capability

My arts require tools.  And fussing over tools makes their users neurotic.  It’s almost amazing to me how photographers will nerd on about tiny differences in lenses, or guitarists will argue endlessly over which boutique copy of a Tube Screamer is best.  And to some extent, these tiny, almost unquantifiable details are important – I firmly believe that humans can often sense things they can’t measure (actually, the delusion that “If I can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist” is one of my biggest pet peeves when dealing with the junction of technology and aesthetics).

But that’s not what I set out to talk about.  I wanted to talk about capability.  If our tools cannot do the minimum required for a given task, then we can’t do the task, period.  For example, I do a lot of low-light photography.  If I don’t have a lens of sufficiently large aperture and a camera/film of sufficiently high sensitivity, I simply cannot take the photos I want to take. 

For some time now, I’ve stuggled with a limitation in my recording studio.  I could only record two tracks at a time.  Now, through clever reuse of stuff I had combined with spending a bit of money I couldn’t really afford, I can record four tracks at a time.  That’s a new capability.  It means I can do more “live” recording of small groups with close miking, and balance instruments afterward in the mix.  It’s a nice improvement, and I hope to take advantage of it this week.

Changing our capabilities, as opposed to refining our existing tools, is something artists should consider more.

organizing

I spent much of the day sunday cleaning up my studio.  It was a mess, junk all over the place, no places for things.  I also spent some time reorganizing some music software, and spent some time over the past couple of weeks organizing photos.

As a media artist (photos, recorded music), there are two key points where organization matters.  First, there’s the organization of tools, so I can create easily when inspiration strikes, rather than looking around for the instrument or camera or sofware I need in order to create. Second, there’s organization of the products of my work, the media I produce.  That includes both final products and works in progress.  And since it’s mostly software at this point, I need to concern myself with backups, long-term software compatibility, and other annoying technical issues.

Aside from these, there’s environmental organization – making sure I have a pleasant and effective place to work.  And there’s schedule organization, so I have time to work.

And then there’s organizing the mind, getting ideas in order so I can produce and improve my craft deliberately.  I need to meditate more.

the fine line

A while back, I made an off-the-cuff remark on a software development mailing list… I said that most software hovers near the line between barely works and almost works. I’d like to expand on that a bit.

Much has been made about the sorry state of software quality, and smart professionals wonder why so much software just plain sucks. This question is often answered by the idea that Technology X (whatever X is) will finally result in improved software quality – whether it’s object-oriented programming, agile development, Ruby on Rails, whatever. But honestly, I don’t think software will ever get significantly above that almost/barely line.

Why? Because advances in computing power and software development tools have allowed software to become more complex. And given more resources, developers (and their customers) will choose complexity over quality. They will choose more feature and new capabilities over stability and elegance. It’s easier to let a software project degenerate into a Big Ball of Mud and then rewrite it from scratch in a few years than it is to design quality from the start.

And the complexity of modern software is amazing by the standards of, say, ten or twenty years ago.  Imagine, say, convenient libraries for handling virtually any kind of graphics file over a standardized connection protocol.  That would have been wizardry in the 1980s, but it’s something kids can knock off in Javascript today.  And did I mention the native multithreading support?  A lot of complexity gets hidden.

Occasionally, a lucky bit of software will reach its complexity limits without being obsoleted by something cooler, and then can be refined for quality.   A lot of Unix shell tools are like that, and the Open Source versions are quite lovely.  But when do we reach that limit of functionality and start going for quality, finally?  And will it happen to really large systems, like operating systems, languages, or web browsers?

And will it matter?  Ultimately, most software is designed to solve relatively small, unique problems, and is subject to the whole quality limit.

Bah.  I need to finish this for now and rewrite later.

Not the marrying kind

Here’s a track by Navigation Without Numbers, a sadly short-lived music project with my friend Jamie Jean Maertens. Jamie is a songwriter of marvelous clarity and directness. The chorus is simply, “I guess your mama was right about me all along”, repeated twice… a really profound statement of hindsight and regret.

I played the steel guitar part on a $50 Artisan lap steel, just weeks after getting the instrument and starting to learn it.  The engineers did a marvelous job capturing the sound.  In hindsight, I could now play something technically more complex, but I don’t know if I could play anything more musical or appropriate for the song.

Likewise, Jamie’s acoustic guitar part is a lovely example of unintentional simplicity.  She’s a very functional guitarist – she plays because she needs to play in order to write and play songs, not for the sake of the guitar itself.  Technically, I’m a “better” guitarist, but I can’t play this song the way she does to save my life.  The whole guitar part is the result of her limitations as a player, from the simple fingerpicking to the “cowboy F chord”. But as a whole, it doesn’t sound unskilled – just clean and simple. 

Remain in Light

Photographs are a way of capturing light.  Good photographs are often due in part to good lighting.  Conversely, poor lighting can undermine or even ruin an otherwise good photo. Now, I’ve developed a reputation as a pretty good photographer among friends and co-workers.  Unfortunately, they think this means I can just take pictures whenever/wherever I want and get good results.

The “wherever” generally includes places like windowless interior rooms lit only by cheap flourescent tubes, bright sunlight, randomly changing stage lighting, and other extremely difficult conditions.  In such a situation, lighting is often the enemy. Color casts, too much contrast, not enough contrast, not enough light period, and other difficulties can make it difficult to capture good images. It’s hard to make things look good when the light makes them look bad. Worse, cameras see things (like color casts) that our eyes and brain ignore.

At a recent wedding, I got a number of nicely lit images in dappled shade, despite a harsh afternoon sun.  Some people were surprised I was using flash outdoors, especially when I’m notorious for not using flash at all (fill flash is your friend!).  But worst of all, I saw a couple bring their children out of the shade and into the nice, bright sunlight to get photos with their little point and shoot.  I considered telling them that they should do that in the shade, but just felt too embarrassed by the whole thing.  I don’t know whether I did the right thing or not, but I think it’s safe to say that they did NOT get the best possible photos of their children.

Later, at the same wedding, I took a photo I rather liked of three men together.  They were relaxed, laughing, and blissfully unaware they were about to get photographed.  The photo is charming and marred with severe technical problems (including a sensor reflection from a bright window in the background). They didn’t like it, and then asked me to take another, dutifully posing in the stiff, self-conscious way that people get when they’re about to get their picture taken.  I didn’t like those photos at all.

I suppose the problem here is social rather than technical.  How does one explain, with a minimum of awkwardness all around, how to take good photos?  How do we tell other photographers what to do, or tell people who want photos taken that their ideas won’t look good?

looks

I recently saw The Bourne Ultimatum, and was inspired by its brilliant cinematography.  I don’t think there’s a single steadycam shot in the entire film… it’s all handheld cameras, shallow focus, grainy and shaky.  I realized that I try to capture a very similar look with still photography.  Unfortunately, much of that sense of life and motion in the film comes from being a moving picture… it’s difficult to duplicate that effect with stills.

But I try.

newfound freedom in the Kingdom of Thud

I play drums in Felahi, a Middle Eastern dance music group.  Middle eastern music is largely drum-driven, so everyone in the band is a drummer, although a couple of us occasionally play melodic instruments as well.  The sound of the music is defined in part by contrasting timbres among various drums.  I mostly play “bass” drums… either a large Turkish-style doumbek, or a large frame drum played with bare hands in the Glen Velez style.  The strong doum sounds and soft, muted teks on those drums put me in the timekeeper role, playing simple parts that are then decorated by sharper-sounding, higher pitched instruments.

Charlie, the bandleader, just got a “dhola”, which is basically an oversized Egyptian-style doumbek.  Although it has the sharp sound and bright teks of a regular Egyptian doumbek, it is louder and has a much more powerful doum.  This drum has liberated me!  Rather than being stuck playing all the doum sounds that define the rhythm, I can play higher, faster “lead” parts on my Turkish doumbek, while Charlie plays the bassline on the dhola.  And we can alternate, so he plays lead while I hold down the rhythm.  The soft, round tone of the Turkish drum contrasts nicely with the sharp sound of the dhola.  The combination gives us much more flexibility to improvise and decorate the rhythms.

And my inner electric guitarist is happy to play “lead” some more, too.

missed opportunities

Last night, I went to the Minnesota State Fair.  This would have been an excellent opportunity for some street photography.  But I was taking my son and his friend to see a Weird Al Yankovic concert, and didn’t think I’d be allowed to bring a DSLR inside. 

If I’d been thinking, though, I could have brought my little Fuji F20 camera along and slipped it into a pocket – maybe not useful for capturing the concert (not that my short DSLR lenses would be any better), but good for capturing the sights and people of the Fair.  I should probably figure out where the heck I put that little camera…

The simple fact is, if you don’t have a camera with you, you can’t take a picture when the inspiration comes along. On the other hand, I didn’t see anything that made me think, “Wow, I wish I had a camera right now!”  Would I have looked at the Fair more critically, with more awareness, if I’d brought a camera along?  Or was the lack of a camera actually liberating, freeing me from the distraction of looking for a photo to take?

In the end, I did take a few pictures of the fireworks with my cell phone, but I didn’t really feel moved when taking them, and the results don’t move me either. I shouldn’t take photos just because I feel I should take photos. That way lies junk.

street photography, voyeurism, and walls

While idly surfing about the ‘net, I ran across a conversation about whether to use a Nikon 85mm or a 80-200mm zoom for “street photography”.  Many users argued for the long zoom, a position I find more than a little disturbing.  I have a number of problems with it.

First, I am somewhat of a traditionalist.  To me, “street photography” means something in the style of Henri Cartier-Bresson – not so much the subject matter as the sense of intimacy and immediacy. Cartier-Bresson used a Leica with a 50mm lens (still the classic “street photography” rig), which has implications. First, it meant he had to get in close to his subjects to capture detail and motion. Second, he captured a lot of the surroundings as well as the people – and the surroundings provided context, and often meaning to his photos.

Long lenses like the 85mm (127mm equivalent on a modern Nikon DSLR) and the really long zooms have two effects – first, they isolate the subject from its surroundings.  Second, they allow (even require) the photographer to shoot from longer distances.  The first effect is a largely aesthetic problem for me – for “street photography”, I want to see context.  Without context, it’s just portraiture.

The second effect is where I start feeling really uncomfortable. Long lenses give the photographer the opportunity to take photos without the subject being aware, or having a chance to be aware, or even having a chance to interact with the photographer if notice is taken.  This crosses into voyeurism.  It’s an intrusion, and related to theft.  This also ties into the isolation of the subject from the environmental context, and frankly, the subject itself – far too many long-lens “street” photographers are just snapping photos of pretty girls.  The physical beauty alone provides the meaning as well as the subject.

Of course, Cartier-Bresson was a furtive, secretive photographer as well.  If permission and intrusion is the question, we won’t get a good answer from the father of the style.  But I think this leads to another issue I have – the wall.  When taking photographs, the camera acts as a wall between the photographer and the subject.  A small camera such as a Leica is a small wall.  But a big cannon-sized lens like an 80-200mm zoom is a BIG wall.  I think this has psychological relevance for both the subject and the photographer.

Additionally, a really large camera/lens combination starts to dominate the photographer’s senses. It’s heavy and bulky and needy. It gets in the way of involvement with the surroundings, with people and things.  A small camera can hang unobtrusively, or even be pocketed, allowing the photographer to participate fully in the scene being photographed.

It’s hard for me to say where I’m going with all this.  Ultimately, I think long, large lenses contribute to an unhealthy, uninvolved relationship between the photographer and the subject, and between the photographer and the world.  At worst, this can lead to morally questionable photographs. And politically, it also contributes to the sense of surveillance and the lack of privacy in our modern world.

Once again, I need to contemplate this idea more, and maybe revisit the subject in the future.

Time, resources, scope, quality

This is an idea I originally encountered in Extreme Programming Explained, by Kent Beck.  They are the four factors governing software development, but really, they apply to many other art forms. Time is the amount of time available for a project. Resources is time and skill creators have, tools, etc. Scope is the amount of work to be done. Quality is the quality of the work.

In practice, the key factors are time, resources, and scope. Two will be controlled, and the third uncontrolled. If the time and resources for a project are fixed, the possible scope is governed by them. If resources and scope are fixed, the time varies, and so forth.

Quality is a special factor – work quality can be sacrificed for short-term gains in the other three, but over the course of a long-running project, sacrificed quality will eventually affect the other three factors as well. In general, it is foolish to sacrifice quality for other gains.

Many project management problems boil down to trying to control all three key factors simultaneously – you will get this much work done, in this much time, with these resources – “stone knives and bearskins”, as Spock once put it.  Because this sort of obsessive control usually arises from a semi-conscious awareness of failure, such projects are doomed, either to outright failure, or partial success, as measured by whomever cares.