Know the game you are in

Photo by Mohamed Almari on Pexels.com

I’ve read the book “The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek recently, and it kept me thinking about the concept of finite and infinite game in my life. In a nutshell, there are two different games in this world: finite game and infinite game. 

Finite game has fixed rules, known player and agreed upon objectives. Football, baseball and 100m sprint for example are finite game. Fixed rules, known players and everyone play to score the most points or reach the finish line first.

Then there’s infinite game. In an infinite game the rules are changeable, there are known and unknown players who will join the game, and the objective for all players is to stay in the game as long as possible. There’s no winner or loser in infinite game, players join in if they decided to play, or drop out when they run out of resources or will to continue. Cold war is infinite game, business, marriage and our lives are infinite game.

Based upon the very definition, photography is definitely classified as infinite game. There are known and unknown photographers out there who create stunning photo, there’s no fixed rules in photography, and there’s no such thing as being No.1 in photography.

However, many photographers have a finite mindset when it comes to photography. They want to get more likes than others, they want to be No.1 in competition, they want to charge more for their services. In the end, many lost the motivation to continue when they didn’t reach their arbitrary target of being “No.1”, being better than the rest of their peers. So they gave up on photography altogether.

I think it is important to set your mindset correctly so that one can continue the journey in photography, enjoys it and not getting burned out in the process. It’s something for me to reflect upon as I ponder on how to move forward with my photography. Let’s see what will the future unfolds for me. Till then.

The street photographer’s manual

Just finished this book from David Gibson recently. This book has been sitting on my bookshelf for quite a while (few years, to be precise), it was a gift from my friend and now only I realised that I have not flipped through it. I am a book nerd and I read a lot, so it puzzled me why it took me so long to actually pick up this book and start reading. And my guess would be because of the book’s title. I’m not a fan of rules in photography, and I don’t think there should be any “manual” that details out the “standard operating procedure” as a photographer, be it street, commercial, landscape, wedding and so on.

Anyway, I must admit I was deceived by the book’s title. This book is nowhere near a “manual”. David shared his view on street photography in the introduction section, together with the history and how it has evolved with times. Besides that, there’s a collection of profile and works of street photographers, from the well known to the least known. He also shared some ideas, topics, subjects and projects that one could embark on, or be inspired enough to chart your own path in your photography journey.

I like some of his views about street photography, and how he ended his book by stating the obvious (or maybe not so obvious for some): photography, be it street or others genre, is not something that can be “taught”. One can give guidance or inspiration to another, but at the end of the day, photography can only be “self-taught”. One needs to go and experience, to try and to fail, there is no shortcut in learning and practicing photography.

For those who enjoy and celebrate street photography, this is a nice book for you to read.

Landscape photography on location

I have shared before in this blog that one of the YouTube channels that I’m currently following is the one from Thomas Heaton, a landscape photographer based in England. I enjoyed watching his videos and works not because he shoots epic landscape photographs (which he does), but the part of him that draws me the most are his sincerity, genuineness, and perhaps, frankness. Following his journey in photography often reminds me of my past, the struggles, the excitements, the burned out, the ups and downs, and this is indeed the truth behind photography, the ugly side of things that not often shown to others.

While I don’t love every single images from him, I do enjoy viewing most of his works and photographs. Therefore, when he announced the release of his personal photobook (it was quite a while back), I decided to chip in my support and bought a copy. I was among the first batch to receive his book, and I must say I really enjoyed reading his book. There isn’t a specific theme to the book, it is more like a collection of his best landscape works in one book, together with the “behind the scene” story leading to each shot. There are links to his YouTube video (for some photos) as well if you would like to see him in action.

One of my favourite photos from Thomas was the shot of frosted tree titled “Star of the Show”, I really like the colour palette, the mood and the atmosphere that the photo brought out. His collection includes photos of grand vista, epic locations such as Patagonia and Namibia Dessert, as well as almost-macro-level detail shots of fallen leaves and patterns from the least prominent locations.

If you are a fan of this photos, this book will not disappoint. If not, you can always start from his YouTube channel to get to know him a little more. Till then.

Make Time

Instead of yelling “I don’t have time for this”, perhaps is time for us to make time for it. Being caught in the endless busyness seems like a “thing” for most of us, and sadly busyness has also become a benchmark on how hardworking and important you are in some organization. Juggling a handful of never ending tasks makes you think that you are productive, but doing more doesn’t really matter. What matter is doing “what matters”.

Hence, the book Make Time was born. Written by ex-Googler, asking you to ditch both Gmail and YouTube (haha…) in order to gain back some sanity in your life… well, kind of. The overarching idea is to get yourself out from doing things that don’t matter in your life, away from the “noise”, away from infinity pool of pointless distraction (like YouTube, social media), so that you will have time to work on things that matter to you most, everyday.

The basic concept was simple.

Select a Highlight for your day, something that must be done, something that will make you feel fulfilled when done, something that means a lot to you. It could be work related or something personal. Then put it in your schedule, make time for it and nothing should come into its way throughout the day.

Make sure you are Laser focus when working on your highlight (or anything else). Shutdown all possible distractions, lock yourself in a room if you need to, during your scheduled time there is only one task that you need to worry about and that is to complete your highlight of the day.

As your work on your highlight, your energy level will drop, battery will drain. Hence, it is important to refuel yourself. Power nap, meditation, careful use of caffeine will give you that extra boast to Energize yourself and keep you going.

Last but not least, end your day (or start your day) by Reflecting what works, what went wrong, and what you could do better in the next days or weeks. Tweet your schedule, method or approach accordingly.

A lot of the things mentioned in the book were already in practice by myself, such as avoiding distraction. Although I don’t go as far as to keep only one row of apps on my phone, I have disabled notification for most of the apps and only check on them when I’m free and have nothing better to do. For me, perhaps what I need to start practicing is to set highlight for my day and plan a little harder on my schedule to make time for it. Well, I’m not particularly “short of time” everyday, but often we got caught up to answering people’s request and neglected our task at work. So that’s something I would try out for my work and see if it works well for me.

If you need some help in managing your time, this is a good read for you. Till then.

The motivation myth

“I don’t feel motivated to do this”
“I need some motivation to do this”
“I need to set a few milestone goals along the way to keep myself motivated”

I am also guilty in saying some of the “excuses” above. This is a book authored by Jeff Haden to explore how to keep yourself motivated. Is it to set a reward in the end of the process? Is it to make a few milestone goals and keep reminding yourself everyday? Is it to paste post-it note all over the place with best quotes from the best people?

Hell no, according to Jeff.

“Dream big. Set a huge goal. Commit to your huge goal. Create a process that ensures you can reach your goal. Then forget about your huge goal and work on your process instead.”

Jeff is an advocate of “process”. One needs to create a process, a habit that will put one in the right state of mind or in the flow, and keep working on the process itself without keep looking at the goal. A lot of people believed that they need a spark in order to be motivated, be it some short term reward or some benefits to start the ball rolling. However, all these are temporary and unsustainable, which leads to one dropping out half way citing “I don’t feel motivated anymore”.

The book took an example from world famous guitarist. When asked what keeps him motivated to be the best, what was the secret recipe that made him the best, the answer was surprisingly simple. It goes something like this: “I wanted to be good in playing guitar. So I set the routine of keep playing, keep practicing, trying to be better and better every time. Never once I thought about how far I am from being the best. I just keep playing.”

One key learning that I agree well with this book is the setting up of “process” or habit. If you want to achieve something, it is important to set out the process which will guide you towards your goal. And then of course, stick with your process. Though I think at times it is good to measure how far you are from your goal and calibrate your process along the way as you go. But yeah, focus on the process is really important. That’s how I have been keeping myself writing consistently throughout the years. Noting down on thoughts, ideas, and then spent time in the days to work them through and eventually turning them into posts on my blog.

I do admit there were times when my process broke down, and then I just need to stop for a moment to get it fixed, and continue again. Perhaps I should start doing the same for my photography? I used to have a habit in place, but as life goes on, priorities changed, the habit cycle was broken. Well, if I wanted to do more, I really need to setup a new process for it. The same goes to other goals that I would like to achieve in my life.

“Motivation isn’t something that you have, it is something that you get when you start working on things.”

Hopefully you can extract something useful from this, do read the book to learn more as Jeff also detailed many other aspects about motivation. Till then.