My thoughts on the craft, the process and the subjects
My six-year-old daughter is going surfing. With a considerable help from her mother, she is putting on a neoprene boot. It’s not an easy task, so she notes:
– You know, it’s just like “Cinderella”…
Then, she becomes lost in thought. My wife asks:
– What are you dreaming about?
– A prince. On a beautiful horse.
– …
I am starting to get a bit worried, so I ask:
– Why are you dreaming of a prince on a horse?
– I just love horses…
I feel better.
My wife and I are putting together a shelf for art supplies. It’s a final stage of the assembly – only a few screws are left. Our six-year-old daughter walks in:
— Wow! You guys have done it! The shelf is almost finished. You just need to screwed it up!
It’s good when someone has confidence in you…
My daughter’s Grade 1 class has been practicing debate techniques. Yesterday morning, after reading a book about cheetahs (her favourite animals), my daughter said that if she had a debate with a cheetah about the black “tear marks” that help cheetahs avoid sun glare, it would go something like this (quoting her almost verbatim):
“The Cheetah would say:
— My tear marks are better than your sunglasses, because I don’t have to put them on and cannot lose them.i
Then I would say:
— Yes, Cheetah, however, I can take off my sunglasses anytime I want, but you cannot take off your tear marks!
And the Cheetah would have nothing to say to that! <victorious laughter>”
I am suddenly worried about any potential arguments we might have in the future….
Julia Cameron wrote in “The Artist’s Way
Incidentally, I’ve been coming across the truism that perfect is the enemy of the good in various contexts in the last few weeks – from violin playing to writing research papers. It also applies to photography, and more specifically, videography. I realize that what often prevents me from making vlog-like videos is the notion that there has to be some kind of profound story in each of them. This thought is a bit paralyzing, so I end up with a lot of unprocessed video clips. As an exercise to overcome this mental block, I’ve been trying to make short videos simply for the sake of making them, regardless how mundane the subject happens to be on any given day. After all, I believe it was Julia Cameron again, who said that in order to have a chance to make good art some day, you have be first prepared to make a lot of bad art. Hopefully, quantity will transform itself into quality at some point, but now I am just going the reps.
Here is today’s clip that I shot and assembled entirely on my phone. This is sort of a challenge to myself of how quickly I can whip out some video content. It gives me a low bound not only in quality, but also in terms of time required to make a vlog post.
But the Path that Musashi pained so clearly is tough to follow. Any one of the 21 precepts of “Dokkodo” is deceptively simple in its description, but challenging if you look at it closely. Take “Be indifferent to where you live,” for example. I kind of like Victoria. Just yesterday, on our daily commutes around town we saw eight deer. Not in a group, but eight separate deer sightings! Actually, deer are viewed a bit like pests here, but if I think about it, it’s a pity to take this proximity to wildlife for granted. Also, the fact that I can simply put on my running shoes during a lunch break and in a few minutes be in a forest (well, it’s a park actually) so old and dark that it’s cold even in the middle of a sunny day is fantastic. I really missed my usual running path when I was in Milan last year.
My kendo sensei says that there is a good argument in support of the hypothesis that Musashi is a synthetic or perhaps even a completely fictional character. I hope this is not the case. Regardless, the teachings that are attributed to Musashi are remarkably cool in their directness and generality, so he is an inspiration, whether he physically existed or not.
I find blogging to be a useful exercise for organizing my thoughts and formulating ideas for photoshoots, research projects, future travel, etc. Basically, it serve a purpose of note-taking. There is a concept, neatly outlined in Charles Duhigg’s book “Smarter Faster Better
Somehow, shooting video makes for a drastically different experience for me than, say, taking still photos or writing down text notes. For example, videography seems to distract me from the experience of the present moment much more than still photography. Whatever happens on camera seems more like a performance than a real event. Intellectually, I realize that this is a false perception, and shooting video can also be viewed simply as a means of taking notes. In fact, the amount of information that is recorded in video is significantly larger than what’s captured in photos or written notes. I think the difference is that still photography and note-taking forms you to do some processing of the information on the fly and record only the most significant parts. In video, this is deferred to the post-processing stage, which incidentally makes the reviewing of the raw footage quite daunting.
Here is a couple of practical ways that come to mind for overcoming the apparent difficulty with producing video:
a) Shoot selectively, with at least a general meaning of each particular clip in mind.
b) Treat video as a note-taking tool, not as an artistic performance. Deliberately exercise a delay between capturing raw footage and making a movie.
As I am going through my photos from a recent dance performance, I notice a counter-intuitive and somewhat ironic trend: while motion is an essential and arguably most important feature of dance, some of the best photos are those that literally take motion out of the picture by freezing it. I think this is because most interesting photos show the viewers something that they cannot see otherwise. Naturally, they can see the motion and listen to the music while watching the dance performance itself. But an instant frozen in a photo offers something else – an opportunity to see how the dancer’s expressions reflect their effort at that particular moment or the state of flow they are experiencing.
Another thing that I notice is that dance, being an art form, is a pleasure to photograph. It feels like I have less pressure on me as a photographer to create a beautiful image, because even if my photography is unremarkable, the subject itself is already beautiful to begin with. Perhaps, this is why Emily Carr
It was a new benchmark for me in terms of targeting a talk to specific audience. I usually explain to my graduate students that it is important to be able to talk about their research at various levels of detail – from a literally single-sentence answer to a “what do you do?” kind of question to an hour-long seminar-style presentation for colleagues working in the same field. A bunch of first-graders is a fundamentally different audience. I knew from my daughter that the expectations of me to tell something fascinating were high, so I was compelled to prepare well. I don’t remember when it was the last time when I had to refine the focus of my presentation so many times. Actually, as my wife pointed out when I showed my initial draft to her, the concept of “presentation” itself was not a good framework to begin with when talking to six- and seven-year-olds. I knew from my daughter that the expectations of me to tell something fascinating were high, so was compelled to prepare well.
From my perspective, the talk went really well. I told the kids that some of my favourite things to do when I was their age were playing with toys and reading books. And it was pretty amazing to realize that this still applies to the present-time me. More often than not, I take for granted how many cool things I use in my research – lasers, high-speed cameras, model ships,.. and that the actual mandate of my work is to be curious about things I don’t know and to tell other about what I learn. This one realization made the whole class visit experience worthwhile for me.
I was also pleasantly surprised by how interactive our conversation with the kids was. I wish I had a fraction of that level of engagement in my senior undergrad classes. At the Grade 1, there was a forest of hands in the audience at all times, including those when I was not asking any questions! I wonder, at what point in the educational process do the students lose the burning desire to tell others about what they know? Or perhaps, those of us, who don’t lose it, become professors.
Last couple of evenings have been uncharacteristically warm for Victoria. Usually, even in the summer, the moist air from the ocean is just cool enough to make staying outside at dusk uncomfortable without a sweater or a warm jacket. This is one thing that we miss about Italy – enjoying the outdoors in the evenings.
The last few days were exceptional, though. The perfect weather also coincided with the peak of tulip blooming. So this weekend, we made the most of both – went to the Butchart Gardens and did some sketching/painting of the flowers while sitting on the lawn until the closing hours. As we were getting ready to leave, we found out that the gardens stayed open until late at night that day because of the arrival of a cruise ship. So we had a chance to stroll through nearly-empty gardens at sunset, which is a rare occasion in any season, but particularly this time of year, when so many people come there to see the tulips. The weather was so nice that we decided to flip the dinner and start it by eating ice cream at the outside cafe before heading home.
My daughter asked what was my favorite thing to do when I was a child (she said that she knew that now my favorite thing to do was hugging her and kissing my wife). I thought that it was an excellent question, because, according to many experts, what people want to become at the age of nine or so is a good predictor of their natural tendency, curiosity and, therefore, a reasonable direction for developing a career or at least taking up as serious hobby.
My favourite pastimes when I was nine were drawing/painting and reading books. I suppose it is not surprising that both of them are still high on my list. Reading widely is also kind of a requirement in my job as a professor. I am glad that I do not depend on art to make a living, though. This is not (only) because I doubt my ability to do so effectively, but because I suspect that it is difficult for creative curiosity to survive under the pressures of doing art as the main job.
