Author / CameraTheoretica

Unknown's avatar

Posts by CameraTheoretica

Traveler. Photographer. Discoverer. Dreamer. Restless. Average. Happy. Son. Brother. Father. Husband. Foodie.
by CameraTheoretica

Absence

I have been gone for a while. Nothing significant. Just away. In a way, it was an attempt to take a break from myself, from all those “need to do’s” so I could concentrate on those undervalued “want to do’s.” In my mind I would like to believe that my momentary act of disappearance had something to do with a higher calling, with some need to recharge from the stress of everyday life, or perhaps some other similarly noble explanation. Sadly, this is not the case. I’m afraid that my reasons are a bit less romantic, but not necessarily less compelling. Simply put, I went away in search of the emotion of experiencing something new, a zen-like detour, if you will, from all that was familiar and known to me. Sort of a self-imposed mandate to try to revive those feelings of wonder that had been unconsciously put on a shelf by the ordinary mechanics living a happy, yet familiar life. I just had to go away without really going anywhere.

Mind you, this journey in place had nothing to do with any sense of gloominess or sorrow. Not at all. I am actrually quite happy with my life and have not experienced any hardship that I can think of. But like a vessel in cruise control, steady and happy as you go doesn’t always equate to exciting and new. And while the virtues of a steady, change-averse existence are nouirishment to some, for restless mortals like me, they never lead to the same happy place. You could say that I became terribly uncomfortable with comfort, and without any particular trigger to jolt me out of my glorious stupor, I suddendly realized that it was time to get off the steady ship in order to seek the discomfort, fear, and emotional desperation that rattles my nerves, and which like gasoline, add fuel to the remaining embers of a fire that once lighted the universe. It was simply time to pause what I had become in order to take inventory. Absence, or perhaps more accurately speaking, lack of public presence was my chosen antidote.

But if some nobel revelation is what you are expecting at the end of this self-imposed disappearance, then I’m afraid that I’m about to disappoint you. I didn’t discover any new universes, or invented anything new during this time. What I experienced was the simple joy of confering some life to the many neglects of my life: learning another language, Japanese cooking, Zen philosophy, literary classics, travel narratives, meditation, long walks, destination-fee photogarphic wanderings, and reconecting with friends. I simply did my best to exorcize the internal, never-ending forces starving for some sort of accomplishment-based recognition. You probably know the kind: the relentless forces constantly pulling us towards social media, people, and endless dreams of achieving more than the limits that our own individual talents would allow. These forces, as powerful as they can be if left unsupervised, can easily canivalize the subtle, undervalued elements of the carefree existence where life finds its bliss. Achieving, for me, had simply become a poor substitute for the absence of need. It was time to let go.

Enter the simple life. Nothing too exciting to captivate the public, though. Rather, I’m referring to the kind of life that seeks solace in simple, everyday existence, and sometimes, in the underrated joy of simply doing nothing. And like the doctor in Captain Correlli’s Mandolin lovingly pointing out to his beloved daughter about the meaning of being in love, “It doesn’t sound too exciting, but it is.” Waking up every morning not by the screaching sound of a heartless alarm, but rather by the soft light of a morning sun. Completely improvising the events of another day, where nothing was scripted and therefore everything becoming a revelation. Measuring the arrival of spring not by the cruel reality of a calendar, but rather by the mesmerizing white petals of the cherry blossoms along the river. And who knew that there could be so many shades of green sorrounding our every day, adorning the complex personalities of our majestic trees. I befriended a local construction worker controlling traffic near my house who had injured his arm while lifting bags of cement, and discovered a few days later that he was feeling better and that the pain had subsided. And who knew that my local Costco store was full of endless stories from immigrants whose lives were full of hardships, joys, adventure, and love. A human keleidoscope as humbling as it was inspiring. The stories where always there, but they only became visible when I took the time to stop, and notice.

At the end of this absence, you could say that I have traveled very far, but without ever going anywhere. This self-imposed detour took me to a very familiar place that I had been neglecting for too long in the pursuit of some undefined, ephemeral existence. I went away to a world hidden in plain sight. A world where I could feel that elusive inner peace that is only possible when we embrace the unconventional as the new normal. In the process, I came to realize that some amazing things happen when we give up the race. Yes, that race that was so exciting and rewarding for so many years, but which now seems to be the stuff of a different place and a different time. So here I am, now taking the low, slow road, and loving every minute of it.

by CameraTheoretica

Time And Creativity

Is age creativity’s biggest enemy? I have often wondered about this, but it was not until I read a recent article highlighting the brutal fact that most of the world’s greatest creative minds were in their 20’s and 30’s, that my self-doubt went through the roof. For those of us who have flown past those golden years too long ago, such pronouncements hit home with the subtle finesse of a baseball bat. Are we older folks doomed to creative oblivion? Perhaps longevity is not as much of a virtue as we thought it was, but be that as it may, we the forgone should not take this creative excommunication without a fight. We must do so even when accepting the fact that even the best of wines have their peaks and their valleys. In that unpredictable fluctuation between glory and decay, there is no arguing that some of these wines whose lives have been spent in dark, dusty cellars, do show glorious development with time. Who would have known, longevity challenging youth after all.

However, this is not to say that time, that most endangered depleted resource in the world, has been rendered irrelevant. Not by a long shot. In fact, time is always a factor, but perhaps in a more complex way than what the creativity doomsayers would have us believe. Time, in all its hurried glory, is both oasis and desert. Youth enjoys it in abundance, but at the expense of experience; age starves you of it, while overfeeding you with experience. Both realities fertile grounds for blooming creativity, provided one has not given up on the process. And while we could conclude that creativity, in its most absolute form, may not be age dependent, we may have to concede that the willingness to create, that complex blend of passion, opportunity, and industry, may have something to do with age. The passage of time may never diminish our ability to imagine, but it does take its toll on our ability to realize.

So, what must we do to dispel that notion that creativity only belongs to the young? The answer (or at least part of it) may lie in our ability to divest ourselves of distractions, or of what some pundits have dubbed “friction” impeding the creative process. Voices telling us that we are past our prime. Friction. Listening to people’s judgments. Friction. Thinking that we are incapable of doing something. Friction. Expecting recognition. Friction. Talking ourselves out of new ventures. Friction. And above all, not believing in ourselves. Major friction. All of these diversions, and many others, are the weight that keeps holding us back. They weight all of us down with the insensitive cruelty of a maritime storm. Time, while rewarding us with experience, also fills our plate with the accumulated aftereffects of past passions and responsibilities. It certainly doesn’t make matters any easier.

But the wisdom that comes with time may prove to be the great antidote with which to treat the statistical diminution of our creative lives. That wisdom is the key to distinguishing between the important and the superfluous in our daily lives. More than that, it gives us a compass by which to better navigate between the futile and the possible. Like the steering of a major cruise ship, experience tells us at what point to begin to turn the wheel to avoid being too late to be able to dock successfully downstream. Wait too long and failure is inevitable. Start too early and achieve the same results. Such is the case of the creative life. At some point in everyone’s life, it is too late to achieve some things, but sufficiently early enough to achieve others. With some hope, it is the wisdom of the years that will help us realize where that invisible line of demarcation lie between these two time-consuming, warring foes. By all measures, it is a gut-wrenching decision, so choosing wisely on where to apply the famous “Curly’s Law” from the movie City Slickers will make all the difference.

by CameraTheoretica

Hidden Stories

They are everywhere. Hidden, ignored stories that pass us by just as fast as the hours of our lives. What’s amazing is how easy it is to ignore them, or plainly, not see them. They hide in plain sight behind counters at the deli, behind the brisk steps of someone in a hurry, or by the side of the street as rubbish. All of them as important as our own, but just as ignored. Perhaps the result of a world in constant motion that has little time for the individual. We are all passing by, in a sense, deprived of the time and patience that these stories demand if they are ever going to be told. And while this observation is more descriptive than judgmental of the lives we live, it nevertheless identifies a gap in our modern way of living. We look, but we don’t see; we care, but we ignore it. Se la vie, I’m told, but I keep having a problem accepting the neglect.

Arguably, photography can play a role in filling that gap, but to a point. As much as we would like to describe photography as story-telling, the inherent limitations of those frozen moments sometimes make for better portals than history. Rarely do photos tell you about the events that led to that frozen millisecond, or what came after. In some respect, that’s understandable in a world in constant fluidity. Whatever the case, the before and after create vacuums of their own which only our imagination can fill in most circumstances. An object on the street was placed there by someone, but what sort of person would do that? A woman stares at a man descending an escalator, but what must she be thinking? On and on those visual gaps demand to be filled, and on and on we oblige with our imaginations.

That is why we, and I do mean all of us, are proverbial story tellers. We never stop filling in the blanks, faithfully accompanied by our imaginations. We are tireless messengers of life’s narratives, choreographers of the most intricate amalgamations of fact and fiction. Those intractable unknowns lurking in those vacuums leave us no choice. And say what you may, this unconscious byproduct of our less-than-perfect humanity makes for some wonderful stories.

So go on and tell us a story. Add the drama, or the reasons why, make it rain if you have to, tell us about love, about sorrow, and all the facts and feelings in between. What color was it? It doesn’t matter. What did she mean, where did he go? How long was a long time ago? Tell us what moved you, about regrets and tears, about joy and happiness, for we want to know it all. But whatever you do, don’t ever hold back from telling us a story, for we want to hear it. No, more than that, we need to hear it, for in its absence, we will only discover that we have lost all our humanity. And that would be the worst story of them all.

by CameraTheoretica

On Labels

Few professions struggle so ardently in defining themselves as photographers. In historical terms, this identity struggle is relatively new, fiercely manifesting itself only within the last generation or so, when the lines between professionals and hobbyists were dramatically blurred by the digital revolution. As a result of this technological change, the clearly identifiable professional photographer of yesteryear now had to contend with the hordes of talented (and not so talented) amateurs infringing on their business and creative territories. Like an infestation, these newcomers became a nuisance that rocked the existing balance in the profession, not to mention its financial wellbeing. It was a shock to the established system, but not quite a mortal blow. Its primary effect was a democratization of the tools of creation and publishing, and while arguably not as dramatic as the creation of the printing press, it came darn close to it in terms of its impact on society and the distribution of knowledge and artistic expression.

Caught somewhat by surprise in this new world, the professional photography establishment found itself not only threatened, but having to mount an aggressive defense to reduce the financial impact on its profession. Initially, defenses revolved around the traditional distinction that to be a professional photographer, you would have to draw most, if not all, of your income from the sale photographs. This common model had somewhat of a short life, namely because as more professionals began diversifying into teaching, commentary, or writing out of financial necessity, the income being derived from actual image sales began to take a backseat to these shifting priorities. The appearance in the market of the so-called “weekend professional” didn’t help matters either. These weekend professionals, who’s market-entry cost and financial risk was minimal, spent the week working at more pecuniary rewarding careers than that of being a starting photographer in a crowded market. Monetary considerations being less of a worry for these new entrants, their growing participation in the shrinking market began having a deleterious effect on the industry as a whole. As their impact became more pronounced, the newcomers were becoming as welcomed by the established industry as a horde of Taliban fighters at a wedding party. Needless to say, the fight was on, and so was the business of degrading labels.

As the argument of money from prints fell short as a label with which to distinguish between professionals and amateurs, something else would have to take its place. In came the quality argument. This argument revolved around the notion that professionals just produce more “consistent” good work than non-professionals. After all, who would risk their marketing campaign, or wedding memories for that matter, to these one-time wonders? Without a doubt, this was a much better argument, as everyone could relate to the “practice makes perfect” viewpoint. The notion that anyone would turn to other than a seasoned professional for their photographic needs was inconceivable. But the biggest flaw in this line of reasoning was that it ignored the other forces at work in the consumer’s mind of the 21st Century, where technical perfection had receded dramatically in the consumer’s priority list. Content, even if grainy and less than perfect, became not only acceptable, but trendy at that. The dormant, hidden talent of the masses was suddenly catapulted into the limelight, and at a lower cost. The clinical perfection argument was weakened as a result, while the notion of content, regardless of its imperfections, catapulted to the forefront of popular culture. As attitude shifted, so did the money, forcing dramatic changes on the photographic business.

But if traditional labels were not doing the work, what would? The answer would appear to reside in that old purveyor of all that is new: the future. By transforming the seemingly negative effect of modernity from a liability into an asset, a more compelling defense of their financial and market turf was mounted by industrious photographers. The concept of photographers as mere picture takers began to give way to a more holistic approach to the kind of services (i.e., value) a professional photographer would bring to the table. A new spirit of entrepreneurship rooted on the emerging technologies of today (drones, internet, video, sound, storytelling, and rapid customer care) became necessary. As technology and customer expectations continued their relentless progress, the adoption of a “multimedia entrepreneurship” approach has become the new line of demarcation between the professionals and the rest of us want-a-be’s. Such transformation appears to be an imperative for most photographers contemplating a future in today’s market. After all, that hungry twenty-something with an mobile phone out there, capable of shooting video, stills, time-lapses, slow motions, etc., while immediately processing the content using computational technology and distribution tools is not going away any time soon.

So perhaps simple labels don’t work as well as some people thought. In this crowded world of photography as a service, the price of providing these services will still be higher than what the “good enough” photographic community can provide. These newcomers don’t depend as much as they do for such things like 401K retirement plans or discretionary photographic income. And no matter how good your work is, the old cost/benefit equation will continue to be alive and well undermining any attempt at differentiations based purely on labels. The trick will be finding the proverbial sweet spot somewhere beyond the reach of the amateur competition. This may entail saying goodby to that low-hanging fruit that fed the photographic industry for so long, but that may not be as bad as it sounds, for as many photographers who have moved up with the times have found, that unperturbed fruit sitting at the top branches may be a lot sweeter than the picked one below.

by CameraTheoretica

The Table

Photographers have all sorts of fascinations. In terms of sheer volume, it is a well-known fact that photographs of cats are the most prevalent in the majority of non-stock photo sites out there. Hard to figure out why this is the case, but it appears that it has something to do with photographers wanting to test the sharpness of their lenses. Nevertheless, n all my years as a roaming photographer, I have yet to take a photo of a cat. Just don’t find the little critters that fascinating. But before anyone accuses me of verbal cruelty, I will put everyone’s mind at rest by saying that it is not the cats that are the issue here, it is me. I’m just not interested.

The simple reason for this less than fascination with such subjects is that I happen to find some other subjects more to my liking. In fact, I kind of lean to a fascination with some more inanimate object and the people around them. Of particular interest to me is an object that is found all around the world, but in vastly different shapes and forms, not to mention ever-changing settings. I’m referring to the somewhat insignificant table, or to be a bit more precise, to tables in coffee shops that for whatever reason, ooze character and charm. People talk about them all the time, but no matter how often I hear these tales, they still fascinate me as if I were there myself at the scene. Those small table by the window overlooking a river, tables on the sides of cobblestone streets, or corner tables in old-world coffee shops, they all intrigue me. As a photographer, I can’t get enough of these descriptive tales, or enough opportunities to look for them.

My fascination emanates from the notion that great things are created at those tables. At least I want to think so. In my mind, they are the places where emerging writers compose some of their most creative stories, places where lovers build or destroy their love stories, and were simple moments of meditative dreaming transport the likes of you and I into another world. In old-world coffee shops around the world, these glorious events take place accompanied by the sweet music of ceramic cups banging agains each other, by the steamy infusion of hot steam over the dark elixir which makes coffee shops so popular, and by the humming cacophony of voices emanating from a myriad of undistinguishable conversations. It is rhythmic noise masquerading sweet silence. A silence as succinct as a passing breeze, and one that can only be captured forever by a photograph.

Sadly, such scenes are becoming rarer and rarer these days in the developed world, and we must travel deeper to find them. More than ever, the romantic sounds of old-world coffee shops are being replaced by noiseless paper cups, loud rock music, patrons in workout clothes, and super-automatic coffeemakers generating industrial sounds reminiscent of small factory shops. The so-called ambiance that gave rise to the coffeeshop movements in the first place is gradually giving ground to something much different, and arguably a bit less attractive. Conflicting, and asynchronous sounds, seem to compete with one another, as if in an orchestra that is struggling to find the same tune, or is incapable to do so. Whatever the case, there is no denying that the photographers that so commonly found those unique scenes in such places, click a lot less these days. One scarcity has led to the other.

But while diminished, those table scenes have not disappeared entirely. The problem is that generally speaking, we must travel farther to find them, or at the very least, dig deeper to find them. These “mood” coffeeshop tables do appear to be a lot more prevalent in the old-world establishments, and these are a lot harder to find these days. Too much nostalgia or fantasy? Perhaps, but that feeling of walking into a place and finding the “perfect table” waiting for us, is one that most people can’t get enough of. Everything else is but a poor substitute, a deflating compromise that feels like a brute denial, even if it is not. We know the table, the one that would make the perfect photo, the one that everyone wants, and the one that should be waiting for us as the perfect backdrop for that classic photograph. My last experience with such a table occurred more than four thousand miles away, and I can’t wait to see it again.