This is a self-enrichment article on photography. As I believe that all of you have a fundamental knowledge of photography, I will choose to bypass the basics and proceed straight to the analysis of photos.  I will primarily be focusing on portraiture photography.

In addition, although the technicalities of photography are deemed to be crucial to most professional photographers, I will like to prioritise the factor of composition (Please click here for a brief introduction to composition) over the rest (such as ISO speed, aperture settings, shutter speed etc) for two primary reasons, the first of which is the fact that you will probably be bored and dozing off by the time I am done with all the technicalities.

The other reason lies in the aspect of your roles and responsibilities. Being a writer, you are responsible for your reader’s understanding of the articles that you are writing. As such, the element of composition is crucial to achieving this objective. All other elements and technicalities are secondary.  In fact, in a real-life scenario, photographers – especially news photographers – usually do not have sufficient time to control and/or adjust the technical aspects of their camera since they are often caught in the heat of the action. What’s left is often merely the art of placing all essential elements in the photo in a manner comprehensible to their readers (i.e. composition). And this is often a split-second decision. You will probably face the same scenario in most instances, such as taking photos of singers on stage where every moment counts.

However, I am not sidelining the technicalities of photography but merely putting them aside for now. Should you have any enquiries in these areas, do feel free to email me about it.

Now, let’s get back to the analysis of photos with emphasis on the composition and in a way, the photographers’ storytelling skills. I will like to begin the analysis of photos with two photos, as follows:

• Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother” (Please click here for the image): This image probably evokes nurturing feelings in us. Society has often regarded males as the protector and provider of the family. However, this photograph has only included a mature lady and two children huddled close to her, thus leaving the possibility of the existence of a husband (or a family provider) open to interpretation. Viewers are only left with the individuals in the photos to work out their interpretations. From the clothing of the individuals in the photo, they seem to be impoverished. The wrinkled and dry skin on the mature lady’s face seems to reinforce this. Both the children have turned their faces away from the camera, thus the viewers are almost compelled to focus their attention on the lady’s facial expression, which speaks of desperation and of loss.  From a metaphorical perspective, the fact that the children are facing away from the lady seems to imply their reliance on her and the fact that she is looking ahead reflects her determination and acceptance of life. 

As the readers’ eyes scan the photo, their eyes will probably fall on a sleeping infant on her lap. So, there are three children and not two! Feelings of empathy will probably increase at this point.  It’s interesting that as photographers, we are able to spring some surprises on our viewers as well. As to the ways that you are able to achieve this, it’s up to your creativity.

• Giuseppe Pasquali’s “2 singles 3 couples” (Click on the photo here):  This photo is beautiful because it uses the concept of symmetry. What’s even more beautiful about this photo is the use of not one but various layers of symmetry.  Notice how the singles and couples are seated on benches that are nicely aligned with the curve of the road. Note also the converging pattern between the curve of the road with the downward-inclined line on the wall in the photo. From a metaphorical perspective, one can interpret the two lines as the coupling of singles towards marriage. Note also the use of shadows in the photos, which also form a nice symmetry along the curve of the road. The man in the foreground along with the lady on the second bench from the left completes the picture with a touch of singlehood.  Together with the few couples that line the side of the road, the image speaks of romanticism and lifelong relationships.

For practice:

Exercise 1 (Identifying elements of interest): Try to practice taking photos and selecting those that you find appealing personally and analyse them in details. Ask yourself why do you find them so memorable and show these photos to your friends. Do they share the same sentiments?  If most of your friends like the photos as much as you do, ask them to identify the elements that make them attractive and memorable.  Do your friends share the same reasons for liking the photos as yourself? If so, you have hit on something. Save the photo and tagged a note to it with your comments on the reasons for the photo’s memorability. Use it for reference when you next embark on a trip to snap some pictures.

Exercise 2 (Observing body language of subject(s)): Now, emotions and body language are never mutually exclusive, which means that they go often go together. If a person is happy, he or she will not slouch. If a person is angry, his or her body will be not be relaxed but tense. Thus, when trying to capture the emotions of someone, we should observe their body language.  Try to increase your observation power when you next walk along the streets. Look at the people around. What are they doing? Are you able to assess their actions and what are their states of mind as they go about their lives? A strong observation power is a quality that all if not most great photographers have. And it will be good to hone this skill over time.

Exercise 3 (Anticipation):  Anticipation is another quality possessed by most photographers. This is especially so when capturing images of human portraits or even group photos. Why do we need to anticipate when capturing portraits or group photos? Because we want to capture emotions. And we want genuine emotions. Have you noticed how someone – especially those whom we do not know well- whom we want to take a shot become stern or act unnaturally when they realised that someone is taking their photos in a public event (assuming that you are an event photographer)? There are many reasons for this such as shyness or introversion or merely the fact that they feel that they are not photogenic. But let’s not digress. What we want in a portraiture photo is the person “in the moment”. That is, when they are laughing, they are really laughing. When they are deep in contemplation, they are really thinking about something. This is what makes portraits of individuals or group so powerful and memorable. Thus we need to anticipate. If a group of participants are waiting for the results in a contest and when you know that this group will be among the winners, focus your camera on them and get ready. Once they have realised that they have won, they will most probably jump with joy. This is the moment that you should capture. If you were to look at the winning entries of photojournalists, you would have realised that most of these winning entries have captured “in the moment” shots of such people or groups, usually set in historic moments. In your photo-taking journey, try to anticipate moments of people and then capture these images. If done successfully, these will be among the most beautiful images you will ever capture. Try it and see.

I understand that this is a lot of hard work but as in most things in life, success in photography comes only with constant practice and self-reflections. Now, here is something interesting: we share the same basic emotions, which is happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, joy etc. Now photos are usually a good medium to use when it comes to expressing emotions (just have a look at how global photojournalists achieve this with great effect with their photos). We can thus express our emotions through photographs and enable our viewers to see the world through our eyes. Try it and see.

Exercise 4 (Understanding details in photographs):   I will like you to take pictures with more details than what you perceive your viewers will be able to capture when they take their first look at your photos. In another words, I will like you to capture images with vivid details, such that your viewers will feel compelled to look at the image more out of necessity than by choice. It can be a photo of parents and kids playing at a carnival or merely a “densely populated” image. Try to practise taking photos that makes the viewers’ eyes linger a moment longer than expected on a photo thorough a composite shot. This will prove useful to you when you capture images during a festival where there are groups of people celebrating. This is more challenging than it sounds, so do practise often.

Exercises 5 (Use of proxemics): Now, I will like you to take some photos but instead of clamming everything together, try to select your subjects of interest that are placed far from one another. Experiment with angles and distances. Take numerous shots of your subjects of interest and see which image is the best. It will be good to note that when it comes to photography, distance is your friend. How you determine the distance depends entirely on what you want to portray in your photo.

Exercise 6: (Colour versus Black and white):  Why is it that some photographers have often chosen to display their photos in black and white? What is the distinctive feature that black and white photos have that colour photos lack?  I will like you to take some photos in black and white as well as colour. Capture the same shots so that you are able to do a comparison. What’s so special with black and white photos and under what circumstances should they be used? I will leave it to you to find out the answers but here are some clues:  observe the use of light and shadows.

Photography is an art and will always remain as an art. The only way to improve is through constant practice.

Have fun!

Throughout the years, photography and video have existed alongside each other with their own strengths. However, it seems that video is slowly replacing photos. Read the details here.

Below are some questions that you might like to ask yourself:

• How is this development going to affect my career (as a media professional)?
• How does this change affect/impact the field of journalism?
• What is the future of photojournalism?
• Will there ever be a day where one is able to work as a “videojournalist”? And how do you define the profession of “videojournalism”?
• Should video replace photo, what aspects of photojournalism will be lost?

Singapore is hosting the first Singapore International Photo Festival (SIPF), which might be of interest to you, especially for those of you who have intense interest in photography. It will subsequently be held once every two years.

The official website is as follows:

 Singapore International Photo Festival

Some details of the event that you might like to know:

• The event is from 8th October 2008 to 31st October 2008.
• The event is first of its kind in Southeast Asia.
• Its objective is to showcase the works of Southeast Asian artists alongside those of international artists at various venues in Singapore.
• The 3 main festival components are the official exhibitions, workshops and a 2-day portfolio preview session for 50 selected Southeast Asian photographers. This will be followed by a series of workshops facilitated by curators and senior photographers for 40 participants.
• You can get a copy of the festival guide by clicking here.

I believe some of you might have already heard of Tony Buzan, the man who is most commonly associated with the use of mind maps. However, what’s not really known about him is the fact that besides the renowned “mind map” technique, Tony Buzan has also introduced to us other methods of recall that is invaluable to us. I remember reading one of his books and was interested in a technique that improves our recalling abilities. I will like to call this technique the “movie” technique since it employs the use of mental moving images.

Before I discuss this technique, I will like you to have an awareness that almost all of us think visually and not linguistically. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s consider a simple example. Look at the following scenarios and think of your own experiences:

• Celebrating your birthday parties
• One of the more memorable days in your secondary school
• One memorable outing that you have with friends

Now, what comes to your mind first? Is it images or text (as in words and sentences)? I am quite sure that it’s images. It is rarely that someone recalls any incident with words in his/her mind like this: “I see many friends in my house and my mum comes out of the kitchen holding the birthday cake…” In this instance, what someone sees is almost always a flashback of the entire scene happening simultaneously in images and not linearly in words (as what we usually do when we write an article or read a book).

Knowing that our minds think and recall using images rather than words, you can put this to good use in your presentations by stringing the points that you wish to present together and turning this into a movie. Hence, I call this the “movie” technique. This is most helpful to those who present using scripts but on the whole, it is useful to all of you. However, as most of you are using presentation slides, you will not find this technique helpful as you are able to read the points from the slides. Still, I will like you to learn this technique in the event that you have to present without any slides in the workplace.

So, how do you use this “movie” technique?

Say, you have several points to present for a particular presentation, as follows:

• Respect
• Curiosity
• Understanding

Now, try to visualise a scenario for each word. For instance, you can imagine a boy facing an old lady and speaking gently to her (indicating respect). Subsequently, he notices that the old lady is holding a plastic bag in one of her hands. He points at it and asks her about the bag’s content (indicating curiosity). When the old lady chooses not to answer his question, the boy merely nods his head and stop questioning her (indicating understanding).

You can always use a different story and you can always craft a story that is in a different order (such as highlighting ”curious” first, then “respect” and then “understanding”). When it comes to this technique, flexibility and creativity is key. Try practicing this technique to remember the points in the order that you want and before you know it, I believe that you will remember the points in the order that you want. From here, you merely have to elaborate on your points and provide examples accordingly.

You can even use this technique when you need to buy a list of items. Just visualise a story linking all the items that you wish to purchase and you won’t even need to bring a shopping list. Try it and see.

Happy practising!

I believe that there are two causes of groupthink, one of which is due to the personality of specific individuals who take on leadership positions and control the direction that the team is heading. For such instances, it is difficult for any one of us to change the personality of someone. What we can do is advise these individuals on the situation and explain to them the benefits of teamwork (such as the benefits of having more interesting ideas from every teammate). If the issue persists, do inform your facilitator.

The other cause of groupthink is due to the fact that there is no member within the team that is assertive enough to find a direction. Hence, the team moves in a direction upon the first suggestion put forward by one of its members. Such cases are rare but it does happen.  When groupthink surfaces in such situations, team members can encourage each other to discuss further before deciding.

Regardless of the situation, we should avoid groupthink whenever possible.

According to psychologist Howard Gardner, there are not one but several intelligences in life. What is being assessed throughout your academic life is primarily inclined towards logical-mathematical and linguistic intelligences, which is merely two out of several intelligences. For more information, you can key in “Howard Gardner” and/or “Theory of Multiple Intelligences” into any search engines for more details.

I will like you to know that you are smarter than you think. And if you put in effort in achieving your life goals, I believe that all of you will do very well in life.

Personally, I feel that living lives with good values is important not only for leaders but every one of us. However, what are these values? I feel that they are as follows:

• Respect: I figure that I won’t have to elaborate much on this point since all of you have learnt this in your cross cultural communications for two semesters. We have discussed how important respect is when it comes to establishing rapport with others but it’s also important to note the consequences in the absence of it.  Therefore, we should make every effort to respect others as unique individuals with their own strengths and talents.
• Thriftiness: This is a value that is rapidly eroding in today’s society. This is especially so in this day and age where consumerism is becoming more prevalent. In Barry Schwartz’s book “The Paradox of Choice“, the author mentioned that we become less happy when the variety of our choices increases immensely. Therefore, it’s best we think twice about walking into a retail outlet the next time we are in a shopping complex. We should draw a distinct line between what items are “necessities” and what are “luxuries”. This is even more important in recently years where media advertising has somewhat blurred the lines between the two terms.
• Reciprocity: The tendency to reciprocate is losing its impact on society in recent years.  While we used to send season’s greeting cards to friends and anticipating a letter from our pen pal in the past, we are seeing an increased signs of societal isolation in urban society, where urbanites are inclined to listen to a music player than making an effort to talk to their friends. This observation has been given a name by psychologist Daniel Goleman in his book “Social intelligence“, which is “urban trance”. Most urbanites are almost trapped mentally in their own world, and much might be attributed to their bid to avoid the bombardment by media advertising and all the distractions around them. I feel that it’s time that we go back to basics by engaging others in more face-to-face communications.
• Integrity: The value of integrity is also decreasing in value in recent years. You read about it in the papers (cases of embezzlement and frauds), you will observe it in the workplace and you see it in the streets. Personally, I consider integrity as one of the personal values that should be upheld by us because should the value of integrity depreciates drastically, the very social fabric of society will be destroyed, and this will eventually plunge society into a state of decadence.

Personally, I feel that the abovementioned values are good values to hold on to. I hope that you feel the same way too.       

So what are we afraid of?

In a society that recognises achievements and applauds prestigious titles, it’s not surprising to see many of us not daring to undertake challenging tasks like public speaking, coaching/mentoring tasks etc. The challenge is even greater for students who do not have any previous experiences, unlike working professionals who have both experience and credibility. Merely looking at a public speaker’s online profile and/or resume can be intimidating.

Nevertheless, we have to ask ourselves this: how do all these professionals become successful? And we will realise that – like us- these professionals start with nothing and accumulate their experiences over time. But is it smooth-sailing? Probably not. We only see the successful aspect of their careers but we often overlook the obstacles and difficulties that they overcome over time.

As students, have more courage and believe in yourself. Constantly remind yourself that successful people do not become successful overnight. They put in a lot of time and effort before they become successful.  You can do the same thing if you live life with courage.

Life is not smooth-sailing and it can get rough at times. What’s important is not to hope for a life with no worries, because it’s not going to happen. Life’s a roller coaster ride with its ups and downs. We can’t stop the roller coaster from moving but we can definitely brace ourselves for the ride.

As the saying goes, “the night is darkest before the dawn”. If we have the resilience, determination and perseverance, we will definitely get to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  

What is mentioned above is obvious. However, what is not so obvious is the fact that we can and should brand ourselves to potential employers. I call it “personal branding”. When it comes to personal branding, we do not promote a specific lifestyle. We promote our abilities and talents.

So, how do we do that?

We should start with the basics, which is identifying and acknowledging our talents and abilities. All of us are unique and we possess specific skills that others do not.  These skills and abilities are what differentiate us from other job candidates when we look for jobs. Most job candidates apply for jobs with a cover letter and resume. But the details on these documents are merely skimming the surface when it comes to promoting our talents most of the time. I will recommend an additional 1-page document which provides a detailed summary of your achievements and abilities alongside your cover letter and resume when you apply for job in the near future.

Below are some questions to help you with this 1-page document:

• Do you have any interests or hobbies that you do not mind engaging in, even if it cost you time and effort? List them down. Identify the skills that are required for these activities.
• Do you have friends who commended you on specific achievements? List them down.  Identify the skills that are required for these activities.
• Have you joined any activities in school before?  What skills have you learnt from these activities? List them down.
• Have you attended any courses before? List them down.
• What is your goal in life? Is there anything that you wish to achieve in your life? Write them down.
• Look through your school testimonials. Look at the comments by your teachers and identify any skills that have been highlighted. Write them down.
• What profession(s) are you interested in? Write it down.
• In your life, which areas do you tend to excel and have interest in? Write them down.

After you have done the above, try to identify common areas and summarise your abilities and talents.

Now, do your interests and talents align with your preferred professions/career? If they do, it’s good. If not, you might like to explore other career options, since working in a profession of your preference which requires expertise that you do not excel in is not a good option. It’s best if you are able to join a profession where you have both the interest and the abilities. While we may switch career more than once in current times, it’s still advisable to get the right job for our first job. This is because our first job usually provides the foundation for our subsequent jobs.

Now, arrange your abilities and talents on a piece of paper. Writing in paragraphs or in point forms are both all right. Personally, I will encourage you to write in paragraphs as it looks more detailed and structured. Organise your writing such that your readers will be able to get an overview of your achievements, abilities and talents easily. Be as detailed as possible.

It will be good to start working on personal branding now while you are still in school.

Brand yourself, and shine.

I have noticed that some of you are holding back during the course of the lesson when questions are posed by the educators. This is especially so when it comes to the “Q & A” session at the end of each team’s presentation, where some of you have also hesitated to question the presenting teams. 

There are several benefits to asking and answering questions, as follows:

• Improves analytical skills: When you ask a question in class, you are actually clarifying some facts on behalf of your classmates as well. This benefits the class on the whole. The same can be said when you pose a question to the presenting teams. When you attempt to answer a question posed to you by one of your friends, you have to think things through before answering. This improves your analytical skills, a set of skills that is drastically different from your presentation skills.  While your presentation skills involves getting your message accurately across to your target audience, analytical skills involves exploring issues from various perspectives (some of which you have not even thought of previously) and putting forward your stand persuasively and convincingly.  A good presenter needs both analytical and presentation skills since both are vital ingredients for an interesting and credible presentation.
• Gaining confidence and learning humility: When you start to ask questions consistently, you began to develop a skill to explore issues from various perspectives, which is good. And if you were to answer your friend’s or your educator’s question correctly, it builds your confidence over time. And confidence is an important ingredient to being successful in life. And if you were to answer a question incorrectly, you learn humility from the experience, which is also good.  This is because it is always good to remind ourselves that all of us make mistakes and we do not know everything. When we are able to accept ourselves, others will be more accepting of us.
• Failures are the stepping stones to success: Following from the last point above, we should have an awareness that failures are the stepping stones to success. Many successful individuals fail many times in their lifetimes. Therefore, avoiding failures will also hinder you from being successful. Instead, go ahead and put in your best effort in everything you do (which includes asking and answering questions in class). If you fail, learn from your mistakes and try again. It’s merely a matter of time before you succeed. But remember, we must all learn from our mistakes and failures.

So, I hope that all of you are able to put in more effort in class by asking and answering questions during the course of the lessons, which includes the “Q & A” sessions at the end of the presenting sessions.

Keep up the enthusiasm!