Workflow – Page 5 – Peter Oshkai photography

April 30, 2015April 30, 2015

Photography schedule

After returning from Shanghai, where I did a lot of photography without any agenda – strictly as a personal project, it would seem logical to put photography on a back burner and let the ideas for the next shoots naturally form in my mind. In reality, it turns out that over the next few days I will be taking photos at various university events – an alumni workshop of our research institute, an opening of the new athletic centre and a headshots photoshoot for the website of the mathematics department.

On the one hand, I am flattered that my colleagues value my skills enough to ask me to the the photos (so I am not ready to say “No” to these projects,) but on the other hand, I realize that doing shoots that are not motivated by personal interest ultimately lead to a burnout. Perhaps, the way to approach this dilemma is to turn the photo shoots into personal projects – to find certain aspects that are enjoyable in their own right. This necessarily means taking time with each project, even if just enough to think about what is interesting about it.

In terms of finding interesting aspects in an arbitrary photo shoot, I find it helpful to keep the following points in mind:

Any project is an opportunity to practice, to hone some photography skill(s);
Any project is an opportunity to learn something about the subject(s);
Most projects allow one to practice stepping outside of the comfort zone by trying an unconventional technique (e.g. composition, pose, lighting, post-processing).

April 13, 2015April 13, 2015

Travel plans

Rolf Potts, the author of “Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel,” points out that the experience of travel starts at home, during the initial planning phase, where we first start looking at maps of the future destinations. I am currently at the stage of finalizing the details of my first-ever trip to Shanghai. It will be a relatively short visit, part of which will be taken up by a research conference. Still, I will have a couple of days to explore the place on my own. This is a typical mode of travel for me, and I find it effective to do it with an assumption that there will be chance to return to the same place in the future. Although everything changes, and the same experience cannot be repeated, this mindset removes some of the pressure of attempting to see too much in too short of a time.

One important aspect of travel planning is that it forces us to address the issues at work and at home that otherwise would have lingered on the background of daily business for a long time. Travel dates, defined by the booked airplane tickets, serve as a rigid deadline for either completing or dropping projects on the to-do list. Either way, addressing these lingering projects in a definitive way, gives the future trip a sense of reality by freeing up mental energy and distraction-free time for it. In this sense, doing the work that enable the travel is the first and fundamental part of the travel experience.

April 2, 2015

Event coverage

When two important photo shoots happen on the same day, as it was in the case of this year’s the banquet for our university’s graduating athletes and the university graduation party, production planning and efficiency of operation become tremendously important. My associate Armando is very skillful in planning and running shoots like this, and over the past few years I have benefited tremendously from his experience by being able to experiment with new shooting styles, lighting setups and workflows, while having the safety net of his expertise in case the experiments would not yield desired results.

In general, I find that for any even coverage, having more than one photographer removes a lot of psychological pressure of potentially blowing up the assignment by making some kind of trivial mistake (e.g. missing a key moment of a wedding ceremony or an important speech due to equipment failure or having the wrong lens or camera setting as a result of trying to be creative).

With the two events happening back-to-back, we had to exercise economy of motion in terms of the setup and logistics. Fortunately, we had enough studio flashes, light stands and light modifiers to set up three photo booths at the same time. We started by preparing the setup for the graduation party and then moved to the banquet location a couple of city blocks away, where each of us was running a separate photo booth for different parts of the ceremony. In between the mandatory portraits of the award recipients, we were able to take candid shots of the students, speakers at the podium, eat dinner and pack up the gear when the work at one of the booths was finished.

Overall, this year, we managed to balance the efficiency with being able to enjoy the events themselves. Of course, this would not have been possible without the help of six additional friends, who came out to help with the graduation party shoot. They did everything from taking the actual photos to managing the crowd of students of various degrees of sobriety. During the banquet, which was a formal event running according to a tight script, the crowd control aspect was naturally taken care of.

It was a long night, but as usual, the interaction with the students outside of classroom, their youthful energy and enthusiasm about our photography left us with a positive feeling.

March 31, 2015April 1, 2015

Behind the scenes

In preparation for our university’s graduation party photo shoot, my associate, Armando, and I brainstormed possible lighting setups and image processing workflows. We noticed how valuable it is to have a visual record of previous photoshoots. In fact, Armando has been recording behind-the-scenes videos with a DSLR on a tripod during some of his recent shoots.

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.

March 26, 2015

Directing amateur models

Having too many options can reduce the overall efficiency of a project. This is particularly true for photo shoots that involve amateur models. In contracts to professionals, the amateurs do not have an a priori idea of which poses and camera angles work best for them and how to adjust their posing during the shoot.

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.

March 23, 2015

When to quit

There is a psychological stigma associated with quitting, yet most people quit many different undertakings over the course of their lives, from childhood hobbies to New Year resolutions to business projects. Seth Godin, actually wrote a book on the subject, called “The Dip.” He argues that quitting can be a valuable tactic, but it should be done not at the point when most people do it (e.g. the 23-rd mile of a marathon). It is best to either quit early in the project, when it is “cheap,” or to stick to it until the end. The definition of “the end” can vary, but imposing (early in the project) a limit on maximum amount of resources that would be spent can help alleviate anxiety towards the end.

I think that a similar approach can be adopted to photo projects. I wrote earlier about the importance of declaring a post-processing stage completed at some point instead of tweaking the image ad infinitum. Perhaps, additional insight can be obtained by analyzing when most photographers quit their processing projects. Once the typical quitting points in the workflow have been established, it would be best to either quit earlier or push beyond them.

March 21, 2015March 21, 2015

On training

Training to improve physical fitness not only directly benefits photography by improving work capacity through endurance and enabling certain types of shots that would have been inaccessible for a less fit individual, but it also helps improving one’s skills by developing relevant learning and traing methods.

I wrote earlier about the importance of overcoming self-imposed challenges for developing one’s craft – the photographer’s artistic skill set. This concept is similar to the principle of progressive over-loading used in strength training. Taking the analogy further, it is well know in the world of physical training that continuously increasing the load (e.g. the weight of the barbell) would result in over-training. Increasing the amount of the exercise would eventually lead to the same result: diminishing returns and ultimately, a burnout.

An effective way to challenge one’s fitness level without monotonically increasing the training intensity is to periodically learn a new sport or physical activity, which is known as cross training. I think that in art, such as photography, a similar approach of exploring a new genre or learning a new technique can help in breaking through a creative plateau. Moreover, the habit of regularly trying new things would have a cumulative effect on other related habits, such as involving other people in photo projects, exploring different workflows, composition, lighting, post processing, and publishing media.

March 18, 2015

Daily practice

I recently read an excerpt from a relatively old (1992) article published by All Japan Kendo Association (Zen Nippon Kendo Renmei) about the status of kendo practice in foreign countries. One of the differences between kendo in Japan and abroad that the author pointed out is the frequency of practice. While kendoka in Japan practice every day, many European kendoka, for example, do not understand why it would be necessary.

Setting aside various dogmas about “the right way” to do something (there are many of them in the martial arts world in particular,) I think there are many advantages of doing some core activities (e.g. exercise, writing, kendo, reading, photography, etc.) daily. The benefits extend beyond simple quantity of practice, which is obviously important in its own right. Frequent engagement with challenging tasks reduces the psychological significance of a single event. Working on a particular task regularly, even if the length of a single session is rather short, has also been shown to be effective in the long run in the academic research and teaching.

Incidentally, blogging is considered an effective practice of overcoming a subconscious anxiety of creating a permanent public record of one’s opinions. Personally can subscribe to this idea, even though I am not particularly keen on receiving feedback on my opinions.

Of course, daily practice of any activity is the classical example of something that is easier said than done. The good news is that after a short while, a regular activity becomes a habit, which is self-sustaining by definition.

March 15, 2015

On synthesis

For a part-time photographer, finding time for photo projects is not always easy, as the main job, not to mention family and other obligations, demand a lot of time. I am fortunate that in my case, photography became an integral part of work, family life and martial arts studies.

This cross-pollination between the various spheres of life is very much in line with David Whyte’s point of view , presented in his book called “The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship.” He argues that the idea of “work-life balance” is fundamentally flawed, as neither of the two (or indeed, three) major areas of activities can be effectively quantified and balanced against each other. Perhaps, it is wrong to wear different hats depending on the roles we are playing at a particular moment, as doing so automatically limits our capacity to wholly engage with the activity at hand (as other “roles” that we have in our life would be tugging in opposite directions in the background.) Instead, it would be better (for the lack of a more appropriate word, as I think “productive” would miss the point, since the underlying issue here is the relationship between presence and productivity) to synthesize one’s various roles and bring all of them simultaneously into everything we do, taking advantage of the interconnectedness of the various fields and applying our skills and experience across the disciplines.

March 7, 2015March 7, 2015

Facing challenges

According to many psychologists, most satisfying activities are either new, challenging or both. The problem with doing challenging things, of course, is that the probability of failure is high. When we worry about failing, we tend to postpone the activity, reduce its frequency, over-plan and over-analyze past results.

Gretchen Rubin, who wrote “The Happiness Project“, points out that if something appears to be difficult, the best, although counter-intuitive, thing to do is to engage in this challenging activity more often. Doing so not only increases the quantity of practice, but also reduces the psychological significance of any single attempt. For example, if a research group regularly publishes technical papers, then if an occasional paper is rejected by a journal, this is not taken by the authors as a sign that their work is of inferior quality. Similarly, if I do not feel well during a kendo practice, I am not worried about not being able to put out 100% of the intensity on that particular day because I know that usually I practice well, and that very soon there will be another opportunity to do better.

Importance of practicing a difficult activity often, rather than shying away from it because of the fear of failure, is the reason why many top professional photographers say that one of the most important things for any photographer is to keep shooting new and challenging personal projects, even though they might not directly lead to commercial opportunities. After all, the difficulty and the novelty of such projects is what makes photography such a rewarding and satisfying activity for both pros and amateurs.

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