Peter Oshkai photography

January 18, 2015January 18, 2015

Need for self-expression

Many writers commented of the benefits of writing a journal and otherwise making writing a part of their daily routine. Besides increasing their productivity, developing writing skills and other obvious benefits, regular self-expression has a deeper underlying reason. As Kevin Kelly, an amazingly prolific author on the subject of technology, explained in an interview that I heard recently, it is not that we have something to say, and then we write about it. We write in order to find out what we have to say. In other words, we formulate our thoughts by writing them down.

A good example for this is academic research, where communicating the results through published articles is an integral part of the process. When I work with graduate students on a new project, we start outlining a future journal paper before starting the experiments that would eventually form its core. Doing so helps us define the focus as we work.

In a similar way, photography helps me appreciate the subject, whether it is a location, a building, a person or an event. Often, I do not have a particularly clear idea of what it was that attracted me to the subject to begin with, but by photographing it, I am able to find out its unique features. Just as writing (whether creative or technical), photography is a way of expressing our understanding of the subject. This very process crystallizes the intuitive aspects of understanding, ultimately deepening our knowledge. I think that more often than not, the author benefits from the process more than the audience does from the resulting work.

January 17, 2015January 17, 2015

Meaning of life

Recently, I came upon an interview with Kevin Kelly, a co-founder of Wired magazine, who wrote, among other books, “Cool Tools“, a review of the best or unique tools for nearly any kind of job. In the interview, he shared some interesting thoughts about the dilemma between choosing a niche for your activities to optimize performance, and being a generalist, i.e. exploring a wide range of activities. By the way, this appears to be true dilemma, as there is no correct choice.

In photography, as in other activities, e.g. academic research, specializing on an area of strength has many advantages. However, if your personal domain of activity is limited, narrow specialization potentially gets you stuck on a local maximum of performance. Achieving a global maximum requires one to go down on the performance curve. In other words, we need to become beginners in order to ultimately become better in something new.

Kelly talks about a concept of finding not just what you are good at, but what only you are good at. Searching for this global maximum of performance is very difficult as it necessarily involves ups and downs of performance. In fact, it can take an entire lifetime. Perhaps, this process of figuring out is the purpose of life.

January 16, 2015January 16, 2015

On leadership

Recently, I have been listening to a podcast about military strategy and tactics of Mongols during the Genghis Khan’s campaigns. It is interesting that the Mongols valued leadership abilities of their commanders very highly. For example, there is a quote sometimes attributed to Genghis Khan (although it is more likely a variation of a quote of Alexander the Great or the Socrates) that “an army of donkeys led by a lion is better an army of lions led by a donkey.”

The basic principles of leadership certainly transcend military applications and apply to many aspects of life. After all, most of what we do day-to-day is communicate with other people. There is a vast amount of literature written about it, perhaps, Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War” being the best known example of military strategy guidelines becoming a famous reference for business people.

For me personally, working with a research group of colleagues and graduate students, teaching a course or taking photos of people – all these activities involve leading or directing others. There are many details of leadership that are specific to a particular activity, but some key aspects are common. Here they are, taking a typical portrait photo shoot as an example:

Planning. This is foundation of a successful project. I need to have a clear idea of what I want to accomplish, what gear I would need, how much time the shoot would take, etc. However, there is a point of diminishing returns in planing, so at some point, it is important to just start doing things.
Flexibility. It is likely that things would not go exactly according to the plan. When that happens, I try to trust my experience and intuition and not over-think the choice of lens or camera settings, for example.
Confidence. I believe that planning and experience are the foundation of confidence, and flexibility is the result of it. Perhaps, it depends on the type of personality, but I think confidence should come naturally, not as a result of artificial effort. After all, it is really impossible to convincingly fake it, and also, there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance.
Communication. It is a two-way process, and when I am in a leading role, I control how the communication occurs. As a photographer, I need be aware of how the photo shoot as it progresses and make sure that everyone knows the general plan, but has sufficient autonomy to make adjustments without waiting for specific directions. This usually happens naturally with models, assistants and other photographers, as we establish a relaxed, fun atmosphere. Also, as I wrote earlier, asking others for feedback during the shoot is a great way of establishing a connection and avoiding mistakes.

January 15, 2015January 15, 2015

Light modifiers: a matter of size

The main parameter in choosing light modifiers (soft boxes or umbrellas, for example) for studio strbes is the size of the modifiers. Generally for portraits, the larger the modifiers, the better. The main function of soft boxes and umbrellas is to change a small light source into a large one. This creates soft, gradual transitions between the light and dark areas on the subject, which is aesthetically pleasing for most portraits (or course, there are situations, when the rules are broken intentionally to create impact, but that is another story). In my opinion, the more the light source resembles natural window light, the better. This concerns the size of the light source, its position (height relative to the subject) and its colour temperature.

There is not a huge difference between brand name and generic soft boxes and umbrellas in terms of the quality of light, so I think it is safe to use cheaper modifiers without sacrificing the quality of the resulting photo.

A disadvantage of very large soft boxes or umbrellas is that they are very cumbersome to use outdoors. They are, essentially, sails that catch every slightest gust of wind and tend to topple over, unless the stands are weighted down with sand bags. For an outdoor shoot, I use Speedlites, preferably off-camera, triggered by a PocketWizard radio triggers.

I found that getting started with studio lights is a bit intimidating, because of the many changes in the workflow, compared to a natural light setting. The best way to start is to assist someone who knows what he/she is doing and later copy the basic setup (there is nothing complicated about it, after all). The lighting principles themselves are actually quite straightforward, and another way to approach studio lighting is to read a book, such as “Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It.”

January 14, 2015January 14, 2015

Practice, failure and unlearning

Developing a skill requires consistent practice. This is common knowledge in martial arts, but it is definitely true in other areas of life. It is simply not enough to absorb new information; it is also necessary in internalize it by repeatedly tying the new skill. The role of failure in this trial process is debatable. Most people fail many times before succeeding, so it is comfortable to think that we learn from our failures. Also, it is clear that training has to be challenging to be effective. However, some argue that failure is over-rated. For example, Peter Thiel, the author of “Zero to One“, said that in the case of startup companies (which fail often), failures occur not because of a single reason, but because of a combination of multiple factors. This makes these failures difficult to analyze and to learn from. As he puts it, a failed business is always a tragedy.

Although practice is crucial for learning, at some point in the creative process, it is necessary to “unlearn” – to put aside one’s arsenal of learned techniques and allow the intuition to take over. During photo shoots, for example, there is often no time to think through the composition, the lighting, the posing, etc. as the action unfolds. At such times, I work on trusting my experience in selecting the appropriate combination of parameters without thinking about the details. In fact, it is practice that enables this to happen – I have seen and shot similar situations enough times that I know which techniques, gear and camera settings do and to not work. In fact, knowing what does not work is particularly important for spontaneous, intuitive shooting. That knowledge, in a sense, is a product of prior failures.

January 13, 2015January 13, 2015

Avoiding mental attachments

“…sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

– Marilyn Monroe

Although planning is a crucial part of a photo production, things often do not go according to the plan during the actual photo shoot. This is not always a bad thing (some believe that anything that happens, happens for a reason), but it is important to mentally flexible if such situation occurs.

Recently, I came across some interviews and writings of Josh Waitzkin, who had a very successful career as an international-level chess player and is also an accomplished material artist (he trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under the instruction of the phenomenal Marcelo Garcia). Josh talks about mental attachment to past decision and how to avoid it.

To explain a mental attachment using a chess example, assume that I looked at a position on the board and decided to implement a certain combination. As the game unfolds, the opponent tries to implement his/her own plan, which changes the situation – what used to be a good plan, becomes not so good, because the objective situation has changed. (This is what makes chess and martial arts so much like real life.) If I stay mentally attached to the original plan of action, my own actions would make the situation worse, because they would be out-of-touch with the objective reality. In martial arts also, one of the fundamental concepts is to be present in the moment, “read” the opponent and not to be absorbed by one’s own thoughts and fears.

I believe that like any fundamental skill, mental flexibility in the face of unexpected changes requires practice. In photography, for example, if my arsenal of shooting and lighting techniques is fairly diverse, I would be able to adjust my shooting if the location, models or props do not work the way it was planned.

January 12, 2015January 12, 2015

Developing special abilities

In role-playing computer games (RPGs), the term “special ability” refers to a set of skills of a character, that is unique and cannot be acquired by other characters. In real life, people often develop special abilities due to their environment. Sometimes, these abilities are physical, for example, increased lung capacity and endurance of ethnic groups that live high in the mountains (e.g. Sherpas). In other cases, these are special skills, like horse-riding of Mongols in the middle ages.

Many successful professional photographers suggest looking into one’s own environment to develop a unique skill or vision. The advantage of doing so is that we already have some expertise related to your work, daily activities or surroundings. What remains is translating this expertise into photography and focussing on it.

In my case, working at the university, I have an opportunity to photograph sports competitions, in which our student-athletes participate. Doing so also supports the students and the athletic program, which makes me feel good. The other direction is photographing fluids in motion. It is related to my research in experimental fluid dynamics. In fact, exploring the artistic side of flow visualization has been on my mind for a while. One of the examples that I give in my class when talking about history of fluid mechanics is Leonardo da Vinci, who used his artistic capacity for observation to propose a surprisingly useful analogy for turbulent flows: he described them to be similar to human hair, moving in the wind – large waves carry smaller curls and kinks with them.

I think the relationship between the environment and the special skill or ability it creates is a two-way interaction, as an engineer would say. The special skill acquired because of the environment enables one to make a fuller, more complete and creative use of this environment. In case of the Mongols, for example, living in the steppes made them great horse-rider, which in turn, enabled them conquer the steppes (and much of the known world) under Genghis Khan.

January 11, 2015January 11, 2015

Using phone camera

I wrote earlier about my favourite camera apps for iPhone. Currently, I am experimenting with my new iPhone 6 plus, which has a much improved camera, compared to an iPhone 5. To me, the main appeal of the phone camera is that I always have it with me. Of course, despite all the impressive improvements, a phone came is not a DSLR. In order to avoid disappointment, it is important to understand what it can and cannot do. There are many resources for learning this, both online and in print. The book on the right is a good example.

For example, the iPhone camera is excellent for macro shots. It also works amazingly well for shooting well-lit scenes, like the shot in an indoor butterfly garden above. However, the low light performance is quite poor. In other words, the images taken in low light have a lot of noise.

In some cases, noise is quite acceptable. This is true for sports images, for example, although a phone camera would a very poor choice for sports, because of the short focal length of the lens.

I took a couple of photos with my iPhone during an early morning hike up Mt. Doug, when it was still dark. It was very foggy and dark, so I new the images would be very noisy. Instead of fighting the noise, I tried to use it to create an artistic effect. After returning home, I brought the photos from my iCloud into Lightroom. The photo of the gnarly tree above had almost no colour in it to begin with, so I slightly increased the contrast and converted it to black-and-white using Nick’s Silver FX plug-in. I used the “Fine Art process” preset, which increases local contrast and brings out small details. I wanted to preserve the noise pattern, because I thought it looked like the surface of a watercolour paper.

The photo of the signal light in the fog (below) reminded me of the Impressionists‘ paintings, so I wanted to play with it’s colours to create an image in that style. In Lightroom, I bumped up noise reduction sliders (both luminance and colour) to very high values, around 50. Of course, this results in significant loss os sharpness and detail, but just like the Impressionists, I was not concerned with these kinds of things. I also increased the saturation of the Blue, Red and Purple colour channels almost to the maximum.

January 10, 2015January 11, 2015

Value of education

Recently I heard and read many prominent entrepreneurs, such as Peter Thiel, co-founder of Pay-Pal and the author of the highly regarded book on startups “Zero to One” or Richard Branson, expressing very critical views of traditional, academic education. Thiel has completed both college and law school, while Branson never went to college, so the view seems to be relatively independent of their personal background. And of course, it is not just these two famous people, who believe that the conventional education is deeply flawed and, in a nutshell, one should take responsibility for his/her own learning. This view is so popular, that sometimes after seeing various infographics online, it seems that dropping out of school is requirement for success.

I think that this certainly applies to someone, who wants to become a photographer nowadays. The technology and the whole paradigm of content creation and production are developing so fast, that I cannot see how a school curriculum can truly keep up with it. Beside, there is a vast amount of resources available online and in print, so one only needs to be willing to learn.

Having said that, I see a huge benefit in formal education. Taking the example of photography, I think it would be of great benefit for a future professional to take formal classes in communications and business, not to mention fine art.

While Peter Thiel appears not to hold learning for the sake of learning in high regard, I believe that learning how to learn (note the difference) is very valuable. From the historical perspective, brilliant individuals like Thiel, Branson or Musk would always exist. They become personally successful and make great contributions to society. However, this kind of brilliance of a few individuals is different from the intellectual and creative potential of a sizeable slice of the population – people, who accumulated this capacity through receiving the highest possible education, often over multiple generations (i.e. children benefitting from the education received by parents). No doubt, maintaining the highest level of education for a large part of the population is very expensive for society. This is partly because this kind of educational system is more or less equally open to a wide range of individuals. Of course, one could argue that the higher education is very competitive, but the system certainly serves not just the highly capable and motivated people like Thiel or Musk. As Tolstoy’s character from “Anna Karenina” Konstantin Levin said about multiple generations of educated aristocrats, “talent and intellect, of course is another matter.” Perhaps, education is valuable precisely because the society benefits from it, even in an indirect way, even if an individual, who receives the education, doesn’t realize that he/she needs it.

January 9, 2015January 9, 2015

Limiting choices

I wrote earlier about the value of imposing certain obstacles, overcoming which help develop photographic skills and, generally, a keener sense of the process at hand. This approach is similar to an artist’s using a limited palette of colors to show the essence of an originally multi-color scene.

Having fewer choices has other important benefits, as Tim Ferris explained in his hugely popular “The 4-Hour Workweek.” I believe it was he, who coined the term “choice-limited lifestyle.” The key concept here is that attention, i.e. ability to focus on something, is a limited commodity, which is required not only for getting things done, but also for appreciating the present moment (e.g. food, music, works of art, company of other people). Making decisions, even good ones, effectively consumes attention, which becomes unavailable for future decisions during the rest of the day (or until some recovery has taken place and the attention budget is restored). Hence, there is a dilemma of making the best decision, but likely being dissatisfied after having invested a lot of attention into it, or making a sub-optimal decision, but never having to second-guess it.

This is a long preamble, but I believe the principle of choice-limiting directly applies to photography. Modern cameras, from entry level (e.g. Canon EOS Rebel T5) to top-of-the-line ones (e.g. Canon EOS-1D X), offer virtually unlimited number of combinations of shooting modes and settings. Rather than spending time, for example, trying to decide on the ideal priority between releasing the shutter and obtaining focus, which can potentially lead to missing the shot altogether, it is better to determine, through systematic experimentation, which few combinations of settings work reasonably well in typical situations, programming them as custom functions, and then focus on shooting. Likewise, in post-processing, it is important to stop tweaking the adjustments of a particular photo and move on to another one. After a certain point, spending more time working on a photo, debating various possibilities for improving it further, will make the whole process progressively less satisfying.

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