In a talk I was watching recently, the speaker began discussing how often people coast when it comes to the working world. Many of us don't want to risk our current position in an effort to secure something better and that can lead to stagnation and many other woes. To explain the problem, the speaker brought up the Region-beta paradox, and from the moment it was explained to me, I realized that it had applied perfectly to my photography in periods, and it's likely I'm not alone.
What do these situations have in common? Sometimes the worse situation is better. It is, of course, paradoxical, but it makes so much sense. If something isn't bad enough to warrant action, it is likely more damaging than a worse situation that does effect change. I can think of many times in my life this has been the case, including in the working world. I had a low-average-paying job in my early twenties and while I didn't loathe the position, it wasn't what I wanted for myself. It took three-and-a-half years for the job to begin to impact my health with how unhappy it was making me and so I figured out how to leave and pursue something I wanted. Why? Because it wasn't quite uncomfortable enough before that point.
At first glance, this concept doesn't marry up all that well with photography; if photography is making you uncomfortable or unhappy, don't do it. However, this paradox also applies situations that aren't inherently negative. In fact, the example given in Daniel Gilbert's paper that introduced the paradox used the following: "...consider a commuter who has the habit of walking to destinations within a mile of their origin, and biking to more distant destinations. Since the bike is faster, the commuter will reach some distant locations more quickly than nearer destinations (region beta in their diagram), reversing the normal tendency to arrive later at more distant locations." The paradox was then applied to health and many other situations.
As for photography, it applies to how the photographer is progressing in their craft. When anyone starts photography, there is that typical, exciting state we all experience when finding something new and interesting. You know you're a complete amateur and you're learning an awful lot very quickly, which is rewarding. This tails off naturally and then you can stagnate without conscious effort to counteract it. It is around then that the first instance of the Region-beta paradox might rear its head. For example, you might have been trying lots of new techniques and learning because you felt as if you didn't know anything about the subject, but as your knowledge grows, you become more complacent with that, so you make less of an effort to learn. If you were trying to hit new and difficult heights with your skill level, you would push to improve, but if you're not uncomfortable enough with your lack of knowledge, you might not. Therefore, it would be better if you were less content with your work.
"The name originates from the illustration in the paper by Daniel Gilbert, that introduced the paradox. They consider a commuter who has the habit of walking to destinations within a mile of their origin, and biking to more distant destinations. Since the bike is faster the commuter will reach some distant locations more quickly than nearer destinations (region beta in their diagram), reversing the normal tendency to arrive later at more distant locations."
But time passed, digital photography became ubiquitous to the point that traffic wardens on the streets of London carry a camera to take pictures of illegally parked cars (when we will see an exhibition of these images?) but the secret handshake between photography and truth was never stronger. A parking ticket I received this week has a digital picture of my car on it; was it manipulated to add a double yellow line? No one will ever question that. Just as no one will question the truth of CCTV footage or photographs uploaded to photo sharing websites from mobile phones and computers throughout the world. This at a time when it was never easier to manipulate a photograph. The knowledge of photoshop is as widespread as the knowledge of word processing, and anyone with a computer at home could easily pick up the basic skills required for distorting, manipulating and combining photographs.
But perhaps the answer to the paradox is in the assumption that what we see in the photograph is a representation of an object. As I write this there is an apple on my desk. Looking at it reminds me how hungry I am, and that it is the last apple brought to work today and I think that time have come to eat it. Would I have the same thoughts if instead of an apple I had in front of me a photograph of an apple? I probably would not think about eating the photograph. A photograph of an apple might remind me instead of the Apple logo, or of the story of Adam and Eve and the tree of knowledge, it might make me think of other pictures of fruit I am familiar with, of still life paintings, or of the apple in the painting of Magritte, of an advertising campaign for a healthy lifestyle, of seduction and of fitness. In short, the photograph of an apple is not pointing in the direction of a real apple, instead it points in the direction of the cultural references that I associate with apples. The photograph is not a representation of an object, it is a representation of an idea.
We saw that CERN represents a paradox of scale; to detect the most minute particle; it had to construct the largest machine humanity has ever built. This is why from the beginning; our goal was to create a library that was an integral part of CERN and FCC themselves. To create a library that would offer an immersive experience that attracts the public and takes them through a journey that tangibly represents CERN.
After this the font is marked as [Sansation] (with brackets). I know that's means something wrong with that font. But when I searching for the font on the photoshop font list there is a font named "Sansation" and "Sansation Light" and at the end of font list is again [Sansation] with brackets.
Pretty sure the end game is the same as Adobe/LR....monthly subscription. While this makes sense for a professional really no use to amateur's. Take yours truly, I will use my cameras software a couple of times a year, but will go months without doing any serious editing and my newest body is 5 years old.
I suspect you will see this push from most company's go forward......ACADSee and Cyberlink also "offer" subscription models but don't force you.... too bad though because using a decent camera w/o a good RAW editor is well rather limiting. The paradox is that in trying to become more profitable, a segment of the market will be lost , less companies, no innovation, etc.
It used to be someone managed a company like an engineering firm, music, etc. because they liked the field and wanted to make money in engineering, music, etc.....now it seems that companies are dominated by people that like to make money period....sad really,
06m1...whatever else you may say, your comment on CS and pricing isn't true. I used photoshop, illustrator, and indesign back then and just photoshop alone was about 225 dollars. Why I only upgraded every other year at most back when I used these programs to do my work. Photoshop and Lightroom cost me 144 a year. Well worth it for me. But i get it. We all have our priorities.
It's always been that way with Indesign and Illustrator. I don't know about PS because I won't use photoshop. IN and IL will just close if the license isn't current or will take you to the CC to renew.
Came here to read this comment. I use darktable exclusively and have yet to use every feature because it's just as feature-rich as the big commercial apps. Getting to a basic workflow is very easy and if I need something specific, I read the very well written documentation. It also includes retouching modules right out of the box without the awkward photoshop hop and skip back. Using code integrated from a different software project with the power of open source.
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