Using improv to improve your photography

- If you've spent much time watching The Practicing Photographer, you know that I very often stress the importance of practice. There's a lot you got to practice to become a good photographer. You've got to practice your exposure theory, you got to learn how to handle your camera. And you've got to practice something that's very difficult to codify, and that is the process of seeing. I am here right now with Ken Robertson. We're sitting in this theater before the beginning of an improv show. Because, Ken, you're an improviser. - Yes, I am. - But you also have a visual arts background. - Yes. - And I wanted to talk to you today about how you feel improv has mixed with your visual arts background and how it might be beneficial to someone who wants to improve their photography.

- Yeah, I think a lot of people think improv is coming up with that brilliant idea and putting it on stage. And the interesting thing is that it's more about slowing down and seeing all the stuff that's in front of you, and realizing whatever you get from a partner is exactly perfect. Like as an improviser right now, if I was doing a scene with you, and so I'm noticing your facial expressions a little bit, and seeing how the way you kick and back and saying, oh, okay, as a character I can do something with that. I could create a scene that goes forward without knowing where it is, but just based off of just those interactions that I noticed in you.

- And this is something you practice as an improviser. - Yes, absolutely. - You drill this in your exercises. - Yeah, we have a couple of different rules, well, we have several different rules. But a couple that we really live by at improv, and the one that everybody's probably heard of, which is, "Yes, and." - Or saying yes. - Saying yes, saying yes. Whatever you get is exactly right, and the agree, and then the "Yes, and." Add a little to it. So, again, if we're sitting during a scene and I notice a little smile, I can go, "Oh, you really like that, huh? "We're going to go out for ice cream after.

"If you like that, you're really going to love the ice cream." So no idea of what that is, but just building that next piece. And then the other thing is that mistakes are gifts. And I think, from my, both as a visual artist and as an improviser, the number of times that I've had this vision in my head of exactly how this piece that I'm designing is going to turn out, or if I can get just this right angle. And there's something in the way, or my subject isn't cooperating. As opposed to going, oh, how can I get this thing that's in my head, going, no, that's exactly right, how can I roll with that? And then it generally leads me to something unexpected and better than I originally thought of.

- So you feel like that part of your design life has changed? - Oh, absolutely. - What would you have done before when you run into that-- - I would probably, for example, I was working on a video game project for awhile. And we had this particular interface that we wanted exactly, somebody had come in and drawn a beautiful design of. But it didn't fit the parameters of how this was coming out on the game. So we wrestled with that thing, and we got it close, as opposed to just going, oh, okay, we've got this sort of layout and the game is giving us this.

There's a mistake, okay, let's roll with that and adjust. As opposed to that how do you wrestle something into submission, versus go with the flow, surf the wave of what you get. - I think a lot of people might be surprised to hear you talking about you're codifying this thought process, and these, what you've been describing as rules. Well, but it's improv, it's free, you're supposed to be making it up. How can you have rules? Isn't that constraining and so on and so forth. - Well, I was going to say, for every rule, there is a way to break it. But, like most things, even with photography, when you're talking about different apertures, there are times to break those rules.

But you got to know what they are to begin with. So they're more of those guidelines. But certainly things like saying yes. If you're not saying yes, somebody comes in and goes, "Here's your pizza." and you go, "No." That's not going to go anywhere, it's just shut down. Beginning students, very often, when they start doing scenes get in arguments. Not intending, the nicest of people in the world, but there's something about ourselves that's if like, "I can get into an argument, "it stops things right here, and I know what that's about." And it's just this part of our psyche that goes, uh. So that's why we say, okay, say yes.

We have to practice that because it's not a natural part of us. - You've mentioned already just all the things you're seeing, which makes me feel incredibly self conscious as we're sitting here. - Yes, of course. It absolutely does. ( Ben laughs) - And if you've ever watched an improv scene you know that, boy, you come on stage, and you're hearing names, like there's a tremendous amount that you have to remember. Do, again, from a design perspective, do you feel like something about your ability to take in sensory input has changed since you've-- - Yes, absolutely.

- Like you said, as an improviser, you have to have this hyperactive sense of listening, where it's not only the words that are going out on stage, but it's the body language, it's the noises out in the audience. We've had from time-to-time our heating system in this particular building has starting clanging, and that gets incorporated in the scene. Was doing a show last night, we had a dog barking outside, the dog got incorporated in the scene. So there's this just opening of input as opposed to I'm focusing on my vision and driving my thing forward of, okay, I'm going to be open to all of this other input.

And, oh, there's something over here that I can play with that I didn't think about. - Yeah, I've taken a lot of improv classes, and there have been exercises that are just kind of part of the standard curriculum that have really surprised me about how when we're done with them, I look around the room and everything looks different. It's very strange how you can hack your visual system by tricking it into seeing and things like that. How much do you feel like you take that off the stage and into, I don't know, do you feel your visual sense working different than it used to since you've been doing this? - Yes, absolutely.

And not just my visual sense, but just in the whole world, no matter where I go. When I walk into, for example, I was ordering lunch the other day, and got into this discussion with this gentleman about change, that we never had change. And everybody, there were other people that were kind of smiling, and I said, "This person knows." And, eventually, there were like eight of us having this discussion about change, just because we kind of noticed all of us had that same reaction. So, yeah, when I go out, there is a little bit of... At times it can seem a little like ADD, I guess.

Of, oh, there's that little detail that I've never noticed before. And it's more about putting the focus outside of myself as opposed to having that idea that I'm churning over and over in my head. - So someone comes up to you and says, "I'm a photographer. "This weird guy on a video "told me that I should take an improv class." (Ken laughing) (laughs) What would you tell them about why you think that they should? - It's going to help you become massively more flexible, more mentally agile of, again, seeing all the possibilities.

If you're working with a live subject, you're photographing an animal or a person, as opposed to, "I'm not quite getting the right expression." you're going to notice, "What are they giving me "that I can work with "that we can go in a slightly different direction." Or if I'm, again, I want to shoot this particular thing, but the light isn't quite right here, or there's this feature that's in the way. I've done a lot of outdoor photography, and you go, "Oh, if I could just get there." and, you know, "If I could grow gills, maybe." You know, that kind of thing. - Right, yeah, yeah. - And then going, "Oh, no, okay, "let me see what else is here in this." So it's a lot more of that just noticing and being aware, as opposed to struggling with what you can't do, being open to what you can.

- And then when they say, "Yeah, but I'm not an actor. "And I'm terrified of being on stage." - You don't have to be on stage. (laughs) So many of these exercises, again, we bring you into an improv class. They're about noticing other people and working with those other people. But there's no... Improv isn't just a stage discipline. It's more a communications discipline. And I think that's where a lot of people are surprised of, "Oh, I find I'm able to talk with people more.

"I'm able to understand." We actually do a lot of work with corporate clients and a lot of leaders that come in say, "I got better results out of my team "because all of a sudden I was listening "to what they were saying." So it's not just that stage and performance discipline, it's stuff that really permeates everything you do. - And so for the person who's very shy, they can look at it more as just they're not going to perform, they're going to-- - Yeah, and just like I talked about, again, saying, "Yes, and." and notice when other people are accepting that. You bring what you bring to those classes.

Meaning, if you're shy, that's perfect. I've had shy people in class and if I'm doing a scene with them or doing an exercise with them, it's not that that person is shy, it's the character I'm interacting with is. And the interesting thing is how that tends to just light people up. - Interesting. - Two very famous improvisers, Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell, who were both on The Daily Show years ago, Somebody asked them, they said, "You're out there interviewing real people. "Is it difficult to be, as an improviser, "to be working with these people who aren't improvising." And they said, "Are you kidding? "It's like they're fantastic, they're so committed "and they're so real.

"It's really a test of my skill to stay up with them." - Right. - So that's very much how, when we bring people into class, of, "Yeah, whatever you have is exactly perfect." - Wow, that's great. We're sitting here at the Bayfront Theater in Fort Mason in San Francisco, which is the home of Bay Area Theater Sports, which as a very well-established, long-running, improv school. So if you're in the Bay area, this is absolutely the place to come to take an improv class. If you're somewhere else, what do you look for? How do you-- - Take an intro class. Go maybe see a show, if you're interested in doing that.

A lot of theaters have maybe a three-hour intro class. - A lot of improv theaters. - A lot of improv theaters, yeah. There are Upright Citizens Brigade, and Second City are in multiple locations. Take that first class and see how it feels, because I think you want to have, all this stuff we're talking about can make you very vulnerable, like we're talking about, of you know, "Oh, somebody's noticing me." If it's a very warm environment, you're in the right place. - Okay. (laughs) - And I think there are those classes that are geared more towards performance that are heading straight towards that.

You know, "I'm just here to further my skills "and get onstage." But most places, their intro classes are not geared directly towards that. If you feel like, okay, I'm having fun, and I'm relaxed and I can be myself. I may be a little scared to be myself, but I feel like I could eventually get there then you're in the right place. - That's great. That's a great way of describing it. As I said, I've taken a lot of improv, if you've been watching a lot of practicing photographers, you may not know it, but you've been getting little bits of improv training, because there are a lot of ways that it's filtered into my kind of just general creative philosophy about how to, actually it's much about how to relate to my own impulses and my own fear and a lot of other stuff.

So if you're interested, I really recommend checking it out, Ken, thanks a lot. - My pleasure.