Friday, February 5, 2010

Daily Practice 36/365

 
Title: "Last vestiges of a broken memory"

A lot of experimenting and playing around with a minimal still life set up...and not even a mere whiff of success. To be in the experimenting game, one either has to be an eternal optimist, or a default pessimist. Either will enable one to deal with the disappointment when things just don't come together. The eternal optimist will be happy with the thought that tomorrow will bring success. The default pessimist is secure in knowing that things turned out exactly as expected. To survive in the experimenting game, a person really needs to switch back and forth between those two extremes. I always tell my graduate students that one has to work hard in science when the experiments aren't working out, and then work even harder on the rare occasions when they do work out. This daily practice of taking photos is a way to work hard, even for a short time each day, and setting problems, working through them, and learning new things along the way.

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