My thoughts on the craft, the process and the subjects
The term “entitlement” has gained some negative connotations in recent years, as many people, at least in North America, where I live, are abusing the opportunity to customize their circumstances to suit their particular needs, as Malcolm Gladwell describes this phenomenon in “Outliers: The Story of Success
I agree with Jon Acuff, the author of “Do Over
I am planning to take headshots of colleagues from the Mathematics department for their website. My wife, who works there, and I met for lunch and explored possible locations and settings for the photo shoot.
The math building has huge windows that spans the entire wall facing the courtyard. Since the shoot will happen during daytime, I want to use this window as the main light source for the photos. Since the window is very large compared to the subject (a statistically-average math professor), the lighting that the window casts on the subject is very “soft”, i.e. the transitions between the light and the shadows are very gradual, which is typically flattering to the above-mentioned math prof (or any typical human being, for that matter.) I will use a white plastic card sticking out from an on-camera flash to create a catchlight in the subject’s eyes. This also has an added benefit of slightly filling in the shadows on the side of the face opposite from the window. Combining flash with window light is not an issue from colour-matching standpoint, since the flash is daylight-balanced.
I plan to shoot wide open, at f/2.8, or maybe slightly stopped down in order to blur the background, which will be just the interior of the mathematics building. I do not want to set up a paper or fabric background, since there are several alternatives offered by the interior itself: an abstract, brightly-colored mural (the window would provide a frontal light in this case – the easiest setup), a grey-coloured staircase receding into the distance (subject facing sideways from the window – the best background colour and most artistic lighting) or the exterior courtyard (subject facing mostly away from the window – nice edge light in this case, but a lot of fill-in flash required, which is not ideal.) I am curious to find out which background/lighting combination would be most popular among the math professors.
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.
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.
Leading the children by playing with them in such a way that they would be well-positioned with respect to the camera makes a huge difference in child photography. This leading has to be done by someone other than the photographer. My wife is very experienced in this role, as she knows what angles and types of shots would work well for the pictures. As a result, my favourite pictures from today’s outing are of her playing with the kids.
The theme of this year’s graduation party of our university was “Under the stars.” In the spirit of involving people in photography, we did some compositing right in front of the students, showing them the post-processing steps and asking for feedback along the way. We were using their portraits, which were taken just minutes earlier and super-imposing them on starry backgrounds. Instead of using a conventional photo booth approach that involves props, a backdrop with some (cheesy) images on it, and minimal post-processing, we wanted to try a more artistic process, which would limit the students’ choices in terms of poses, but would produce higher quality (arguably, still cheesy) images.
In terms of the workflow of the entire photo shoot, selection of the portraits from the sets of five or six still presented the main bottleneck, even though this year we had two computers operating at the same time (compared to one last year) and had a substantially smaller number of photos taken of each group of students. This is not surprising, as culling of raw images is the major time-consuming stage of any photography project, whether the clients are involved in it or not.
There is something inherently fascinating in the images that document a production process, whether it is a photo shoot production, a dance rehearsal or the inner workings of the kitchen in a local pizzeria. Glimpses of the stages of the process that are typically hidden from the consumers of the final product (lighting tests, the work of a makeup artist, baking of the pizza bases, etc.) create a sense of an exclusive access to the viewer.
Sometimes, all it takes to capture some interesting behind-the-scenes shots is pulling out a smartphone while sitting at the bar in a pizzeria, but at other times, it requires advanced planning and a dedicated photo/video setup. What often prevents us from seeing the candid photo opportunities in everyday activities is getting caught up in a mental plan instead of being present and aware of the action as it is actually unfolding. Perhaps, consciously documenting the process, in addition to focussing on its results, can help balance presence and productivity – two aspects of everyday life that are often difficult to reconcile.
Throughout a learning process, it is important to be conscious about which advice to follow and which to ignore. Here, “ignoring” does not mean not noticing it, but rather choosing not follow it, upon processing the information that comes with it.
Just as important is to know when to voice an opinion or criticism and when to withhold it. This notion is particularly important in teaching. Sometimes, too much feedback can either discourage or mislead the student about his/her learning process. More importantly, certain things cannot be transmitted by words or even visual example – they have to be discovered and mastered through personal practice.
I find that effort spent on self-editing my comments on other photographer’s images, reviews of other colleagues’ research papers, my lecture notes, etc. translates between these and other areas (e.g. practicing with novice kendoka). Ultimately, this capacity for restraint is based on being sufficiently present at the moment when my opinion is formed in order to realize that this opinion by itself is only a part of the overall communication and teaching/learning process, and as such does not automatically has to be made available to others. There might (or might not) come time when the opinion will be needed. Then, it would have benefited from being effectively formulated and delivered.
…These thoughts came to mind after I heard an interview with Amanda Palmer, and, being fully aware of the irony, I decided to put them into the blood post right away. In my defence, this is not an advice, just some notes to self…
For the next high-volume photo shoot at our university’s graduation party, my associate and I decided to give very close directions to the students, whom we are going to photograph, which would drastically limit their choices of available poses. Our hope is tat this would expedite the overall process of running the photo booth and improve the experience of the students by eliminating the stress of choice.
With any photo shoot that involves many people, there is a potential for turning it into a sort of production line, without any creative element. To avoid this, we will try to remain conscious of having fun, interacting with the students, and involving them in the process of creating an artistic composite image in just a few minutes.
Gretchen Rubin, the author of “Better Than Before
