On Photo Safari: Human Behavior

Being in the bush is fabulous and doing a photographic safari or team building photographic safari is great, but there is one thing that can be very disturbing, human behavior.

We were doing a wildlife photography course in the Masai Mara and we had spotted a pride of lion moving towards a herd of impala. One lioness was leading the group, the impala constantly in her focus. It could have been a wonderful sighting, but we were not the only vehicles that had spotted them and not all behaved well. Unfortunately meanwhile about 8 vehicles had arrived, all following the lion in their attempt to hunt, with in the vehicles people hunting for photographs. Most of the vehicles kept a good distance to the lion to give them space and not to disturb, but one vehicle spoilt the whole thing. The driver of the vehicle followed the leading lioness and always drove in front of her, so that she had to look in the camera of his guest. But she was only looking in his camera when the vehicle was standing in front of her and that meant that she had to stop walking, the vehicle was standing in her path. The lioness had to stop and think what to do next to get to continue her hunt and she changed twice her direction to approach the impala and twice the vehicle drove again in front of her. When it happened for the third time she gave up, walked to a shady bush and settled there with the rest of the pride for the day. There was not chance for her to continue the hunt and the one person had spoilt it for the lion and the other photographers.

Unfortunately there is no way of getting out of the vehicle and tell the other to stop doing it, there are lion around, and that can be very frustrating, but fortunately this does not happen often.

Be conscious where you are and how the animals behave in order to let them do their thing. Otherwise you will not get the photographic opportunities and great sightings you are coming for.

Keep enjoying photographic safaris and mind the animals.

 

Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com

The Paradox of Photographing People’s Lives

Sebastiãno Salgado is an amazing photographer, traveling the world photographing people’s lives in difficult circumstances. His images go deep, show the people’s struggle and the respect he feels for them. Sebastiãno Salgada is only one of a number of photographers capturing the lives of the impoverished and unfortunate with respect and great artistic skills. And we as the viewer and buyer love the images and admire the photographers.

But what makes the photographers choose these subjects and what makes us the viewer to love these images?

We want to feel that we live.

In the western world most of the people have a home, work and some sort of security in their lives. For most of the people there is no daily confrontation with danger and death, the own death, which is how we want to live, what we work for, to be safe. Yet it seems that we need the confrontation with death in order to be conscious that we live. One can do bungee jumping or skydiving, do video gaming or embark on adventures themselves and one can also look at art and photographs like from Salgado. I don’t know if people from a dangerous gang controlled city area or an area with no water and food look at and love photographs that show suffering and death like Salgado’s images. They have it themselves, they experience it every day and they are conscious that they live, because they are confronted with the possibility of their own death every day. Or would they like to see the reflection of their own lives?

The paradox is that the need to feel that we live pays the ones who capture the suffering of others well and makes sure they have a secure life, which creates in return the need within them to go out and photograph again. Another phenomenon is that the further away the suffering and death happen the more the viewer seems to be able to love the photographs and to feel the situation of the people there. It seems to be hard to bear when it comes too close and that is completely understandable. The suffering the photographs show is unbearable and hard to cope with and at the end we all want to survive, physically and emotionally.

So, what does that mean? Will photography awards continue going to photographs that show suffering or will happy photos win as well? Will the world sustain its regions of poverty and suffering or will there be a time that efforts pay off and people have food and shelter?

I don’t know, we humans are funny creatures with a very complicated psychological constitution. Maybe it is part of the process of becoming human.

Do we need to feel guilty that we love these photographs? No. We seem to have a very good sense of when a photograph was taken with respect and compassion and the photos keep us aware that there is still a lot to be done in the world.

And how do photo safaris fit in here? Not? What do we experience on a photographic safari that is so addictive? Nature? This is probably something for another post.

Keep enjoying the spirit of photography and its deeper insights.

 

Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com

image above by Sebastiano Salgado

How to Accelerate Innovative Leadership with Photography

Something is innovative when it is qualitatively new and in order to be an innovative leader, executing innovative leadership an innovative leadership tool is what is needed.

Times are fast, news spreads within seconds all over the world and high quality decisions need to be made quickly, having global impact on the company’s success and the life of people. The high quality demand in combination with time is tricky and asks for a tool that can manage both with the result of innovative decisions. The tool needs to serve innovative leaders and accelerate innovative leadership. This tool is photography.

Photography is easy, quick, reliable, insightful and last but not least also fun. And when there is fun, work and learning just goes easier. Instead of a long and tiring process photography makes it possible to get to the point quickly, unearths insights instantaneously and is incredibly easy to handle. It is applicable to all issues, processes, projects and leadership challenges, team buildings, HR tasks and in house training and coaching. The utilization of photography accelerates problem solving, strategic planning, product development and any other task a company is dealing with every day.

Use it, accelerate innovation and bring some fun into daily work. Well it is not quite a photographic safari experience, but there are pretty sure some Big 5 just around the corner of the office. It is about seeing, innovation is about seeing like Steve Jobs did and photography makes one see.

Happy accelerated seeing with photography!

 

Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com

 

Intuition Training Explained

Intuition is not something we need to train for to have it; it is something that is always there, we only need to train ourselves to identify it and to utilize it.

Intuition is also often called gut feeling and without thinking about it we are using it or at least talking about it every day. How often do we have a gut feeling about something to happen and how often are we saying to our friends and colleagues “I knew this would happen”? Pretty much every day, about something or somebody in our personal life or work life.

Many leaders in corporate, or how we call them nowadays thought leaders, base their decisions on intuition. They might not call it like that for the outside world, but for themselves they know they do. That does not mean that they do not look at the numbers and it does not mean that they do not think businesswise, but their intuition lets them look at the right numbers, lets them point out numbers that are not quite right, although they look good. Their intuition lets them ask the right questions, lets them dig deeper where others don’t, their intuition helps them to make the right investments and alerts them when they should step out.

Many of them got to success and successful use of their intuition by falling and standing up, learning by making mistakes and by making right decisions to understand how their intuition talks to them. But even those who are already conscious of the value of their intuition, are mostly not using its full potential and those who are not yet aware of the benefits of their intuition are missing out great opportunities of success.

For the full use of ones intuition and to tap into its enormous resources, one can be trained. The training enables in essence the trainee to see and hear clearly what information is offered by his/her intuition and how to utilize it in daily life and work. And because intuition is something non-physical and non-visible, it helps a lot to make it physical and visible in order to see and hear what it’s trying to provide.

It is easier than it sounds to make something non-physical and non-visible, physical and visible, one only needs a camera. It is that strength of photography together with its easy access and easy handling what makes it the appropriate tool to train intuition. Add an accelerating and supporting environment to that and an intuition training of only 4 days is ready to jump start the beneficial use of intuition for personal and business purposes.

The intuition training enables business leaders of all trades to communicate on intuition level, turns team buildings into new qualities and achieves all that within the relaxed atmosphere of a photographic safari with a photography course, yet the photography course is a bit different.

The technical photography skills of the delegates are not of importance, the camera only needs to be digital. The daily routine is the routine of a photographic safari with a game drive in the morning and a game drive in the afternoon and the delegates will snap away like on a holiday, yet there is a big difference.  For every game drive an assignment will be given to the attendees, an assignment only the unconscious is able to accomplish. This makes it easy for the conscious mind, because it can thoroughly enjoy the landscape and animals while the unconscious does the work. To see what the unconscious has worked out, the images will be uploaded back at the lodge and explored according to the assignment. Each assignment has the character of a learning cycle and guides the delegates step by step in identifying the language of their intuition and the information their intuition is providing. The learning cycles of each assignment are part of the bigger learning cycle, the 4 days event itself, starting with departure in Nairobi and ending with arrival in Nairobi on the last day. Within this greater learning cycle the delegates are taken into a different hemisphere, the intuition level and the northern hemisphere where the smaller learning cycles of the game drive assignments take place.

As a result of the intuition training the delegates are able to communicate without words, thoroughly on intuition level, or energy level, and to benefit from the information the intuition level provides to suit their needs in personal life and business. Success becomes sustainable, fueled by the endless resources of the intuition level, also called the endless resources of the unconscious level or energy level as it is called in quantum physics.

Photography is the innovative tool to easy access these resources for beneficial use. It makes photography the most potential tool of the future and the intuition level the never-ending resource of information and knowing to achieve aspired goals.

We all got access to these resources, lets use them.

 

Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com

How Photography Inspires

Photography has become a part of our daily life, to capture snap shots of the children and pets, to communicate, archive, explain and inspire.

It inspires not only our private life, but also our work life and it will do even more in the future. Leaders will visualize the future of their company, finding solutions by utilizing photography; teams will become more aligned by joining team buildings with photography; communication will be visual and misunderstandings will be minimized and even success will be visualized with the help of photography.

But there is more. Photography is and will be not only our everyday tool, it also inspires us to learn, grow and invent. It is at the root of innovation and images carry innovative ideas. Photography is fun and adventure and photographic safaris might be the only shooting left in the bush and conservation blooming. It is technology curiosity with constantly new evolving photographic gear and photography courses igniting art and joy.

Photography is inspiration. Let it inspire you!

 

Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com

Do We Need Fotobars?

Polaroid has just opened its first Fotobar retail store in Florida to be followed by more stores in major cities in the US. People can go there and upload their Instagram or Facebook photos to a workstation, edit them and order prints with the choice of several print materials and frames.

I thought photography-loving people are doing that anyway already from home. Upload images, edit and order prints online, if they want their art to be a nice present or for their own home. For what reason a store to go to and do it instead of easily at home?

I don’t know. There must be some deeper reason behind the store idea that is only known to the Polaroid people. The good thing is that these stores also offer space for photography courses, to display art and for private parties.

Maybe the parties will be the actual business there J

 

Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com

Noam Chomsky: What Passion can do

Noam Chomsky the renowned American linguist turned 84 in December last year and he seems to be as active as always, Gary Marcus is writing for the New Yorker. A man full of passion for what he is doing, not tiring even at an advanced age, an example for all who are about to make choices in their life and the path of passion is one of the options.

No matter if language, photography or music is your passion, when you really love it, follow its call. It might feel frightening and the mind might be full of doubt, but trust your intuition and all will fall into place. Remember also Steve Jobs words, that you better do what you love to do when times get tough, otherwise you will not succeed.

Big words and deep in our heart we know they are true, but one still got to do it. Maybe the example of this inspiring personality can be a motivation and assurance that it really works.

Follow your heart and enjoy your passion!

 

Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com

 

Photo Safari: Hunting Banned in Botswana

In November 2012 Botswana’s President Ian Khama, gave a speech wherein he announced that by the end of 2013 trophy hunting would no longer be allow allowed in Botswana. He said that “Next year will be the last time anyone is allowed to hunt in Botswana and we have realized that if we do not take care of our animals, we will have a huge problem in terms of tourism.”

Great. Photography won from trophy hunting. Photo safari won from hunting safari and it was about time. The number of lion had dropped dramatically and other animals like leopard and elephant were also only to often licensed to be killed. But the peaceful adventure of photographic safaris and the worldwide photography enthusiasm of billions of photographers had turned the table on the hunt. Photography has become a peaceful force of conservation. Cameras replace the rifle and the animals stay alive. The photographer goes home with great image-trophies and

And other countries seem to follow Botswana’s example. Zambia has banned trophy hunt, but so far temporarily and Zimbabwe is considering doing the same until final decisions are made. The fine print of the Botswana ban on hunt is not known yet, but it is a major step in the right direction.

Thanks to eco tourism and photography lovers wildlife is preserved. Photography has become a movement.

Keep moving!

 

Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com

What is Success in Photography

“As a self-taught filmmaker who spent the last year trying to get his first real project up and running , I’ve come across my fair share of disappointments, near misses, and financially tight times. As with any startup or personal project, finances are scarce and it’s often your passion for the project and support from family and friends that carries it through. For all entrepreneurs (especially those on the artistic side, like me), creating something of your own isn’t about making money–it’s about being successful in the way that you personally define it.” (from article by Kerrin Sheldon)

Kerrin Sheldon’s definition of success is doing something that you love. In his case its filmmaking and it applies just as well to many photographers. Some are self-taught photographers, others did several photography courses or studied photography, yet it’s the passion and love for photography that connects them. They succeed in doing what they love to do and that makes them happy.

And isn’t happiness what we are looking for in life? Well, maybe a new camera or two contributes to happiness too, but the love and passion are the real fun.

Happy snapping!

 

Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com

A Story of Disruptive Innovation and Photography

Good ideas often come while we are doing something very boring like driving on the freeway, washing the dishes, doing ironing or other monotone work. We get in some kind of a trance and our thoughts start wandering away and sometimes to places where ideas wait to be discovered. Our mind gets somehow switched off and the intuitive level takes over. In other words our usual thoughts are put to sleep.

Now we got this amazing idea, we quickly finish the dishes and go straight behind the computer to work the whole thing out for implementation into practice. Lets say the idea is a new kind of team building that uses photography to align the energies of the individual team members in order to accomplish the team goals. This might sound complicated, but it is not, its only photography and it will feel like a normal photography course, only the results will be more beneficial for the team. Lets call it an innovative application of photography for business.

How do others experience this innovation? Some will see immediately the fun of photography and will be curious to discover new exciting things. Others might be skeptical and might feel a bit uncomfortable, not knowing how the whole thing will work. For them it might feel disruptive, different from the usual team building they always had and reluctance might creep up, tempted to reject the innovative approach of the team building.

What will win, the reluctance or even rejection or the curiosity, fun and excitement? This is the moment when leadership is needed. At the end the leader guides the team to new success and sometimes something has to disrupt the routine to achieve new levels of achievements.

Another example: Who remembers the Reebok Pump? Here what happened when the innovation was introduced to the responsible people:

“When Continuum pitched an idea to Reebok for a new basketball shoe that would use inflated air to better support the ankle, thereby reducing injuries, the brand manager for basketball shoes said he wasn’t interested because he had never heard about a need for that from a focus group. When we proposed the idea to a high school basketball team, the response was even worse–the players openly laughed at the concept.

But when the team members actually used an early “experiential model” of the shoe during practice, they were won over by how cool it was to have a shoe form-fitted to their feet. Over time, they were even more enthusiastic as they realized they could play more confidently without fear of injury. Like that, the Reebok Pump was born.” (via Co.Create, read the article here)

The Reebok Pump could be called a disruptive innovation. It obviously disrupted the usual thinking and doing, yet when eventually tested all were happy.

There are plenty of examples like the Reebok Pump, also in art and photography. People disliked the painting style of Van Gogh. It was different from the style of other successful painters at this time and Van Gogh’s style might have been experienced as disruptive.

Long story short, disruptive innovation is something revolutionary and photography is a wonderful medium for innovation, within photography and beyond. Use it and be not discouraged when some people might feel disturbed. You might be a new Van Gogh or Rembrandt!

Keep snapping!

 

Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com