I call this as the prayer of the change agent.
O God and Heavenly Father,
Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Should we follow every good practices always. The answer is no. Sometimes we even violate them for better results. Sometimes following a best practice can land one in trouble. Once while traveling from Delhi airport to Noida by car at 2.30 a.m, the roads were almost empty, and the taxi driver was bypassing all the red traffic signal lights on the way. In a place like that, stopping at a signal waiting for the green light can invite the risk of getting run over by a bigger vehicle. In many occasions, following the law of the land is safer than following the ideal. In Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states of India, overtaking through the left side of a heavy vehicle is much easier and safer, even though it is against the written traffic rules. Here is a street photograph I captured at Mumbai where the red light is on, but no vehicle was stopping and if one try to follow the traffic rule here, he will be run over by some other vehicle. In any case, knowing the rules both written and unwritten will help, so that one can either follow or violate them intelligently.
Here is a photograph which gave me better results by violating the basic rules about lighting..
Whenever I see the photographs I clicked in the past, I realise the poor quality of some of my so called ‘best’ photographs of the past. Either the composition is not right, or they are cluttered, or edited too much.. Then, it was continuous learning, and I certainly believe that the best is yet to happen. Thanks to all the youtube videos on photography. my sincere thanks to all those experienced photographers who shared their experiences in the public domain, which made the life of people like me easier. This is very true in management as well. I just want to apologise to the participants of the first batch of my project management workshop that happened in Dubai around eight years back. It was just reading from the slides. It was miserable. Since then I have come a long way because I was willing to continuously learn and improve. So, definitely failures are stepping stones to success, and what you think as a success story today, looses it’s glitter the moment either you or someone else do something better. The best is yet to happen is the driving force behind anyone who chases excellence, and that is the best survival kit in highly competitive environments. All good photographers, speakers, bloggers and writers are reminders to me about the distance I have to cover, before I say I did something worthwhile.
Here is a photograph using lumix fz200. I named it stepping stones. Hope you are enjoying. Wish you a happy weekend.
‘Teamwork’ is the word that came to my mind when I composed this one. Teamwork of the individually competent, where the cumulative effect is much more higher than the sum of the individual efforts. How can we get this kind of commitment at the work place?. Is the challenge by itself is the motivator?.
Streetphotography at kochi, Kerala, India. Lumix fz200, sepia creative mode
Yes, opportunities are many these days. Which one should I grab, and which one should I refrain from, are the key questions. If I really count the money I already spent on photography equipment, it looks like this;
Canon 550d DSLR Rs 27,000
Canon lens 55-250 Rs 17,000
Canon 50mm lens. Rs. 7,000
Tokina wide angle lens Rs 37,000
Tripod. Rs. 10,000
Camera bags Rs 5,000
Nikon coolpix compact Rs 15,000
Lumix fz 200 Rs 27,000
That is lot of money. It is 1,45,000 so far. Which is approximately three thousand American dollars, which is lot of money. I myself did not realise it till I jotted down all these now. With this money, I could have done lot of other things as well. If I am more serious about photography, then I can easily spend another five thousand dollars to upgrade the photography equipments. Then we are talking about 8,000 usd for the equipment alone, excluding travel and my own time. That makes me think twice about my stillsofindia project. Do I have the time, money and health to do it?. That is the first question. The next question is about the return from this project. So far I got only 50 usd as revenue from google ads as returns from stillsofindia. I could have done lot of other things with this kind of money. What is the business case of my dream of traveling all over India and blogging about it?. Thank you wordpress for making me think about it, instead of plunging into it without proper financial planning. This is another reason to say, ‘projects fail in the beginning, not at the end’. An early exit from an unviable project is better than an abrupt closure in the middle of the project. Do I sound like a pessimist?. Unfortunately, as a manager, I cannot run away from problems. I must confront the harsh realities up front. Confront the issues upfront, is the most preferred approach to issue resolution by all successful manager’s world wide. I think, this is a very valuable point for all artists who otherwise prefer to live in a dreamy utopian world, like the artist in me. Good day to you. Hope you are enjoying.
Here is this beautiful sunflower I captured at the Bangalore airport, using the canon extension tube along with my canon 550d, and the 55-250 zoom lens.
This could be the turning point from amateur photography to professional photography. These days, I capture at least one photograph every day, and that keeps on happening without any start and end dates. It is repetitive in nature. I like to photograph, so I click every day. It is more like an operation. Operations are ongoing in nature, have no start and end dates, produces standard outputs. The moment I call something as a photography project, then it must have a start date and end date, will produce unique outputs, are progressively elaborated and are constrained by the constraints of time, cost and scope. Wedding photography is a clean example for projects :-). What could be a photography program?. I want to travel to all the states of India and publish photographs at my blog http://www.stillsofindia.com. The scope is so huge. I am thinking of breaking it into smaller projects (state wise), all contributing to the program stillsofindia
A project operates within the triple constraints of time, cost and scope, where as photography operates under the triple constraints of aperture, shutter speed and iso. The triple constraints are inter related. When we deal with time, that can impact cost and scope. When we deal with scope, that will impact cost and time. Similarly, when we deal with shutter speed, it can impact aperture / iso. These are all connected, and unless we know how to juggle these constraints efficiently, we cannot be good at our job. A Microsoft project or primavera, for that matter every project management tool out there will work out the critical path for you, and if you want to optimise it, then one need mastery over the triple constraints of time, cost and scope, so that they can crash, fast track, introduce leads and lags efficiently to get that perfect schedule. That is the case with photography as well. Every other camera has the auto mode, which will help to take reasonable photographs, then, if we have to really take a perfect shot in adverse conditions, then we have to rely on the manual mode, and that requires mastery over aperture, shutter speed (time), and iso.
Here is my photograph for you, which was taken in really low light, in manual mode (slow shutter). Hope you will like it.
Of all the creations in this world, humans are the best when you look at them very closely through the view finder of a camera. Especially the very young and old. The predominant emotions I see in the young are innocence, tenderness, joy, hope whereas the predominant emotions of the old or matured are again grace, despair, fear, sorrow, satisfaction…the list can be bigger. As far as I am concerned, the presence of a human element in the frame makes it complete, even though it is not practical all the time. This importance of human factor is even more in management. It is the humans involved in the task, which makes the key difference. In a team the young bring in their energy, where as the experienced bring in their wisdom of practical knowledge (scars and honours) from the previous battles. Every human being is precious. They are more like paintings or sculptures which takes almost a century to complete. Handle them with care, gentleness and love, because you are also one among them, and you are terribly dependent on them.
Here is Mr. Fernades for you, and there is a story behind every wrinkle..
During the past three years, I captured, thousands of photographs good, bad and ugly. So What?. That is the question bothering me these days. What is the purpose of my photography?. Is it just an expensive time killer?. I definitely feel on top of the world for a while, when lot of people like and comment on my photographs. I never feel alone when a camera is with me. It is a great distractor to escape from the very important serious work. Believe me, my project management clients have started chasing me to raise the invoices to them for the work I did for them., so that they can pay me money. .and I am not doing it…instead I am immersing myself into the pleasures of photography. I have reached a level where I feel very insecure when I do not have a camera with me. I always fear about that probable golden opportunity to create that masterpiece, which is every photographer’s dream.
In project management, there is a saying ‘Projects fail at the beginning, not at the end’. If the project selection is not right, we end up wasting lot of time and money on projects, to realise later about the lack of a sound business case to support it. This is very much true for photography projects as well. Before venturing into any project, it is better to spend some time to analyse;
1) Why you are doing it? (the business case, or the lack of it)
2) Who are the stakeholders?, Why they will be interested in what you are doing?
3) What are the deliverables?, just photographs, book, photoblog, travelogue, themes
5) Budgets
6) Time frames
7) Risks and Risk management
There is no question of leaving out something beautiful without photographing them. The thrill of photography is about it’s spontaneity. At the same time, I want to achieve something more tangible from my photography, and I bank on project management concepts to achieve it.
Here is a photograph for you, which I clicked for the sheer joy of photography and beauty…
I have come across multiple occasions where a photograph which looked perfect on the view finder of the camera had to be scrapped while enlarged for actual use. On the other hand, a photograph which looks dull and underexposed on the view finder comes out perfectly after a minor edit on the brightness alone. In management, reports takes the place of the view finder in photography. Reports just gives a snapshot and the reality could be different. I have faced situations where the projects which are shown as very healthy in the status reports throughout the project, failing miserably during final acceptance tests. So, when you see a perfect picture on the view finder post capture, or when you get a perfect project status report, do not rely on them alone. When you get a imperfect picture or a problematic project status report, do not be in a hurry to dismiss them, because with minor corrective actions they can be made perfect. Here is a photograph which looked terribly under exposed on the camera, which became perfect just by adjusting the brightness on the editor. The one which looked perfect on the view finder had to be scrapped as the image was found blurred when enlarged.
Enjoy my photograph titled ‘ant crossing’ at stillsofindia
managerandphotographer 