Peter Oshkai photography

March 9, 2015

No permit required

Recently, I listened to an interview with Seth Godin, who wrote many famous business books like “Purple Cow” and more recently, “Linchpin.” He made a point that in the modern age of information technology, there is no objective need to ask a for permission to engage in any kind of art, trade or business from anyone other than ourselves. He used an example of book publishing, which nowadays has been reduced to typing the words and hitting “Publish” in WordPress.

The last remaining authority, the one the sits inside our head, is a tough one, though. I think the reason is that we associate ourselves with what we do so closely, that somehow our jobs (not necessarily the paid ones that we do to make a living, but practically any activity) subjectively become our identities. Although this may have nothing to do with reality, there is a real resistance to trying new things that we create for ourselves. In my experience, I sometimes have to consciously convince myself that trying a new kind of shoot, instead of “perfecting” the one(s) that I am already familiar with, would be fun (and almost always is, following the theory that new and challenging activities are most fulfilling).

The benefits of exploring new activities are definitely worth overcoming the internal resistance. For example, although sports photography was distinctly new, challenging and uncomfortable for me after starting initially in the landscape genre, shooting sports opened up an incredibly fun and rewarding area and generally prompted my interest in photographing people.

March 8, 2015

Why children are like carrots

Gretchen Rubin, who wrote “The Happiness Project” and more recently, a book about everyday habits called “Better Than Before“, pointed out that people are most satisfied with what they do if their activities are new and challenging, and also if the activities support an environment of growth. This means that a fulfilling pursuit has a cumulative effect, which we can see and enjoy over time. By the way, this does not mean accumulation of something material. The effect can be in the process itself, as in writing calligraphy with water on the sidewalk, for example.

Examples of activities that cultivate growth are gardening, collecting (stamps, coins, etc.) and raising children. The latter is particularly rewarding, since, as any parent would tell, kids grow very fast, both physically and psychologically.

I think that, by extension, photographing children (following the development of the same child over time) is an excellent long-time project. It develops the photography technique, provides a way to connect with the child and creates a cumulative record of memories that the child would be able to access later in life. Incidentally, having this visual reference is tremendously important for forming a post-factum impression of one’s childhood, since visual images can shape our memories.

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.

March 6, 2015March 6, 2015

Back-loaded workflow

Photography projects can be broadly categorized into front- and back-loaded ones in terms of production process. The former involve elaborate setup and production prior and during the photo shoot, while the latter rely on more extensive post-processing. I believe that the back-loaded workflow has many advantages, particularly when working with amateur models.

If the photo shoot itself feel simple and not stressful, the models are more likely to act naturally in front of the camera. If possible, the majority of the taken photos could be candid portraits, perhaps with natural lighting. If such candid photo sessions are done using state-of the-art equipment (cameras and lenses), and if the photographer has solid technical skills and a sense of lighting and composition, the resulting image quality would still be quite high, particularly considering the expensive post-processing phase that would follow.

Creative post-processing is what separates professional photos from amateurish snapshots in the case of a back-loaded production. Extensive photo manipulation would go beyond cropping, exposure and colour adjustments and noise control that are typically applied globally to the entire image (or even a group of images in the case of high-volume shoots of sporting events, for example). When I do serious image manipulation, I usually end up touching every pixel with a brush tool in Photoshop at some point in the process. Incidentally, I find that using a graphics tablet for this kind of work is imperative. Working with a mouse or a trackpad would be so inconvenient that it would spoil the entire fun of making the images.

I think that a combination of a low-key photo shoot and high-end, creative processing often results in the photos that pleasantly surprise the models, particularly non-professionals. A good example of when this workflow works well is concert or performance photography. I find that the performers like seeing striking, attractive images of themselves, especially because they were not focussed on looking good at the time of the shoot, but were in their element – dancing, singing, etc. Perhaps, realizing this, conveys a message that people don’t have to try too hard to look “good” (substitute “cool”, “tough”, “sexy”, “strong” as appropriate), but that they are already seen that way from the outside.

March 5, 2015March 5, 2015

Virtual communities

In his 2012 novel “Reamde“, Neal Stephenson describes a community of hackers that is “post-web and post-email.” They operate and communicate within a multiplayer computer game, forming complex networks that have implications in the physical world.

I am fascinated with how human communities evolve from physical to virtual ones, and which elements of the old models persist through this evolution. For photographers, for example, this has had some real implications already – our photographs are rarely viewed in any other media, but on a backlit screen. As Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. wax and wane, they are going to leave some of their elements for the future virtual communities. It would be nice to be able predict what those elements of future visual (and other types) of communication would be…

March 4, 2015March 4, 2015

Panoramas

Panoramic landscape photos, the ones that are composed of several individual shots that are stitched together by a software, are fun because they offer a view that cannot be achieved by naked eye. By the way, I think this is one of the main criteria for “interestingness” of a photo – it should show something that I viewer would not normally see by him/herself, e.g. an extreme close-up, a frozen motion, a unique point of view or colour combination, etc.

For panoramas, I find that composing the final image is a challenge, because at the time of shooting, my brain picks the focal points of the individual sectors, not that of the final image. As a result, panoramas often either don’t have a compositional focus or have multiple competing elements (e.g. a mountain, a cloud formation, a rock in the foreground, etc.) Because it is difficult to visualize the end result at the time of shooting, I like using my iPhone camera for panoramas. It allows me to see the result right away instead of waiting until I stitch the individual images on a computer. Of course, the technical quality is inferior, compared to an image produced by a DSLR, but I think the main appeal of panoramas is their initial impact (the panoramic nature of the scene being the main element of the composition), so the instant feedback offered by the phone camera is worth the penalty in noise, banding and other defects. As one prominent photographer, who’s name escapes me, said about excessive noise in particular, “if people a concerned about noise in your photo, you have a boring image!”

March 3, 2015

My neck of the woods

When I think of Russian landscape, at least that of the European part of Russia, the history of which is heavily influenced by the invasions of Mongols and Tartars, I imagine it as a vast steppe. In reality, until relatively recent times (mid-XVIII century), the European Russia was dominated by forests.

I realize the great importance of forests in Russian history and culture only now, when reading the lectures by Vasily Klyuchevsky. He explains that the forest was not only the natural resource and a strategic barrier between the early Russian city-states and the Asian invaders, but also the spiritual haven, a place where, for example, hermits would retreat to live in silence in order to escape the stresses of then-modern society. I suppose, nowadays, living without Internet would be a comparable feat…

When I go to Russia this year, I would like to try to take some photos of (whatever remains of) its forests. Generally, I find that photographing forests is not easy – the light is limited, the focus of the composition if not easy to define, unlike in the pictures of sea coasts or mountains. Nevertheless, some of my favourite landscapes from BC are those of the forests (e.g. the image above.) The West Coast’s forests and the trees themselves, though beautiful, are quite different from those of Russia. I wonder if I would be able to convey this difference in a photograph…

March 2, 2015

Old news

Most of the content that is being generated in research, art, literature, etc. is not new, but a re-statement of old concepts. This does not mean that re-visiting old ideas is a useless exercise. In fact, calling something an “exercise” implies that the activity has some intrinsic value.

My three-year-old daughter and her friends like listening to the same stories, watch the same cartoons and play the same games day after day. Of course, their preferences change periodically, but it is still fascinating to see how much children like repetition. Naturally, this is part of their learning process. Similarly, perhaps, re-visiting old ideas helps us learn the underlying concepts and even shape the ideas themselves.

Many authors wrote about the benefits journalling or blogging. One of these benefit is the ability to formulate an idea or point of view. For example, Kevin Kelly, the author of “What Technology Wants,” among other popular books, points out that the writing process does not start with formulating the idea in one’s head and then setting on expressing them in written words. Instead, we start writing, often on the same topics that we or others have addressed before, and through this process, the old ideas become clarified and (re-)formulated.

Similarly, photographing or painting a familiar subject, such as a still life or a landscape, not only refines the technique, but opens up new dimensions of the subject. Perhaps, this is why the old works of art are sometimes entitled “studies.”

March 1, 2015

Conditional happiness

I find that if I have some experience in a particular type of photography (e.g. travel, street, studio portrait, etc.), this experience makes it more difficult for me to improve in that area than in a completely new situation. I think it has something to do with what is referred in Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts as shoshin (beginner’s mind) – a condition of openness and lack of preconceptions in studying a subject. The very fact of gaining experience removes this openness, as we start to project the experience to form ideas of how further learning should occur.

This lack of mental flexibility is particularly frustrating in street photography, where photo opportunities are fleeting and highly variable, which makes them easy to miss, if the photographer’s mind is locked on a preconceived idea for a particular type of shot.

Interestingly, there is a parallel between letting the preconceptions shape (and constrain) our view of the learning process and the concept of conditions that we attach even to the notion of being happy. The following quote from Albert Camus describes the latter concept:

“Those who prefer their principles over their happiness, they refuse to be happy outside the conditions they seem to have attached to their happiness.”

February 28, 2015February 28, 2015

Making plans

I wrote earlier that my view of the planning process had been influenced by the books I read a few years ago, when starting my work as a university professor. One of them is “Advice for New Faculty Members” by Robert Boice.

In this book, Boice makes a case that planning as a process lends itself well to brief, regular sessions. In other words, I don’t have to wait for a large chunk of uninterrupted time in my schedule to begin planning something (e.g. a lecture, a photo shoot, a vacation, etc.) Not only this large segment of time might not appear for a long time, but when it does marialize, it would be better used for a more creative or “deep” activity. As far as planning, it works just fine when done in small chunks.

Working on planning in small increments accomplishes two things: (a) it allows us to start the process early, which reduces the stress as the deadline approaches, and (b) it allows us to visualize the actual event (the lecture, the photo shoot, etc.) between the planning sessions. I find the latter part particularly valuable, because without a clear vision of the outcome, the plan itself is not particularly useful. To borrow an analogy from Matt Mullenweg, a dog chasing a car might have a good plan for how to catch it, but no idea what to do if it succeeds.

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