Workflow – Page 3 – Peter Oshkai photography

July 3, 2016

Travelling with an iPhone

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My 1D X and three lenses were already packed for the trip to The Netherlands, but at the last moment, in fact, on the morning of departure, I changed my mind and decided to leave the DSLR in favour of an iPhone. It was a conscious effort to do things differently from my usual routine. Besides, I wanted to see if I would be able to still do photography, if I focussed on different aspects of it – namely, on documenting (nearly) everything I encounter and sharing it with my wife almost instantly.

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On the second day of travel, I can report that it is indeed possible to do a significant amount of travel photography with a smartphone. In certain ways, it is even easier than with a DSLR. Indeed, carrying just a phone, instead of a bulky camera and a backpack makes you more nimble, both physically and mentally. I found myself actively looking for photo opportunities not only after arriving at the destination, but throughout the trip.

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Also, a phone camera allows me toby much stealthier and sneakier while taking candid shots. the sound of a high-speed burst from a 1D X is as distinct as that of an AK-47, and has a similar (but not as lethal) startling effect on an unsuspecting person. Not only the phone camera is silent, but the smartphones are so ubiquitous, that it seems that people stopped paying any attention to them – I could be taking a picture of a persona meter away, and he won’t even notice it.

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There are a few issues with iphonography, though, compared to shooting with a DSLR. I am not talking about image quality – it is expected that a phone camera would have some limitations. The first thing I noticed is battery life. Shooting, editing and posting photos through the travel (two airports and a train ride) and then walking around The Hague for entire afternoon drained the battery completely and sent me beck to my hotel room (I must say that I was quite tired and glad to do it anyway).

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The second issue is storage. In my particular case, it is not the amount of storage on the phone itself – it is the capacity of my cloud account, where all the images are backed up automatically. My 50 GB filled by the end of the second day. The issue was easily resolved by deleting some old backups. I am sure that my workflow can be optimized, for example, by copying the photos from the cloud to a laptop at the end of each day. However, a camera phone does not completely free you from either a computer or a power outlet.

February 6, 2016

On presentation

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Presentation standards change. I have been doing research presentations for many years, but every now and then I find it useful to go back to basics in terms of learning the craft. Otherwise, there is a danger of falling behind times, coming off as archaic and not meeting the expectations of the audience.

Recently, I had a chance to revise my approach when giving a seminar talk at Politecnico di Milano on the use of flow visualization techniques in fluid mechanics. This is my core area of research, so presenting on this topic is almost automatic. That is why I wanted to change things up a bit.

Well, I didn’t do anything revolutionary, but I did actually went online to browse through recent guidelines on presentation. The main change that I implemented as a result was to abandon pointing out every element of each slide, as I described them with a laser pointer – a habit drilled into me and my lab partners by our academic advisor, who was widely considered a near-god-level standard of everything, including presentation skills, in our research area. Instead, I completely eliminated text from the slides, and let them change in the background, in the style of Ted talks.

Incidentally, this trip to Milan provided another illustration of the dynamic nature of presentation in the form of design of store windows and product packaging, for which the city is famous. I had been in Milan only about six months earlier, and during this time, there have been many changes. I had a refreshing feeling that applied art is truly alive, and people genuinely take interest in it, not only for the sake of consumerism, which the art undoubtedly serves, but also for the sake of pure aesthetics.

Perhaps, photographers and artists would do well by making a deliberate point in changing around the style of how they present their art – from a re-designing the look of their websites to actually pushing the boundaries of their creative process and exploring new subjects or techniques.

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January 21, 2016February 5, 2016

Storytelling using a smartphone

Evernote Camera Roll 20160121 162348 I am writing this post on the plane on my way back to Victoria from Milan, where I was attending a PhD defense and presenting a seminar on using flow visualization in fluid mechanics research. Usually, I try to combine these kind of work trips with photography, but taking some time between work to go on photo shoots. The last time I did this with a particular focus was during a trip to Shanghai.

For this trip to Milan, for the first time in a while, I did not bring a DSLR. The trip was going to be very short, so I thought that it would be appropriate to test the “nimble photography” mode (the term was coined by Derek Story, the author of the first photography podcast that I ever listened to). I brought just by iPhone 6 Plus, which has an excellent camera and, unlike my 1 Dx, allows instant sharing of the photos.

Well, I can report that I did a lot less less photography during this trip than I usually do. When I did take photos, they were mostly snapshots. Also, and perhaps most importantly, I found that I lacked the habit (and consequently, the skill) of instantly sharing the photos, so I didn’t make much use of the iPhones connectedness, other than sending snapshots of my dinner plates featuring risotto alla Milanese and other “produtto tipico” to my wife.

Having said this, rapid communication is a skill, and I believe it is a matter of practice to develop it and turn it into a habit. I saw this in action when I went to see “Rigoletto” at la Scala on the last evening of my trip. Before the third act, Russell Crowe showed up with his entourage and proceeded to the Platea. As soon as he entered he took out his phone, snapped a few pictures of the interior of the concert hall and Twitted one of the ceiling with just a couple of words as a subtitle: “la Scala… Verdi’s Rigoletto”. He was very unapologetic and matter-of-fact about this, even though the “house rules” website of la Scala is explicit about not bringing phones to the hall. This is the rule that almost everyone, including myself, ignored anyway.

Thinking about it, I realized that what Mr. Crowe did was, legitimately, story telling. Granted, what he wrote was not “War and Piece”, but it was absolutely better than nothing. It is just like showing up for just the last act of the opera is better than not showing up at all.

Perhaps, we, as human beings, are evolionary, programmed to like storytelling, both as tellers and as listeners. I think this is related to being good at transmitting useful information, that enable survival of our cave-dwelling ancestors. So, regarding the tools of the visual storytelling trade (i.e. an iPhone vs. a DSLR), bringing a professional-grade tool compels us to take the picture-taking seriously, but can detract from the actual experience (e.g. I might have decided to go for a nigh photoshoot instead of the Scala if had lugged the backpack-full of photo gear half way around the world) and therefore limit the storytelling opportunities.

December 29, 2015December 29, 2015

Practice vs. play

Many Japanese kendo sensei call kendo practitioners “players”. Intuitively, I always thought that something is wrong with this word in the kendo context, something was rubbing me the wrong way when kendoka were called anything other that this Japanese word. “Swordsman” seems to Westernized, and “kenshi” is somehow too pretentious.

Now, as I am reading Cal Newport’s “So Good They Can’t Ignore You“, I think I understand the reason for this fidelity loss due to translation. About 1/3 of the way into the book, he explores the difference between playing and practicing, as it applies to becoming a craftsman. The difference is that practice implies “constantly stretching your abilities”. This also implies discomfort, or rather, training to become used to discomfort. Playing, on the other hand, is pure fun.

When I read it, at first I thought that this contradicted the hypothesis that a “gamers mindset” is highly beneficial for developing a skill. Thinking about it a bit further, perhaps there is no real contradiction. The gamers mindset also involves challenging oneself, only the stakes are not high and the learning curve is not steep – both of these factors keep the process enjoyable.

In fact, even in kendo, a seventh-dan sensei at a recent seminar explained that being able to anticipate the opponent’s action allows his to remain relaxed, because the whole match becomes like a game. It goes something like this: there are only so many ways a human can move once he/she is committed to a particular type of attack. Once the opponent’s attack is recognized and categorized into a particular kind (which happens subconsciously, due to an incredible amount of practice), there is no need to rush to make a decision or flinch – the correct action (counter-attack) has already been pre-determined and all is left is to let it happen as if by itself. The process actually becomes fun in some sense.

December 23, 2015December 23, 2015

Craftsman mindset

I have come across Cal Newport’s book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” for the second time in the past year. First time, it was through his blog on study hacks, second – through an inspiring interview with Derek Sivers. So I finally decided to read the book, although I have become largely disillusioned with non-fiction literature (I think, storytelling is the key to transmitting really fundamental ideas, but this is beside the point).

This book is surprisingly interesting. It’s about career-building, and the main idea is that trying to find a dream job by following one’s passion is bad idea; instead, one should become remarkably good at whatever he/she is doing for living, and the passion will follow.

One curious point at the beginning of the book is the contrast between the craftsman mindset, where one is concerned with adding value to the product of the work, and the passion mindset, where one is focused on maximizing of the value that the work can bring to him-/herself. In the case of the craftsman, the action precedes the passion. Interestingly, this is in line with the main recommendation of Robert Boice to university professors – start writing before you are ready, certainly before all experiments are completed and the data is analyzed.

There are some definite advantages to adopting the craftsman mindset. It removes the psychological pressure to be completely satisfied with the job, which is impossible to achieve anyway, considering the wide ranges of work subjects, conditions, contexts, etc. Instead it affords a kind of stoic clarity: this is what I get, so I will work with it to polish my skills (altimately, myself). Basically, this comfort comes from conceding control (which we didn’t really have anyway) over the fact whether we like every single detail of the work and every particular moment.

It is almost redundant to explain how this principle applies to photography. Photography is a craft by definition, so it pays off going out and shooting, instead of questioning whether you have the right gear, the right conditions, or whether this is the right calling for you. Especially if you are a pro, the questions will be rendered moot because you will soon be out of the job if you are not constantly working on developing your skills.

December 20, 2015

Spontaneous vs. generative work

Robert Boice, in his book “Professors as Writers”, explains how spontaneous writing is helpful for getting unblocked, unstuck, and warmed up, which is crucial for establishing a daily writing habits.

However, at some stage, spontaneous writing, as helpful as it is in working around the self-consciousness and self-censorship, becomes counter-productive for precisely that reason: spontaneous work by itself does not produce coherent, finished results. What tis needed at that stage is a healthy dose of what Boice calls generative writing. It is still quite free-form, unconstrained and not particularly concerned with perfection of style and logic, but it is focussed on a particular topic. In order to maintain the flow of ideas, Boice suggests alternating between spontaneous and generative work.

I can see clear parallels between this “academic writer’s” workflow and that of a photographer. Writer’s block is a problem so common, despite the debates of its reality, that books have been written on how to overcome it. In photography, it is equally easy to become paralyzed and never start creative projects because of perfectionism (reluctance to start under imperfect conditions, without “ideal” gear, sufficient time, etc. or reluctance to share less-than-perfect images with others), self-doubt or impatience (rushing to complete the projects and not allowing ourselves to slow down in order to produce better, more significant work).

For photographers, the spontaneous work is carrying a camera (even a phone camera) and shooting everything that we come across and that catches our attention. There should be no goal to eventually share the images with anyone. The practice of observation and of taking photos is the goal in itself.

Then, in order to make tangible developments of our skills, by analogy with the writers in Boice’s book, the photographers would benefit from periodically doing more structured shoots involving more elaborate production. Those could be projects focussed on a particular theme or a technique.

For me personally, the projects involving local dancers or athletes from our university provide opportunities to do generative work. Making sure that spontaneous work is happening on the daily basis is proving to be more challenging.

As a side note, another aspect of photography, which doesn’t readily fall into spontaneous/generative classification is post-processing and development of skills and creative techniques related to it. Perhaps, it similar to some type of supporting work (e.g. referencing) that writers have to to in their craft, and since the the writing craft appears to be fairly well-researched, I am looking forward to learning about it.

December 18, 2015December 18, 2015

Work in progress

Richard Feynman explained that for some types of work, e.g. doing theoretical physics derivations, he needed large chunks of uninterrupted time. I personally think that any research work ultimately benefits from this kind of distraction-free workflow.

The reality for myself and, I venture a guess, for most of my colleagues (ok, for most people), is far from ideal, though. I do my academic writing in what Robert Boice calls brief, regular sessions (BRSs), and strive to keep them as regular as possible, without being concerned that they are more beef than I would like.

Likewise, I draw and paint on my iPad is sessions so short, that they cannot really be called sessions. Still, this ability to steal a minute or two here and there to do a sketch based on a photo that I took in Venice six years ago is precious to me. Sketching on a tablet is not perfect. It would have been nice to fire up Photoshop and draw with a Wacom graphics tablet, but the reality is that other obligations (many of them self-imposed or even imaginary, but this is beside the point) are so numerous, that long, concentrated painting sessions simply don’t happen, or at least don’t happen often enough

Working in microscopic, fragmented slices of time is a compromise, but it is better than not working at all. In fact, this fragmented workflow even has it’s unique advantages, but the main benefit is that it enables consistency, which is crucial for skill development, or improvement in general.

December 12, 2015December 12, 2015

The other side of fear

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
— Mark Twain

Fear is a fundamental underlying factor that prevents us from taking action, particularly from doing new things. This has been recognized centuries ago in various religious teachings and also has been played out in stories and movies. Yoda’s teaching Luke Skywalker in “The Empire Strikes Back” is a good example, and so is Neo’s skyscraper jump in “The Matrix“.

For me personally, the situations where I notice the effects of fear are not as dramattic as they might be for others. My everyday life is quite cushioned from external threats that shaped our (human’s) fear-based responses by evolution. I think this is also the case for majority of people I know.

But fear is there nevertheless. It surfaces as hesitation or inability to “invent” new techniques when I practice kendo, reluctance to try new lighting setups, camera angles and processing techniques in photography. Most often, this resistance to taking action leads to procrastination. In fact, it is procrastination, as Steven Pressfield eloquently explained in “The War of Art“.

The good news, albeit a difficult one to internalize and to act upon, is that most often, the fear is absolutely unfounded. Jamie Foxx said in a recent interview that he asks his children: “What’s on the other side of fear?” The answer, of course, is “Nothing”. Fundamentally, there is nothing to fear. Naturally, this a very profound concept, if taken in its all-encompassing generality, but the everyday applications are indeed very simple and easy to realize, even for a child. What is the worst that could happen if you speak in a loud voice instead of whispering? If you laugh out loud, holding your stomach and rolling on the floor, instead of smiling shyly? Not much, really. The stakes of taking action and being ourselves, doing what we want, are not as high as we would like to think.

In fact, there is a risk associated with not taking action (the lost opportunity risk), and because of our propensity to inaction, we are more likely to suffer from it than from the risks associated with action. During basketball photo shoot, for example, if I switch from my tried-and-true shutter speed of 1/800 sec, which freezes action every time, and try a slow 1/250 sec speed, the worst thing that could happen is that some (alright, a majority) of the shots would be blurry. On the other hand, the slow shutter speed sometimes results in striking images where the hands and the feet of the athlete are blurred, conveying the sense of motion, while the face is sharp (which conveys the sense of focus and intensity). A few missed mediocre shots are certainly worth capturing a single extraordinary image, particularly if I already have lots of action shots in my portfolio. In this case, the stakes of stepping outside of comfort zone are definitely not high.

Because inaction, maintaining the status quo, is so comfortable, simply recognizing that there is nothing on the other side of fear, that the fear has no substance is not trivial and is in itself an excessive in present-state awareness.

December 3, 2015

Why hacks don’t cut it

“You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the way all the experts do it.”
— Robert Pirsig, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance“

The concept of “hacking” or finding an unconventional, often more efficient, way of achieving something has become very popular. Indeed, some people even build their careers around it. For example, Tim Ferriss has become famous for his books “The 4-Hour Workweek“, “The 4 Hour Body” and “The 4-Hour Chef“. As the titles imply, the underlying idea in all of them is to maximize the outcome of minimal efforts. I am a fan of Tim’s approach partly because I like the ideas of innovation and optimization that are inherent in hacking, but also because his view of hacking is deeper than simple cutting of corners on the way to a goal.

The concept of 10,000 hours that are needed to master a craft, which was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in “Outliers“, has recently been debunked, or at least put into a wider context by several authors. Also, the Pareto’s 80/20 rule of diminishing returns when practicing a skill suggests that a lifetime dedicated to any single task would be an example of inefficiency. However, in my personal experience, whenever I see an example of something remarkable being created, it is inevitably a result of a lot of work. When everything is said and done, even if we follow all the quick recipes for success (“10 steps to taking a perfect photo” or “10 steps to writing a perfect blog post”, etc.), the very act of cutting corners removes something valuable both from the process and from the resulting product. We really do need to live the craft that we practice, make it our way, like the “do” in kendo, kado, shodo, etc.

In photography, for example, there is no way to fake the genuine knowledge of the subject, the intuition that comes from true mastery of the technique, the emotional connection with the models, etc. In the event and reportage photography in particular, one needs to become a participant, rather than the observer, in order to convey the emotional content to the viewers. Recently, I was photographing local dance students participating in a Santa Claus parade, an event that is difficult to capture because of the poor lighting conditions (it takes place at night) and general setting (the spectators are separated from the participants, who quickly pass by them on the street). I wanted to take pictures that would capture the excitement of the the early holiday season and the enthusiasm of the young dancers. My strategy was to join them as they were preparing for the parade – meeting at the lobby of the local museum, lining up in their spot long before the start of the parade, doing the sound checks, going over their dance routines again and again to keep warm on a cold November evening. The performance itself probably counted for 80% of the impact on the spectators and took 20% of the effort from the dancers, considering all the hours they spent preparing for the show. But I think that it is capturing the other 80% of the event from the participants’ perspective is what makes the memories recorded in the photos valuable and gives them emotional content.

November 23, 2015

Why email is like fast food

Email has some tangible advantages over real-time communications such as phone calls or face-to-face conversations. To me personally, the main advantage is the ability to respond to emails at a convenient time. There is also an opportunity to pause before hitting the “Send” button, to re-read my response and to edit it if needed.

But this very feature of taking the conversation off-line, the ability to make it less spontaneous, also tremendously detracts from the depth of the communication. I recently listened to an interview with Prof. Sherry Turkle, who wrote a book about this called “Reclaiming Conversation”. Most points that she makes seem obvious in retrospect, but they are easy to overlook in the everyday life.

She draws an analogy between human desire for genuine communication with cravings for food – both are results of our evolution as social and biological beings. Just like it is convenient to satisfy food cravings by grabbing a quick bite at a fast food joint, so it is appealing to satisfy our craving for communication by periodically checking and replying to emails. Also, eating fast food is not necessarily a social event, and similarly, the non-spontaneous nature of email exchanges appeals to the introverts among us. However, just as a cup of soda with a serving of French fries are not a true substitute to a three-course meal at a fine restaurant, so the snippets of online communication cannot replace face-to-face conversations, as uncomfortable and inefficient the latter may seem in comparison.

According to Dr. Turkle, research shows that real, meaningful human connections strongly depend on face-to-face interactions. Ultimately, the quality of communications, even if we consider only one aspect of it, such as information exchange, is increased if they happen face-to-face. As an engineer, I believe there is a balance between efficiency and effectiveness should be considered here, but there are implications of the importance of meaningful personal contact in nearly all areas of our lives.

For myself, how these principles apply in my academic life are obvious, as I mentioned at the beginning. For example, it is well known that quality of teaching is directly proportional to the amount of face-to-face contact with students. In terms of research collaborations too, it is common knowledge that you don’t have a real working relationship with a colleague until you have a meal together, preferably with some alcohol.

In photography also, I find that it is easy to overlook the importance of human relationship (with the clients, the models, the colleagues, the audience) in the continuous pursuit of efficiency and optimization of the production process. I wrote before that it necessary to provide and seek feedback to and from models during a photo shoot. Likewise, many full-time professional portrait photographers agree that building long-term relationships with clients involves learning about them as people, educating them about photography, personally delivering the final photos to them, etc.

Certainly, all this takes time and effort, but it could be argued that all we do in our lives is communicate with other people on various levels, so we might as well keep the quality of the interactions high and not live our entire lives in a superficial, online mode.

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