Art – Page 11 – Peter Oshkai photography

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 21, 2015January 22, 2015

Rashomon effect

Travel photography is a tremendously popular niche. In fact, taking stock photos while travelling initially attracted me to professional photography. As my focus shifted from “places” to “people” over the past ten years, I find it increasingly interesting to review my own and other photographers’ photos of various destinations.

I believe that a good photograph contains a story with some emotional content. It conveys the personal view of the photographer to the viewer. Nowadays, with so many images of various destinations and events around the world available online, I often have an experience similar to what Akira Kurosawa brilliantly shown in “Rashomon,” where the same event is shown from the perspective of different people, each telling a personal story.

Interestingly, this effect is present even if I am reviewing only my own photos. As Daniel Gilbert, the author of “Stumbling on Happiness,” notes, people often under-estimate how much their personalities change, particularly, how much they will change in the next few years. I often view my photographs with the eyes of a different person from the one one who took them. Indeed, it is not possible to enter the same river twice. It turns out that we have multiple chances to experience the same place or event thanks to photography. As a bonus, each time, the story is told by a different person.

January 20, 2015January 20, 2015

Shodo

After a nearly nine-month break, my wife and I are back to practicing shodo (Japanese calligraphy). I wanted to post my writing attempts on Flickr, and found, to my surprise, that when I started doing the same thing three year ago, my first post was of exactly the same writing (the image below is from three years ago.) It reads “しゅんらいききむかう.” As with many of the sayings typically used in calligraphy, the exact translation is a bit elusive (and somewhat missing the point), but “Welcome spring” is close enough. This is kaisho – formal script.

When I wrote this three years ago, it was also a re-start of our photo practice. Our daughter was just a newborn, and we would bring her to our teacher’s house. She would sleep peacefully (at least, this is how I remember it now) in her car seat, while my wife and I would write and then eat incredibly delicious dinners cooked by our sensei’s wife. Having a child with us was a major change in dynamics of our practice from the time when there were just two of us. I guess, this is just another illustration that shodo, like kendo, is a mirror of of the entire life.

Our daughter is not a little bundle laying in a car seat beside the chair anymore. She is a person, who wants to draw, and write, and play, and watch TV, and read, and eat, and drink, and talk. The change of dynamics and pace seems to be continuous. Perhaps, embracing it is the point of practice.

These days, our daughter likes to do everything together with us. I know that this will pass, as the need to assert her independence will take over, but I wonder if one day we would have a chance to write calligraphy side-by-side.

January 8, 2015

On confidence

“We should devote ourselves to being self-sufficient and must not depend upon the external ratings by others for our happiness.”

-Bruce Lee

I came across an interesting article by Paul Graham, called “How to do what you love.” It is curious how similar are his thoughts regarding prestige, particularly in academic circles, to the words of Bruce Lee above. Graham goes bit more into details of why it is dangerous to let prestige be the guide in the choice of what we do. It is because the aura of prestige substitutes our own values with those “of the rest of the world.” Incidentally, he expands even further on this in “Hackers & Painters.”

I think there should be a balance between using the opinions of others as a constructive tool and being confident enough to disregard them when appropriate. In fact, it is in determining when it is appropriate to filter out the opinion of others that confidence is needed the most. After all, there is a thin line between confidence and arrogance.

For artists, photographers included, opinion of other people is a major factor that can influence the entire career. The challenge is not to let it dictate the direction of the art itself.

There is an effective way of approaching the confidence/arrogance dilemma in kendo. I have heard a saying that in practice (keiko), one should cultivate a feeling as if he/she is the worst (least capable) student in the group, while during shiai (read: real fight) one should feel as if he is the best. This way, we can be humble, yet not swayed by external factors during pivotal moments and decisions.

January 2, 2015January 5, 2015

Indigo

My favourite colour is blue. Or maybe, purple, because in painting, it can appear either cool or warm, depending on the adjacent colours. Naturally, I find the colour indigo, which is between blue and purple in the electromagnetic spectrum, fascinating, with all its history and applications in art (fashion) and martial arts.

The indigo dye was developed in India, and it was a very rare commodity in Europe in the middle ages. During Napoleonic wars, which coincided with the development of technology that allowed mass production and dyeing of fabrics, the French uniforms (habit à la française) were dyed with indigo.

In Japan, the import of silk from China was restricted during various prolonged periods, and cotton was difficult to dye with anything, except indigo. Over time, an intricate process, indeed an art form in itself, of indigo dyeing was developed. There is a belief that indigo dye repels bacteria and insects. Probably, for that reason, practice uniforms for kendo (keiko go) are traditionally coloured with indigo.

Nowadays, indigo is often used to colour denim fabric. Interestingly, the much thought-after Japanese denim is often made on vintage shuttle looms, developed by Toyoda company in the 1920s. These looms are slow and produce a nonuniform fabric by today’s standards, but for denim, this is a valuable feature, as slight variations and imperfections is what makes the jeans unique.

I took some macro photos of the fabric of two pairs of jeans that I own: a factory-distressed pair bought as a souvenir while I was on sabbatical in Japan (I was lucky to find a size that fit) and a brand new “raw” denim pair (i.e. it has not been washed after dyeing). True denim enthusiasts are rumoured to go month or even years before washing their raw jeans in order to develop the wear patterns that are unique to the wearer. I don’t think I will go that far (my kendo keiko gi is sufficiently sweaty, so I would rather keep my other clothes relatively clean), but breaking in the new jeans will be a fun little project, even just for observing the changing hue of the indigo dye. Perhaps, I will take more closeup shots of the fabric to record the process.

I don’t think I will be able to reproduce the cool wear patterns of the pre-distressed jeans, but it is neat to know that they will be will be one-of-a-king and, in a very direct way, an expression of my lifestyle.

December 22, 2014December 22, 2014

On motivation

“The great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.”
Vincent van Gogh.

Athletes know that motivation is easy to achieve, but difficult to sustain. This is true for any activity, which requires overcoming obstacles through practice. In particular, continuing motivation is essential for an artist. For me, van Gogh exemplifies this most of all. His life has been extensively studied and documented, but he himself also wrote about this in detail in his letters to his brother Theo. In fact, the letters are the primary reference for many studies of his life.

My wife and I are making travel plans for the next summer, and I am excited that one of the stops will be Amsterdam. Although my primary reason for going there is a conference on marine engineering, I am really looking forward to going once again to the van Gogh museum. There is something special about seeing the brushstrokes, about which so much has been written and debated over the years. This is my motivation to think about colors in my photography. Also, I find it fascinating how the cycle of mutual influence between Japanese and European art was completed by van Gogh, who applied his distinct technique to re-create the works of ukio-e masters, who themselves were influenced by Western painters.

This is how easy it is to achieve motivation. Check. Now, to the hard part – to carry this initial inspiration through and transform it into some meaningful images from the upcoming trip.

December 21, 2014December 21, 2014

Would Roman stoics take selfies?

I am truly amazed how much a two-thoudsand-year-old text by Seneca called “On the Shortness of Life” resonates with the modern challenges of work-life balance. On one hand, it is comforting to know that we are not the first to come across these issues, but on the other hand, the fact that two millennia later we are still searching for a solution tells us that, most likely, there is no magic formula that works universally for everyone.

One interesting point that Seneca makes is about people’s relationship with the past. Basically, the past, unlike the present and the future, is “beyond the reach of all human mishaps, and removed from the dominion of Fortune”. He writes that it is true luxury to be able to “roam” into the past days of one’s life and access all of them at will. I think that there is an interesting implication about photography in this concept.

The process of taking a photograph, as everything in our lives, happens in the present, but the resulting image is a record of the past. If the image is “doctored”, it has a potential to change the reality of the past event for the viewer. However, regardless of whether a photo is a faithful depiction of reality or not, for me personally, looking through my own photos that were taken several years ago is what makes the “roaming” into the past vivid and enjoyable. The photos are much more than memory aids. They reflect what interested and bothered me at the time they were taken, my skill level as a photographer, my level of patience and mental flexibility in going after the shot that I wanted to take.

The tough challenge, of course, is precisely what Seneca wrote about – not to lose all this insight into the past by being so “engrossed”, as he calls it, in trivial matters of the day, as not even being able to find time, mood or reason to slow down and look back. At this point, I have tens of thousands of photos that my wife and I took over the last ten years. I think that reviewingt them regularly, perhaps, just a few images at a time, would be at least as useful as shooting new projects.

December 19, 2014

Overcoming self-imposed challenges

“…difficulties of every sort [are] to be welcomed by those seeking fulfillment.”

Alain de Botton, “The Consolations of Philosophy”

I think that having ideal conditions for a photo shoot (models, location, equipment, time, etc.) can sometimes be counter-productive to creativity and developing photographic skills. Just as artists consciously limit their palette, it is stimulating for a photographer to work within constraints imposed by the available equipment, setting or lighting conditions.

For example, during my travels, I often don’t carry all my lenses, so when a photogenic moment presents itself, I might not have the “ideal” tool. Likewise, I often see the most interesting scenes in less-than-ideal lighting conditions. These situations force me to be creative, experiment with new angles, be less result-conscious and let go of micro-managing the shoot. This mental freedom from the fear of not producing the best possible image is essential for being present and not overly concentrated on my own preconceived ideas of how things should or should not happen.

When I practice kendo, I often choose to use only a limited set of techniques (waza) against a particular opponent in order to either work on my weak point or further develop my personal best technique (tokui waza). I use exactly the same approach when I photograph basketball or other sport. I often use a lens that is difficult to master in terms of achieving a perfect focus and framing, such as Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II USM Lens, which has an incredibly shallow depth of field and a fixed focal length. Having worked through these challenges makes the resulting even more meaningful.

December 16, 2014December 16, 2014

Photography in art and engineering

“Beauty is the highest degree of appropriateness in nature”

Ivan Efremov, “Razor’s Edge”

My academic research in fluid mechanics heavily relies on experimental methods that are based on photography. At the same time, in my photography, I enjoy subjects that are related to my research: water, clouds, architecture, ships, airplanes, birds, etc. Although these two areas of interest benefit each other, and in some sense, both my photography and my research straddle the junction between art and engineering, I have not been engaged in hybrid research per se. I believe this is true of majority of colleagues, who work in the similar area. Engineers produce knowledge that is applicable to engineering projects, and artists produce objects of art that can communicate emotions directly, so the classification between the two is usually quite clear.

Philosophically speaking, the results of true hybrid research are not strictly art or engineering. In fact, the status of such results and their function in the world is not clear. I am wondering if even Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps the most recognized “renaissance man”, produced works that were objects of both art and engineering at once, not one or the other.

On the other hand, it is clear that engineering advances can enable artistic creation (e.g. computer graphics). Likewise, artistic objects can be used to communicate complex scientific and engineering concepts to broad general audiences.

I believe there is definitely a close connection between art and engineering, and therefore a potential to make productive contributions to both fields through photography – a technique that is firmly established in both worlds. It would be interesting to apply photography to create objects and knowledge that would truly belong to both fields at once.

December 9, 2014December 10, 2014

Photographing water droplets: setup plan

I am planning a research project that will focus on close-up photography of liquid drops and splashes. So far, I have no photos of my own to illustrate this post, but here is the equipment list for the setup that will be developed in the Fluids Lab:

Camera. I will use a Canon 5D Mark II or 5D Mark III, since it has higher resolution than a Canon EOS-1D X. The higher framing rate of the 1D X offer no advantage in this case, since the motion will be frozen by the flashes.
Lens. I will start with a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens, but a Canon EF 180mm f3.5L Macro might be a better option for shooting from greater distance.
Shallow water tank (tray). I plan to ask the students to build a shallow water tank that would be quite long, so we could shoot along its length and avoid getting the front and back edges into the frame.
Studio flashes. Three Paul C. Buff’s “Einstein” lights will be triggered by dedicated radio triggers. Two of them will be positioned on the sides of the tank, and the third one will be placed behind a semi-transparent background.
Intervalometer. I will use a trigger for the camera and the valves that will release the drops. There are several options, including a Time Machine/Drip kit.

I am looking forward to this project (should it be called a still life, even though the droplets would be in motion?) and hope to post the updates with our first droplet images soon.

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