you have taken yourself too seriously

You have taken yourself too seriously. That’s one of the phrases I live by.  WHATEVER the issue, whatever the matter at hand, I’m taking myself too seriously, and so is everyone else.

Seriously.

G.A.S.

One thing the music and photography hobbies have in common… Gear Acquisition Syndrome, aka G.A.S. (sometimes known as Guitar Acquisition Syndrome in music circles, but it means the same thing). It’s also a verb… for example, right now I’m GASing for a ribbon microphone. I don’t really NEED a ribbon mic. It’d be nice, but there are things I need more. But it’s G.A.S.  Meanwhile, I’m having minor GAS for a prism focusing screen with grid lines for my Nikon D40.  I’ll probably sate that with a $25 Chinese Ebay prism screen, rather than springing $95 for a custom one with grid lines.  It’d actually be useful to have 35mm-style manual focus support, considering the shortage of affordable AF lenses for the D40 and the many exciting used MF lenses for those of us who aren’t afraid to do our own metering.

The online communities for the photo and music hobbies are basically just big GAS parties, and the magazines are worse. It’s very seductive, the temptation to think that next lens or a new guitar will solve your artistic insecurity.

not enough ninjas

I originally set out to write a blog with a fair bit of Zen content along with commentary on photography, music, and aesthetics.  So, does the lack of Zen content mean I’m failing, or that I’m succeeding?

fighting your tools

Ig on the IG BLOG wrote about how you gotta fight your guitar a little.  I generally concur, but I think the idea extends to other tools as well… I like my cameras to fight me a little as well.  But it’s not just that I want my guitars/cameras to fight… I want them to fight me in useful ways, in ways that make me a better musician or a better photographer.  I don’t want just any old thing to be harder.  For example, if my Telecaster isn’t set up just right, it frets out on bends above the twelveth fret.  I HATE that.  It limits me, as opposed to fighting me.  On the other hand, I like using a manual focus lens on my autofocus camera.  It fights me, but it makes me more conscious of what I’m doing.

That’s the advantage of a guitar that “fights” you, I think… it keeps you focused and concentrating, and not just doing something too effortlessly.

protective camouflage

I do most of my web hosting at dreamhost.com, which has worked well for me.  I can install WordPress there (and have, for extraterrestrialhighway.net).  But for daily blogging purposes, I stay here.  Why? 

Well, here I get the benefit of a large community to protect me from “predators”… spammers and site hackers.  I don’t have to worry about the security stuff as much here, because the WordPress.com community has much more interest in keeping that stuff away than I do.  I could go for days without checking one of my other websites.  It could get defaced or used as a spambot and I’d never know it.  For that matter, I prefer hosting services over setting up a Linux box and running my websites from home, even though I could.  Paying someone $10/mo is worth it just for the backups and security patches!

Y’know, given where this idea is going, the title sucks.  But it’s a cool phrase, so I think I’ll keep it.

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.

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?

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.

Reluctance

I often do not do things that are clearly good for me. I fell out of the habit of zazen (although I’m trying to get back), I stopped taking vitamins, I rarely exercise, my practice routines on various instruments are hardly “routines” at all, and I do little to control my insomnia. Why is that? Why do I resist doing even things that would require very little effort?

This is true of all of us, I think. Procrastination, for example, is just a subset of reluctance.

I suspect the root of it all is fear. Fear often expresses itself in senseless, even counterproductive ways. I need to think about this some more.