My thoughts on the craft, the process and the subjects
Walking through the streets of Voronezh, I have been trying to place my impression of this Russian city between those from my recent trips to China and Italy. I think that this town is, literally, in between China and Western Europe, not only geographically, but also culturally.
I think it would be interesting to find images that would highlight the connection with both the East and the West that exists in Russia.
I have heard that CF cards can fail for no apparent reason, and that the results can be very frustrating. I has never happened to me until now. Yesterday, an UDMA 7 card failed after an hour of shooting (nothing very intense, just a family walk around town). The card has never left the camera: it just stopped responding at a certain time, and could not be either formatted in the camera or accessed through a card reader afterwards.
I will check off this accident as a learning experience: I rarely reach the full capacity of both cards that could be put in the slots, but losing images even once is not a pleasant experience.
I find that many rules in Italy (including some traffic laws) are either ignored or can be overruled as the need arises. One great example of this are the regulations regarding photography in Sforza Castle in Milan.
So, I found that my level of professionalism can be instantly adjusted (at least in the range of 24 to 105 mm.)
I like finding parallels between different activities that I am involved in, e.g. fluid mechanics research, photography, martial arts, etc. It seems that many people enjoy finding analogies of whatever they do with other areas of life, particularly those that seem important to them.
“Then I said, ‘It seems to me that no matter what you say about poetry, I could find a way of making up an analog with any subject, just as I did for theoretical physics. I don’t consider such analogs meaningful.”
Personally, I think the “analogs” are useful from the point of view of extending our experience in one area into other, unrelated fields. Of course, any two fields only seem to be unrelated. After all, the very fact that the same person attempts to deal in them makes them similar in that respect. So it not surprising that we can find parallels between any two subjects. Needless, to say, that in doing so, we ignore the differences, so it is indeed meaningless to say that poetry and physics, kendo and teaching, raising children and gardening, etc. are the same.
“All the time you’re saying to yourself, “I could do that, but I won’t “- which is just another way of saying that you can’t.”
— Richard P. Feynman
At the ocean science and engineering conference, I listen to many talks on fascinating subjects that are a bit outside of my main area of research (which is fluid mechanics.) They are just sufficiently remote, so that I think it won’t be a good idea to allocate time and other resources to pursue these tangent areas. Then, I remind myself that the ability to change the focus of research is, perhaps, the greatest benefit of working in academe — the proverbial academic freedom.
The problem with the concept of academic freedom is that more often than not our research directions are dictated by the combination of funding sources (interests of collaborating industrial partners, for example) and infrastructure availability, available time that is free of teaching duties, etc. All these factors forms a rather cynical insider’s outlook on the academic research, its role in the society and on our capacity to take creative decisions about research direction.
I often find myself in a similar situation with photography. I see someone else’s beautiful work and think, “This is really interesting. I know exactly how it was done. I could do this too.” But in most cases, just saying this to myself precludes me from actually trying the new type of shot. As if declaring my ability to do something makes me subconsciously check this potential project off as already accomplished.
Genova often does not make the list of top destinations in Italy. A friend of mine recently joked that he would write a blog post entitled “Top Ten Things To Do In Genova,” which would list only three items. Genova definitely has fascinating history (it was the dominant naval power at one point, it is the birthplace of Columbus, etc.), but there are no high-profile tourist attractions, large museums or famous frescoes that many other Italian cities have in abundance. However, after spending four full days here, I start to notice the neat features of Genova that make it unique.
The colours of Genova’s old buildings are also unique. They are of various shades of red and orange. I heard that this particular shade of red is called “Genova rosso,” just like the typical orange colour of Siena’s buildings is known simply as “siena” to the artists.
I got a little bit lost in the narrow streets of Genova, when I went for a walk through the city after dinner on my day of arrival. I like to think that my sense of direction is reasonably good, so I wrote this off to being tired after the long trip. The next morning, I went to the Spianada di Castelletto, a lookout point with a panoramic view of the town. It quickly became apparent that the maze of alleys (I learned that “vico” means “alley”, not “street” in Italian.)
I later returned to the same lookout to photograph the panorama at sunset, and saw, this time from above, how sparsely illuminated the town was. Actually, some of the alleys are so narrow, that the sunlight does not reach into them even during the day.
A woman in front of me in the security check line at the airport had a tiny dog, who was picking his head out of a special carrier bag, but had to be taken out and carried through the metal scanner. The dog did not complain, and all the security personnel seemed to be genuinely entertained (I suppose, any diversion is welcome in that kind of job.)
This dog reminded me about the time when my wife and I travelled with our pet, an african grey parrot named Zorro, on several planes across America. Zorro was not bothered by travel at all, but crossing the US-Canada border with him at the peak of a bird flu scare was a long process, to say the least, even though Zorro travelled with a stack of documents (vet checks, etc.) twice as thick as me and my wife.
I find it curious that most people, myself included, like travel stories, but put little effort in capturing the little details that make them vivid later. Perhaps, we like the stories because even a shortest trip implies a break from daily routine and a possibility of adventure. At the time of travel, though, we are too focused on the destination, making sure that everything goes according to plan. In other words, we want to avoid an adventure if at all possible, unless it happens on our terms (a paragliding lesson, a guided SCUBA dive, etc.)
It would have been fun to take photos of Zorro at the airports, when he was surrounded by children, or even to snap a picture of that tiny dog in the carrier, but often I find myself too lazy busy to stop and get the camera out of the backpack.
While packing for a relatively long trip to Europe that will involve conferences, research visits, visits with family and sightseeing, I catch myself trying to bring along everything that would enable me to replicate my everyday activities. Of course, the very fact that I am going to be doing many things that do not happen at home will ensure that my daily routine will change drastically, which is a good thing.
I suppose, the key concept to avoiding this pitfall is presence. Needless to say, cultivating it is not easy, and like any worthwhile skill, it requires a lot of practice.
This month’s calligraphy is a saying by a Chinese poet, who as a child had a dream of a flower emerging from the tip of a brush. This turned out to be a prophecy of his future greatness.
It is curious how many important people had their greatest ideas come to them when they were not consciously thinking (Newton’s apple story is one famous example.) I think this is a perfect reason (besides all the health benefits) for getting more sleep. This is my excuse reason for making this post so short.
