that being a professional photographer, but not investing your entire identity into it, paradoxically, makes you a better photographer in the long term. This is somewhat similar to budo, the way of the martial arts, following which on a certain (high) level requires exploring other human activities, learning about human nature and applying this knowledge to one’s core area of expertise. In fact, Minamoto Musashi, who stated the principles for following the Way of Strategy in his “Book of Five Rings” (Go Rin no Sho), instructs: “Become aquatinted with every art.” and “Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything.”

January 29, 2015January 29, 2015

The skill of observation

“The world is full of obvious things”

– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Hound of the Baskervilles“

I noticed a while ago, that many of my colleague in academia (most of them engineers or scientists) have strong personal interests in creative activities like art, photography, writing, etc. I have been wondering what aspects are common between the creative process and knowledge work, such as academic research. This question comes up every now and then in the discussions of whether artistic training is meaningful for people of other professions (I think there is an implicit assumption that is different parts of the rain are responsible for intuitive and logical thought processes, the two ways of thinking are not generally applicable to the same problems).

I think the common skill that is important to both artists and scientists is the skill of observation. Learning to observe one’s environment and people within it is the core of the artistic training. There is a book by Alexandra Horowitz called “On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation,” which explores how thoughtful observation of trivial details reveals the world as seen through other people’s eyes.

Of course, observation alone is not sufficient. The process of creating an object of art also involves communicating the information crystallized through observation to the audience. The skills of observation, processing of information (identifying key elements) and communicating it to others easily translate to academic work, or most other activities, for that matter. So I would like to think that my taking photos or practicing kendo indirectly benefits my research. This seems to work for many prominent colleagues, so I am sticking with it.

January 28, 2015January 28, 2015

Developing a unique style

Technical proficiency is a foundation of any activity, including all genres of photography, but it is deviations from the conventional standards that constitutes a unique, personal style. That is, until other people start to imitate them. Then, the style becomes popular and eventually turns into a new mainstream.

I came across a very insightful interview with Dan Carlin, who publishes a fascinating podcast called “Hardcore History.” I learned about Carlin by listening to “Wrath of the Khans” – a refreshing alternative to revisionist descriptions of the Mongol invasions (e.g. “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.”) In the interview, Carlin talkes about “copyrighting your shortcomings” (not an exact quote), making them part of the personal brand. In other words, our unique ways of doing things are the essence of our personal styles. In a similar spirit, tea bowls used in Japanese tea ceremony are sometimes deliberately cracked or chipped to give them unique appearance and character. Therefore, in the spirit of turning weaknesses into strengths, it is advisable to work on developing a personal style, rather that trying to imitate someone else.

This argument perfectly translates to photography. Often, deviation from conventional “rules” of composition, lighting, colour management and exposure results in interesting images. Initially, this habits by chance, but by critically analyzing why a particular image “works” (or not) and attempting to reproduce or enhance the same effect in later photographs, we can develop a unique, personal style.

I believe that the difference between the interesting photos that are results of blind luck (and often lack of the technical skill) and the ones that are an expression of a unique style of the artist is that the latter are created deliberately. This concept is similar to kendo, where a strike is considered “valid” (yuko datotsu) when it is executed with intention.

January 27, 2015January 27, 2015

Spring calligraphy

Semi-formal style of Japanese calligraphy, gyo-sho, is my favourite among the three scripts we practice. The other two styles are kai-sho (formal) and so-sho (informal). I tired to think why I prefer gyo-sho, and I think it is because of the balance between being constrained by the rules (the characters have to be readable) and the freedom to improvise the details. It conveys both proficiency and creative ability.

This week, I had another chance to compare my current writing (the image above) with that of three years ago. Writing gyo-sho definitely felt more comfortable than diving into the formal kai-sho style a week ago after a long break in practice. The feeling is very similar to kendo, where at the beginning of a practice session, muscles warm up, and the brain lets go a little bit of control, allowing the body to act spontaneously, at least sometimes, which manifests in small, spontaneous details of the techniques (waza). Of course, the parallels between painting, calligraphy and martial are well known and have been explored by many authors and artists, such as Dave Lowry in “Sword and Brush.”

Quite appropriately, the theme of this month’s calligraphy is welcoming of Spring. I think that striving for balance between structure and spontaneity, between following the rules and breaking them, is the positive change that is needed in all aspects of life, which is too often over-structured because of external demands and self-imposed expectations.

January 26, 2015January 26, 2015

Street photography in Paris

My first ever visit to Paris was a trip to a conference, followed by a vacation with family. The timing of the conference was perfect in that I had a chance to take photos of the Bastille Day’s fireworks. As I look back through my other photos from that trip, I noticed that I took many candid shots of tourists in the city. I took these photos as we were walking along the streets and parks with my family. Our daughter was not yet two years old, so she was often sleeping in her travel stroller, being pushed by her grandfather, who thoroughly enjoyed this duty.

Sometimes, I quickly walked ahead of my family and took photos of other people. I did not worry about lighting too much, focussing on the dynamics of the street scenes. In retrospect, the lighting was mostly quite good, since we often took our excursions in the late afternoon, to avoid the summer heat. Also, I find that many street photos look better when converted to black-and-white, since there was no opportunity to manage colours in the composition of the busy street scenes.

I mostly used a 35mm f/1.4L lens on my 5D Mark II, but I also carried a 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens whenever possible. I really like this lens for its ability isolate architectural details or pick out elements of street scenes from relatively far away.

Our expectations of travelling to Paris with a small child were very guarded, having read many negative opinions online. In reality, however, it turned out to be one of the most pleasant experiences. Parisians were incredibly accommodating and nice to us wherever we went, and our little daughter was often the reason we were invited to skip the long lines at popular tourist attractions.

January 25, 2015January 25, 2015

Ignoring advice

“It is just this ability to stand alone, and not feel guilty or harassed about it, of which the average person is incapable.”

– Henry Miller, “Wisdom of the Heart“

In photography and knowledge work, such as academic research, as well as in martial arts, feedback from others (mentors and teachers, friends and family, peers, training partners, models, audience) can be tremendously useful and can save enormous amounts of trial and error, which ultimately translates to time. However, if the goal is excellence, the actions must, at some point diverge from the those of the majority of other people. This not being different for the sake of being different, although there is some value in that too, especially for artists. Instead, it is a function of confidence that is earned through humble practice.

I come across this concept of balance between receiving advice and ignoring it all the time, often through my work on the editorial board of a scientific journal. Recently, the same idea came up in an interview that I listened to during random fragments of time last week. Dr. Peter Diamandis, who has been named one of “the world’s 50 greatest leaders” by Fortune Magazine and who wrote several influential books, including “Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World,” commented on the common traits of the illustrious modern entrepreneurs that he had an opportunity to work with, such as Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Larry Page. He pointed out, that despite their very different backgrounds and personalities, these people have a common tendency to “think on their own.” They built their successes by being themselves rather than emulating someone else.

I am wondering if this self-confidence is a inherent trait or a product of environment and practice. In other words, can nurture help nature in developing this ability to think and act truly independently of the opinion of the majority? If the answer is positive, as I suspect it is, an even more interesting question would be whether the majority (or indeed, everyone) has the ability or should practice this skill. Wouldn’t it re-define what “majority” is, if everyone becomes an exception?

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