Peter Oshkai photography

November 18, 2015

Honour vs dignity

Both words “honour” and “dignity” carry positive meanings related to integrity in modern language, but I was surprised to learn that in sociology these concepts are, in fact, opposite.

According to Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, the authors of “Microaggression and moral cultures” (2014) Comparative sociology, 13, 692-726, the term “honour culture” describes a paradigm where people are sensitive to slights and insults in order to maintain reputation of physical bravery. In contrast, people living in a “dignity culture” are taught to ignore the slights. The idea there is that responding to a slight would lower the person to the insulter’s moral level. In this respect, dignity culture shares some fundamental ideas with stoicism. Stoics believed that no external forces or circumstances, including insults, can fundamentally hurt them, because their self worth and intentions are not subject to extent influences.

Historically, honour cultures developed where the power of the state was relatively weak, and people had to rely on their reputation for bravery to protect themselves and their families, to pre-emptively deter an aggression. Dignity cultures, on the other hand, rely on a strong state that can be invoked in time of need to quickly and efficiently stamp out a conflict. In the case of an honour culture, a conflict can develop into a prolonged blood feud, for example, where members of two clans keep taking revenge for each consecutive act of violence against them.

It is fascinating that such positive concepts as honour and dignity can be based on mutually-exclusive ideas. While most societies nowadays operate in the realm of dignity, principles of an honour culture have left a prominent mark on the modern world in terms of art, literature, etc. The symbolism created to it still resonates strongly with the emotions of the audience due to the cultural baggage that they we are carrying through generations.

November 10, 2015November 10, 2015

On being stuck

“I tell him getting stuck is the commonest trouble of all. … What you have to do is separate out the things and do them one at a time.”
— Robert Pirsig “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values“

Recently, I was tasked with writing a text for our Engineering Faculty’s holiday greeting card. It was one of those things that is not so difficult by itself, but that bothers you by lingering on the to-do list. I ended up with this assignment because someone asked if they could use a photo of mine (the one at the beginning of this post) for the card. Surely, I did not object; it was even flattering. When it became apparent that I was expected to write the text too, the kind that could be used for advertisement of our program to prospective students, I was less happy.

Incidentally, I was just reading an excellent analysis of the phenomenon of being stuck (in anything, but specifically in writing) in Robert Pirsig’s brilliant “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. His basic concept is that “…getting stuck is the commonest trouble of all.” The reason is that we are multitasking without realizing it. Specifically, in the case of procrastinating at the beginning of a writing project, we are “…trying to think of what to say and what to say first at the same time and that’s too hard.”

So I decided to make an exercise out of my card-writing task. I systematically listed all the things that could be said about the surf at Botanical Beach and how that relates to engineering (fluid mechanics, West Coast, renewable energy, etc.) Then, given the space limit of about two short paragraphs, I narrowed it down to the things that would be most relevant, and suddenly, it was all done.

Here is the text:

“Waves that form at the ocean surface carry with them large amount of energy and can significantly impact coastal areas, offshore structures and vessels. Study of liquids and gases in motion, including ocean waves, is the subject of fluid dynamics. This area of engineering and science has tremendous potential for discovery and innovation because the underlying physical phenomena are complex and not completely understood.

Researchers at the University of Victoria have been studying ocean waves from a wide range of perspectives – from fundamental research of turbulent flows to design of devices for extracting energy from the waves to assessing the role that renewable energy, including that of ocean waves and currents, would play in sustainable energy systems in the future. This research relies on a large arsenal of state-of-the-art tools and techniques, including numerical modeling of waves and their interactions with energy devices using high-performance computers, visualization and analysis of turbulent flows in laboratory experiments using lasers and high-speed cameras and theoretical modeling of energy systems of entire regions and countries. ”

November 4, 2015

Memories and predictions

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.

November 3, 2015

Sunsets: noticing beauty of common events

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

Visual impressions are inherently subjective, so it is a fundamental challenge to prescribe a recipe for an “impressive” photograph, either in terms of the subject or the technique. The are some guidelines, though, that can increase the chances of a particular image being noticed or stirring emotions in people. Typically, these guidelines are rooted in human phychology, more specifically, in phychologycal traits that have developed through years of evolution.

One such trait is that rare events have more emotional impact than common ones. For example, sunsets are more spectacular than solar eclipses, but the latter ones are more memorable, because they are far less common.

Photographers are in a unique position to make even commonplace events memorable. One way to make everyday events more impressive is to highlight their exceptional surroundings or circumstances. For example, I don’t notice the splendor of most everyday sunsets in my home town, but I remember every detail of the one my wife and I watched from Piazzale Michelangelo in Florence during our first trip there.

November 1, 2015

How much should we worry

Many famous martial arts teachers suggest that in order to be most effective in a fight, or during shiai in the case of kendo, one should be completely relaxed, yet alert. However, this balance between relaxation and alertness can be quite elusive. On the one hand, it is possible to relax so completely that we would become complacent. On the other end of the spectrum, if we emphasize present-moment awareness to the extreme of being alert to every minute detail of our surroundings, the tension would strain our nerves and would likely cause over-reaction at the critical moment.

So how much tension would be optimal? One common approach is to treat each everyday practice as a critical match and then consciously relax more during the actual shiai to compensate for the effects of adrenaline.

A while ago, I read advice from a special forces veteran to rookie bodyguards regarding how much they should be worrying about potential security threats on the daily basis. He suggested to maintain the level of anxiety roughly equivalent to what we feel when a traffic light changes from green to yellow, as we are driving towards it in a car (assuming that we are completely relaxed when driving under a green light).

The analogies between martial arts and other areas of life are well known and numerous. After all, Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War” and Miyamoto Musashi’s “The Book of Five Rings” are considered business references. In that sense, the “yellow traffic light” level of self-imposed anxiety might be a good guideline in other activities that require quick reactions and “right action” in the face of potentially changing environment, e.g. public speaking, job interviews, teaching, scientific research, photography, parenting, etc.

October 31, 2015

On missing opportunities

While we are prone to regret inaction, there is rarely a valid objective reason for such regrets. Even if we fail to take action, and the opportunities that are associated with that action are gone forever, this does not mean that we are doomed to the then-current state of affairs. As Richard Branson pointed out, opportunities are like buses, because there is always another one coming.

If we fail to act on a particular opportunity, a constructive lesson from that experience is that we are learning to recognize the opportunities and the moments when resistance, so vividly described by Richard Pressfield in “The War of Art”, sneaks in and keeps us from doing the work. For example, when I am shooting with a lens that works alright for the particular situation, i.e. it has an adequate focal length and f-number, I need to consciously make myself stop shooting and change to a different focal length (taking action) to avoid falling into a complacent shooting mode. Varying the gear, camera settings, subjects, composition, etc. might seem like a hassle at the time, but it is almost always worth it in retrospect. The good news is that that it is never too late to try all these new things at the next photo shoot, even if I miss the opportunity on a particular day.

October 30, 2015

Regretting inaction

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.

October 29, 2015

Using uncertainty to prolong an experience

I believe there two mutually-exclusive strategies for stimulating viewer’s interest in a photograph.

The first approach is to include many details that the viewer can examine. An example would be a panoramic landscape or a cityscape with great depth of field, where the field of view spans a large distance and every detail is in focus. This image would literally deliver a lot of information and thus would hold the audience’s attention for a long time.

The second approach is a minimalistic one: to include only a minimum of information that is necessary to convey the impression of the subject (a place, a person, etc.) and to leave it up to the viewer to fill in the details. This principle is extensively used in Oriental art, for example, which heavily relies on the concept of negative space.

To me personally, the former approach is akin to brute force (it is almost always possible to overload the viewer with details), while the latter one is more elegant and subtle. When viewing a minimalistic image, the viewer becomes a participant in the process of forming the mental impression of that image. In a way, they take a partial ownership of that impression, and it is known psychological phenomenon that we like what belongs to us more than an object of equal material value that we have no connection with.

Also, I think that people like images that leave out certain details because the uncertainty in the specifics of those details prolongs the viewers experience of interacting with the image. The mind needs time to explore the possibilities, to try different combinations of the missing details before settling on the “final” version of the impression from the image. On the other hand, when everything is spelled out for us explicitly, the element of wonder and discovery is lost, and while we might be receiving a lot of information, the experience is less personal.

October 26, 2015

Omitting details for smoother experience

When we view objects from a distance, we do not see small details, and therefore, the objects appear smoother than they really are (when viewed from up close.) If we deal with time instead of distance, we subconsciously draw an analogy between the two, as Daniel Gilbert illustrates in his “Stumbling on Happiness“, so similar loss of details occurs when we think about events that are separated from the present moment by a stretch of time (either recalling the past or imagining the future.) Our minds fill in the lost details by spreading the remaining information over time, essentially performing an interpolation similar to what a Healing Brish tool in Photoshop does with pixels in photographs during retouching. As a result, the recalled or imagined events appear smoother, softer, less irritating than the actual experience. In this sense, time really does heal.

This has significant implications in photography. It has been demonstrated that reviewing photos of past events actually shapes people’s impressions of their experiences of these event (that is why it makes sense to lug the heavy camera while walking around a new town!) So, taking travel photography as an example, is it better to take cliche postcard photos of the place that do not add many new details (e.g. a distant view of the futuristic Shanghai skyline, which is familiar to many people) and therefore leave a smooth, comfortable impression or to shoot more personal images, with details, textures and patterns that convey the essence of the experience of being there (e.g. a narrow, run-down alleyway in Shanghai)? I think, it depends on the audience. Another fact from psychology is that people view experiences that they closely associate with, i.e. ones that “belong” to the them, more positively (e.g. we tend to like our old cars, homes, clothes, places where we live, people, who live with us, etc.) Thus, people, who have walked along run-down alleyways of Shanghai would appreciate the images that re-create that experience, while those who haven’t spent much time there or did not take time to explore the city outside the touristy areas would likely prefer the postcard version. After all, the postcards are popular for a reason.

October 17, 2015October 17, 2015

Jedi mind tricks

Daniel Gilbert in his popular psychology book “Stumbling on Happiness” describes a study that demonstrated the fact that people like and strive on being in control (or rather, on perception of being in control) of the consequences of their actions. He gives examples of toddlers, who are delighted that they can topple a pyramid of blocks, to retirement home residents, who live longer because they are given a responsibility to care for a house plant.

This trait can be exploited to play “Jedi mind tricks” on ourselves, when we are working to master a skill or form a habit. Habits are notoriously difficult to form (the flip side of it is that they are also hard to break.) Particularly difficult is the initial stage of the habit-forming process, where it is psychologically easier not to perform the new behavior. Eventually, after about three weeks of daylight practice, the trend reverses, but the first days is where the resistance (read: “procrastination”), which Steven Pressfield describes in detail in his “The War of Art,” can overcome us with ease.

They way to work through this is to set up the practice in the early days I a way that makes it nearly impossible to fail, to stack the deck in our favor. Archers do this by shooting arrows at the target while standing at an arm’s length from it. Weight lifters do this by lifting a bar without plates. This practice establishes an early victory, an equivalent of scoring a goal in the first minute of a soccer match. This immediately boosts confidence and establishes a perception of control of the outcome of our actions, which is crucial for maintaining the motivation to continue with the practice.

The initial stage of (super-easy) practice might not do much for the skill development per se, but it serves as a Trojan horse for sneaking in the habit of practicing into our daily routine.

Applying this to photography, if we want to develop a habit of taking photos every day, for example, it would make sense to simplify the logistics of it as much as possible, at least when we are just getting started. This means taking the photos early in the day, before other obligations take over, avoiding complicated lighting setups (shooting with ambient light) and using a phone camera instead of a DSLR camera. Choosing subjects that would not require us to go out of our way (literally and figuratively) is also helpful. For example, I have been taking landscape snapshots using my iPhone from my daughter’s school yard when we drop her off there every morning.

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