What is a good photo?

I love good photos.

I love good authentic photos.

But what is a good photo ?

I googled to check.

The top answers were:

1. If you always consider these three variables, light, subject, and composition. You will have mastered perhaps the most critical part of photography, and learned how to actually convey an emotional message with your shots.

2. What Are The Qualities Of A Good Photograph?

• Timelessness.
• It doesn't need to be explained.
• Tell us a story.
• Be selective about just what you allow into the picture.
• Attention To Detail.
• Unusual Point of View.
• They create emotion.

3. What is the definition of a good photo?

“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.” – Irving Penn.

So here is my view of what is a great photo.

Photos consists only of a few things like the game we used to play as a kid: People, Places, Animals & Things.

To understand what a photo is, we have to understand that it is a slice of time. Everything is so unique about it because it is that unique slice of time we have captured. 

But, any photo is not a good photo.

If it is a person or people, it has to capture an emotion. It has to be candid so that the emotion can be captured in all its honesty and reality, in the moment and unconsciously by the subject. An emotion that when looked at later brings nostalgia to the person and brings back the feelings in them what they experienced at that point in time. It should be like a time travel. If any other person sees it, it must convey the story and the emotion of the person and what they were going through.

If the photo is of a place, it should take you back to that place mentally (good or bad depends on that place) and give you the highs or the shivers.

If it is an animal, it is must be about it doing something unique or focussed and about to do something.

It is a thing, the contrast of it vis-a-vis other things should define the traditions, culture and context of the human civilisation.

If a photo captures more than one of these 4 elements together, it would be an outstanding photo.

Success & failure - A difference of Motivation

We all have goals in 3 categories - stated, unstated and undefined.

A stated goal could be buy a house by next year.

Unstated goal could be vague as in get healthy.

Undefined is something we have not even given a thought of it yet.

To achieve goals, there needs to be motivation.

There are different levels of motivation:

1. Determined by self motivation 

2. Determined by external motivation

3. Work for pay (clear give and take relationship)

4. Voluntary (doing partially or half heartedly)

5. Needs nudge to do

6. Doing with push from other(s)

7. Doing after a threat

All goals or activities can be classified under these different motivation levels.

A comparison of the bar chart of the motivations against goals of a successful and unsuccessful person would be a contrast even with the same goals at X axis.

The level of motivation determines the success.

Having a good time - What does this mean to you?

I recently mentioned to someone that I had a good time and I am looking forward to the good times again. The phrase lingered on my mind for some time after the conversation. I didnt actually know how else to mention the time I spent as it was literally "a good time" that I enjoyed with actual only ingredient: "interesting / knowledgable conversation".

If anyone outside the context heard it, "a good time" could mean a lot of things.

So, what does having a good time mean?

For some, it is partying.

For some, it could be drugs and/or sex.

For some, it could be the company of someone while enjoying a movie/ show, etc.

For some, it could be a few good laughs with friends with or without pulling each other's legs.

For some, it is a romantic evening with a date/ partner.

For some, it could be a deep or interesting conversation on a certain topic for a pleasant experience and some insights.

This more or less follows the Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

As we go from partying, drugs, sex from physiological and safety needs to friendships and love to  recognition and self worthiness to the highest level of self-actualisation.

So what does self-actualisation mean?

Self actualisation refers to feeling fulfilled, or feeling that we are living up to our potential. One unique feature of self-actualization is that it looks different for everyone. For one person, self-actualization might involve helping others; for another person, it might involve achievements in an artistic or creative field. Essentially, self-actualization means feeling that we are doing what we believe we are meant to do. 

Having actually had a good time in Self-actualisation zone, I have to say it is very addictive as it is the highest form of mental feel good, one can have.

There is no formal guidance for anyone to anyone to actually understand how each person can reach the self-actualisation zone. Understanding oneself through a proper system of coaching is one way I have found out.

Conflicts in love

 I recently watched an avant garde movie called "Love Lies and Bleeding".

The movie took a few things to the extremes with the plot and with clear decisions to be made.

On introspecting the movie, there were different kinds of love: Sibling love (to protect the other), Husband-wife love (the wife loved him despite he being a physical abuser), father-daughter love/ dislove (where one daughter separated from the father due to his alleged killing of her mother) and lesbian love (2 ladies loving one lady).

The clashes and conflicts that came:
One sister wants to protect her sister from abuse and is ok with killing her husband while the abused sister wants to continue her troubled relationship with her husband. Priority and purpose of love.

One lady loving another while a stranger loves the same girl. Competition in love.

A father wants to protect her daughter from cops while she says mum about the killing of the mother and others by her dad. Love to not hurt.

The conflicts came when one love or the purpose of one love came in confrontation or a higher priority of another love.

In modern worlds, these conflicting loves are there but not shown explicitly.

One of the most common substitutes of love is giving time. When one relationship gets more time (or assumedly more time than required) than another, this comes as a conflict in love. These relationships could be grandparent-parent v/s parent-child v/s parent-in laws v/s spouse-spouse v/s friends time v/s relaxation or hobby time.

It is almost impossible not to have conflicts with the limited resources of time.

How we keep what relationships we want for the future, manage/reduce the non-value added relationships to get what we want out of life is the question.

Open Mics and Stand up comedies

I have discovered Open mics (The precursor to the stand up comedies) about a year ago. I have visited about 10 open mics over this period. 

There are multiple things I look forward to these:
Hilarious takes on situations, Good jokes, Open talk on societies' taboo topics and also the Gen Z's thoughts, perspectives, online tools and in general being in touch with that generations' ecosystem.

An example:
I just knew about a dating app called Tinder. But an artist's full fledged stand up of 10 min comparing the people you find on each of the popular dating apps was both hilarious, cringy as well as very informational for an outsider like me.

Relationship between Time and Money

The relationship between these 2 things is interesting:
The middle class and poor, value money more than time and give their time to earn money.

The business class and the rich, value time more than money and spend money to save time.

The middle class and the poor, dont know many ways to make money apart from trading their time to earn money with the particular set of skills they have.

For the business class and the rich, know that there are multiple ways to make money, but time is limited. They have seen their money and wealth go up and down many times and understand it much deeper. They sometimes have connections (trust from customers, suppliers, associations, bank credit, mortgaging assets) they can leverage to get back from a bad position.

Zonkey

Meet the Zonkey.

When "WTF" has more than one real meaning - (What and Who)

You can see this family in the Baku Zoo, Azerbaijan

Skiing at Shahdag, Azerbaijan

My wife and I tried skiing at Shahdag range of mountains at Azerbaijan.

We stayed at Hotel Zirve where there is a ski school with instructors.

A few details about skiing:

It is not as easy as it looks. It involves getting the physics right. Just like other things (trekking, scuba diving, helmet diving, archery, golf, shooting) 

There are a few things we learnt about the details and process of skiing doing it here for the first time overall.

The process involves a few steps:

1. Register your time slot for individual instructions. (Here they allow maximum 3 people per instructor)

2. You need to hire the following: Ski shoes, Skis, Ski sticks, Helmet, Goggles (optional), Jacket (optional if you already have one), Gloves (optional)

3. You need to pay the following: Equipment renting, Ski instructor fees and the Ski pass - for using the ski slopes (Like a green fee on golf courses)

Please be ready to spend at least 1-1.5 hr before the instruction time to get these 3 things done.

Post this, the live instructions of how to connect / Disconnect the skis with the ski-shoes on ice can start.

The instructor we were assigned was good in English and patient and helped us correct with the mistakes we made and took us (my wife and I) step by step.

At the end of the 2 hrs session, we asked him to video record our skiing and he did a marvellous job of it too.

Few new things to know for a first timer: The ski shoes are very different from all other shoes and are very heavy (maybe 3 kgs each leg). The ski shoe is meant to not break or let the leg slip out even when you put the maximum weight on the front and try to fall front (the ideal body position) when skiing.

Please do expect a few falls with the entire attire while trying to negotiate a curve or trying to stop, but be free to fall and prevent any injuries. I saw at least 2 other people fall in the 2 hrs apart from we falling off.

Skiing has significant costs:

Renting of 2 pairs of Skis, Ski sticks, Shoes, Helmet, Goggles and a locker for our shoes costed us about 132 Mannat or USD 78.

Ski instructor fees was 185 mannat or about USD 109

Ski pass for 2 was 66 Mannat or about USD 39

Tip to instructor of 15 Mannat or about USD 9

Total Skiing = 398 Mannat or about INR 19900

Happy Skiing!