Peter Oshkai photography

March 19, 2015

Fitness for photography

Some types of photography require the photographer to be physically fit, to a certain degree. Shooting extreme sports, such as rock climbing, for example, naturally requires one to be proficient enough in the sport in order to be able to keep up with the athletes (if they are climbing in the actual mountains and not in a gym, where a photographer does not have to do any climbing.) Underwater photography is another obvious example, where physical ability is crucial.

However, even in less obvious situations, such as travel, street or action photography, physical fitness is a definite asset. Endurance, in particular, enables one to cover larger distances on foot, carry more gear and minimize camera shake while hand-holding heavy “fast” lenses. There many ways, of course, to compensate for the lack of strength or endurance, for example, by using some form of transportation, carrying less or lighter gear, shooting from a tripod, etc. (BTW, in my experience, a carbon fibre tripod is a must for travel use.) Over time, however, there would be certain situations where lack of endurance would result in missed shots.

I have recently heard an interview with Kelly Starrett, a trainer of high-profile athletes a the author of “Becoming a Supple Leopard.” He mentioned that the key element in improving endurance and physical mobility in general is to improve one’s posture. According to him, there are several fundamental postures and basic movements that are common in many types of activities (e.g. standing, squatting, etc.) Training to improve (or correct) these postures allows one to utilize the skeleton, rather than muscles, to absorb most of the stress of the motion (or lack thereof. )

Following this advice, I try to be conscious of my posture while hand-holding a 300mm f/2.8L IS lens during a soccer game or shooting from a sitting position at the side of a basketball court.

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 17, 2015

Seasonal references

Many traditional Japanese arts, such as calligraphy, poetry, tea ceremony, flower arrangement include seasonal references. Those can be specific words (kigo) or particular plants and flowers used for ikebana. In calligraphy practice, poems that represent the current season are typically used. This month’s calligraphy that my wife use for practice is an unusual example of seasonal reference (see image above). What refers to the season is not the meaning of the writing, but its pronunciation. It is pronounced “fu jyo ki kyo”, which is supposed to resemble a song of a spring bird.

I am fascinated by a subtle, indirect way certain references are introduced in Japanese art. In fact the subject is rarely addressed directly. Instead, the consumer of the art (reader, viewer, listener, taster, depending on the type of the art) is invited to complete the image by him/herself, making the whole experience more personal. The use of negative space in Japanese ink painting (sumi-e) is a prime example of this concept.

Another insight from this month’s calligraphy is how effective a reference to nature can be. This notion is directly related to the importance of including an element of weather in landscapes, which was first explored in photography by Ansel Adams, and even in an action photos. In the modern world, we are so isolated from the effects of the weather (indeed, almost all my daily activities are weather-independent) that an image, which references the effect of weather on the subject, has a strong potential to stir up some primal emotions in the viewer.

March 16, 2015

Inspiration for the old age

I notice that with age, it becomes easy to lose motivation for starting new projects or even continuing to work on something that I have been doing for a long time. Inspiring stories of people who start something relatively late in life and through consistency and perseverance achieve results that are beyond average in that field, even for much younger people, work very well for me in such periods of uncertainty.

There are many inspiring life stories that can be found in books. For example, I have just heard an interview with Jack Canfield, who specializes in putting together collections of such stories.

In my own experience, one of the most influential encounters was the one with a Japanese lady, about sixty years of age, who visited our kendo dojo several years ago as part of the delegation of rather high-level kendoka. After the practice, she asked how long I had been practicing kendo. I was then in my early thirties and had started only a couple of years earlier. I thought that it was a hopelessly late age for starting kendo and that I had no realistic chance to ever achieving the level that this lady was at. However, she said the she started practice even later in life, after her children had grown up and left home. Naturally, this made me re-evaluate my entire outlook at kendo practice.

Activities that require certain level of physical fitness are the prime examples, where such inspiring stories are most impressive. I think that in other areas, such as arts, photography, studies, etc. there are even fewer excuses for not starting something new at any age. In fact, I recently read that from a psychological point of view, it is the joy of new experiences, and as a consequence, active seeking of new activities, skills and knowledge, that constitutes the essence of a youthfulness.

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 14, 2015

Tools of the trade

Over the last couple of months, I have been repeatedly encountering some very insightful comments and writings by Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of “Wired” magazine, and the author of “Cool Tools,” among other neat books. Recently, he commented on the value of finding one’s own “trade” – a skill set that enables some useful and universally-applicable contribution to society. This skill would be tradable for money or other means to support living in any part of the world. In other words, the personal “trade” is the core skill behind one’s occupation.

Finding and cultivating this skill set is inherently difficult and can (and probably should) take the entire lifetime. I think that perhaps examining the tools that we use in everyday life can give an indication of what our personal trade is or could be (at this particular time, anyway).

The problem with this analysis is that we do many things. I my case, for example, the activities range from teaching and research to photography, calligraphy and kendo. Each area has its own tools, which often change in line with technology. Some patterns stand out, though. Most of the tolls that I have been using consistently since elementary school have something to do with either visual or written communication – books, pens and pencils, brushes and paints, photo cameras. I wonder if this general tool set is an indication of what my particular “trade skill” is or simply has to do with how the modern society functions, communication being at the foundation of most human activities.

March 13, 2015

Part-time photographer

Many people, who start photography as a hobby, at some point contemplate doing it professionally. There many degrees of involvement in professional photography, though, from occasionally selling a few images while keeping the “day job” to committing to the photo business full-time. Dan Heller, the author of several books and articles on the business of photography, including the “Profitable Photography in Digital Age: Strategies for Success,” describes various degrees of commitment to the business aspect and the associated advantages and disadvantages.

To me personally, one of the most appealing aspects of doing photography part-time is the ability to limit the photo projects only to those that are interesting from the creative standpoint. These projects are often not the most viable commercially, but I don’t have to forgo them in favour of more profitable, but often boring shoots, that would certainly feel more like a job rather than fun.

Of course, in theory, a job does not have to be boring. In academe, for example, the combination of teaching (which can be very rewarding in its own right) and research continues to fascinate me even after doing it for a few years. Still, with a “real” job come obligations, which tend to spoil whatever leisure we might have. As Allan Watts puts it in “The Wisdom of Insecurity, “… most of us are willing to put up with lives that consist largely in doing jobs that are bore, earning the means to seek relief from the tedium by intervals of hectic and expensive pleasure.” In the case of photography, I think that it is better not to turn it into a “bore” if at all possible.

March 12, 2015March 12, 2015

Do you need a teacher?

With the abundance of learning materials available in various forms (books, online tutorials, course notes, etc.) the question of whether a human teacher is necessary for learning any particular subject comes up more and more often. I encounter this in the engineering courses that I teach, and in photography, kendo and calligraphy that I learn.

I think that elementary aspects of many (if not all) activities can be learned independently (from books, etc.), but at some (relatively high) level, the social aspects become important. To be more precise, I think that a teacher can make a substantial difference at the very beginning of the learning process, by teaching the fundamentals in a “correct” way, and at a relatively advanced stage, after some “homework” or internal processing has been done by the student, by providing feedback and calibrating the newly developed approaches, skills and techniques (and sometimes, the underlying values and motivations).

I wrote earlier about the importance of teaching, i.e. of being a teacher, but recently thought about the role of the teacher from the student’s perspective, after watching a documentary called “Monk With A Camera” about Nicholas Vreeland, a photographer, who became a Buddhist monk, but kept shooting photos. I find it insightful that at all stages he actively sought a teacher – first by applying, though his mother’s connections, to work for a famous fashion photographer and then by learning from some of the most illustrious Buddhist teachers.

March 11, 2015March 11, 2015

Does photography have to be expensive?

Photography is generally viewed as an expensive hobby, the primary expense being the cost of the equipment. For professional photographers, both full- and part-time, this is an even more important concern, because their gear has to represent the state-of-the-art for the photos to have a chance for being competitive in the very crowded market. The initial expense of entering into photography is there reason that there exists the whole industry that supports (or is supported by, depending on your point of view) by both pro and amateur photographers. The high cost of the hobby is also one of the main reasons why amateurs want to explore photography as a business.

It can be argued, however, that if photography is considered as an art, then using it as a vehicle for self-expression should not be limited by the technology involved (and, consequently, by the cost of hardware). Many authors share the view that an artist can create an image using either a brush or a blade of grass. In the context of photography, perhaps, the analogy would be to use a pinhole camera instead of a DSLR.

I think that, unfortunately, this argument only applies to pure art, with no applied aspect (commercial or scientific, for example.) In order to be competitive either in business of photography or in its scientific application, using state-of-the-art technology is a must. Even from a purely artistic perspective, if, hypothetically, the cost is not an issue, why wouldn’t we consider pushing the limits of high-speed motion, low-light conditions, harsh environment, microscopic scale, etc. that the technology allows us to explore? In reality, cost is always an issue. I have to deal with financial constraints both when setting up budgets for new research projects in our lab (we do use high-speed photography in our fluid mechanics research) and when choosing what gear to use for my photo shoots.

Not all types of photography are equally expensive, but action and sports photography, which is what I do most often these days, certainly is. Incidentally, here is a nearly ideal (and very expensive) combination of Canon cameras and lenses that my friend and associate has been using for soccer matches:

7D Mark II body with a 500mm f/4L lens;
500mm f/4L lens body with a 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens (I also use this combination or, more often, a 300mm f/2.8L ISlens);
5D Mark III body with a 16-35mm f/2.8L lens.

March 10, 2015

Dynamic balance

Our calligraphy submission for official grading, the first one since resuming practice after a substantial break, is completed. I am submitting a mandatory kaisho (formal script) of the specified assignment and an optional gyosho (semi-formal script) of the same text (see images above and below, respectively).

I wrote earlier that of the most challenging elements of these calligraphy exercises is compositional balance of the overall image and that of the individual characters. I find that it is somewhat easier to achieve this balance in gyosho than in kaisho. This is a little counter-intuitive, since gyosho is less structured and more reliant on the speed of the brushstrokes. So achieving balance in gyosho is a bit like riding a bicycle – you are never perfectly balanced (in a static sense) at any given moment, but are always applying small corrections for the overall dynamic balance.

I think there might be an analogy for many other life activities here (these kinds of Zen-based Japanese “Ways” – kendo, shodo, etc. tend to have plenty of them.) Achieving a perfectly balanced state at any isolated moment of time is often exceedingly difficult and (as a result) stressful, but if we are willing to sacrifice the absolute immediate balance by recognizing that there will be plenty of opportunities to apply small corrections, the result can be a smooth and even graceful ride. The important thing, of course, is to avoid excessively large deviations from the balanced condition, which could lead to an unstable situation when recovery is no longer possible.

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