Category: Workflow

When I look through my own photos taken several years ago, I find that I like different images from those that I liked around the time when the photos were taken (I have a record of what I liked in the form of star ratings that I gave the photos in Lightroom). I think that this is, in part, because my tastes and preferences changed over the years. Daniel Gilbert, the author of “Stumbling on Happiness”, explains that people tend to under-estimate how much they change throughout their lives. Looking at my ratings of the old photographs certainly confirms this, at least in my case.

Also, when we form impressions of events, our minds retain only a few key details and fill in the rest with plausible made-up stuff. As it happens (according to Gilbert, who cites references in psychology), we retain more objective details when we process the current events, relative to the events ether from the past (memories) or from the future (which are entirely made-up by our minds). This is an evolutionary safety mechanism – the present events the have immediate relevance have higher priority in terms of use of the processing power of our brains. Incidentally, this is why it makes sense to minimize distractions while doing creative or analytical work. There is a great example of this in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, where the main character argues that motorcycle mechanics, who listen to music at the repair shop, do inferior work.

Unconscious prioritizing of current events is also a reason to process and rate photos as soon as they are taken. There is a narrow time window, where our impression of the photographed events is most detailed and objective. After that windows has passed (or before the event has happened in the case of imagining the future), it is easy for us to subconsciously distort the reality of what happened, what we felt, and even what we saw. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but capturing the impression of the event immediately after it occurred is certainly valuable.

According to Daniel Gilbert, studies in psychology show that when given a choice between taking action and doing nothing (assuming that either option has some probability of negative consequences), most people choose doing nothing. This is because it is not easy to rationalize excessive courage, while it is quite easy to justify excessive caution.

However, it turns out that in retrospect, we are more likely to regret inaction than action. Gilbert gives this example: Suppose you own a certain stock (stock A). You have a choice to either sell it and buy stock B (action) or hold on to stock A (inaction). If you choose inaction and lose money, you would regret it more than if you had chosen action and lost the same amount of money. I suppose, this is because the actions that we take become “our own”, in fact, we identify quite closely with what we do. And people tend to like (or at least are good at rationalizing) their own behaviours, possessions, choices, etc.

What are the implications of this psychological trait for photographers? I suppose, one possible conclusion could be that if you have been debating whether to buy a new expensive piece of gear, you should go ahead and pull the trigger – probably, you won’t regret it.

On a more serious note, perhaps there are implications for making creative decisions. There is a saying that rules are meant to be broken, and I think that consciously mixing up techniques, workflows, image styles, etc., instead of doing “what works” in every single photoshoot, is an example of action that requires courage. In fact, we are likely to regret not stretching outside of our comfort zones and breaking some conventions.

A very practical, strategy-based way of looking at processes or problems is to start with the desired outcome and identifying the key conditions that need to be satisfied to make it happen. Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, refers to these conditions as “moving variables”. The actual problem-solving then reduces to propagating these moving variables to the present moment, to the level of the next action (in GTD terms).

It is easy to see how this deconstruction of the problem can be applied in academic research, and particularly in the business-like aspects aspects of it, such as grant applications, for example. In martial arts, the connection is even more obvious. After all, the business strategy principles often originated in martial arts, Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” being the stereotypical example of a strategy guide for a modern person.

I think that in photography, this approach could also be very useful, and not only in the business aspects, but in the creative process itself, where approaching it from the starting point of the desired outcome can streamline the workflow and add efficiency by eliminating irrelevant factors and variables. Perhaps, applying this kind of analytical edge could be one way of differentiating ourselves in the sea of aspiring professional and insanely-serious amateur photographers (to borrow a term from Dan Heller).