Taking advance of the fact that there is neither a set deliverable (minimum set of images) nor a firm deadline for the recently completed photo shoot of a dance performance, I have been experimenting with new post-processing techniques. Narrowing down the initial set of more than 2000 raw images to just a handful, I was able to spend some time playing with some brush stroke effects in Photoshop. I find that allowing sufficient time to experiment with (i.e. try and discard) new techniques is the key to being able to break from my usual workflow and ultimately, to find a new look of the final images.
Dance performance is a perfect subject for this kind of exercise, because photographing it is literally taking pictures of art, which is, literally, creating art out of art.
My wife and I often combine photography-focussed trips with family vacations. Having a small child substantially changed the dynamics, so the style of the photos have adapted as well. We used to like what 
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I wrote earlier about the importance of 
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Neil Strauss, who interviewed many celebrities for the 
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Completing projects, whether it means delivering the photos to the clients or simply clearing the mental RAM by declaring the project finished, is very important for moving on to new projects. I find that it is the latter case, where there is no deliverable per se, but only some vague plans for a certain set of images, that are difficult to mentally resolve and set aside.
Recently, I heard Brian Koppelman, who co-authored screen plays of “
,” among other hit movies, mention in an interview that the value of reading fiction, as opposite to non-fiction, is that people evolved to learn by association and metaphor. Consuming ready-to-use information is efficient for computers, but not necessarily for humans. I believe that there is some fundamental truth in this comment. Besides their entertainment value, artistic images teach us about communication. More generally, infusing information with emotional content, which is what art does, effectively transforms this information into knowledge, which is what 
Kyoto has many famous tourist attractions, and local schoolchildren, knowing that they can count on meeting foreigners there, often approached us with their their school assignments to interview foreign tourists in English. This happened to us so consistently that it quickly became a sort of entertainment. More often than not, the children did not really care about what we answered to their questions, which some of them obviously memorized phonetically, and just recited on cue. Sometimes, they would not wait for the previous question to be finished before reading their own. Still, they seemed genuinely happy and full of the sense of accomplishment by having completed their part of the “interview a foreigner” script.
While drawing the details of each kanji, which has to be done in a particular order, I have to keep in mind the overall balance of the final image. If a particular brushstroke is out of place or proportion, the brushstrokes that follow will be out of balance. At the same, it is important not to become too concerned about the outcome and instead concentrate on what is being drawn at any given moment.
In the 1940’s, a term “narrowcasting” was introduced as the opposite to broadcasting (of radio and TV programs). It refers to transmitting messages aimed at a narrow audience, not the broad public. Many of the modern-day podcasts are examples of narrowcasting. Their authors are counting on the fact that the Internet-based audience is so large that it contains a significant number of listeners, who have common interests, views and tastes. This enables the podcasters to focus on the specifics on the niche area without spending time on explanations and justifications for the broader audience. In contrast, broadcast programs can reach larger numbers of people, but they are necessarily less personalized, more watered-down.