Notes on photography

These notes were taken by me at a photography class held at Keeble and Shuchat in Palo Alto, CA, in December 2002.  Film cameras were still pretty popular back then, but many of the concepts are still applicable even for digital cameras.

Camera Formats

The following formats are available

• 110
• 35 mm
• 2 ¼ (2 and a quarter) 120 film
• 4” x 5” view camera
• 8” x 10” view camera
• 16” x 20”

As cameras get larger, objects need to be more still.

Two types of 36 mm cameras:

• Range finder (very silent)
• SLR (single lens reflex)

4 kinds of SLR cameras

• Manual
• Aperture priority camera
• Shutter priority camera
• Programmable

The brain of a camera is the light meter.

Shutter and aperture

Shutter speed numbers begin with the letter t or b. Shutter speed can be 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30, 60, 125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 6000, 8000. Shutter speeds that are normally used are 60, 125, and 250.

The shutter speed determines the amount of time of the exposure. You cannot handhold a camera at a shutter speed slower than 1/60th of a second.

Most point & shoot cameras have a shutter speed of 125.

A 50 mm lens is a copy of the pupil of the human eye.

The aperture determines the amount of light. The fstops specifies the aperture. Most apertures end at 22 or 16. fstop numbers are like 2.8, 5.6, etc.

4 common aperture numbers:

• 4 (silver dollar)
• 5.6 (half dollar)
• 8 (quarter dollar)
• 11 (dime)

The lower the number, the wider the opening.

Depth of field

The camera sees only height and breadth, no depth. Shut one of your eyes to “see the lurch” (loss of depth).

With a shallow depth of field, the background tends to be blurred.

A depth of field of infinity is as far as the human eye can see.

99% of the time, you don’t need to focus the camera. The camera is focused from x to infinity, where x is the setting. You only have to worry about focusing when getting close.

Some cameras have a depth-of-field preview button.

The more you close an aperture down, the more the depth of field increases (like squinting your eyes).

Exposure compensation

Need to let more light in to get correct flesh tone for Caucasians (either 1 f-stop or increase the shutter speed).

Black needs to be under-exposed (let in less light).

White needs to be over-exposed (let in more light).

Gray does not need anything special.

All you need to worry about in photography is light.

5 generalizations about light

• Bright light
• Even light/soft light
• Dark and overcast
• Back light
• Mixed light (e.g. bright shafts of light through the trees in Muir Woods)

Whenever you turn the camera on, it thinks the light is even. On a bright day, pictures will be over exposed.

In bright light, you need to under-expose the picture by 1 f-stop or 1 shutter speed. Your starting point is where the camera is when you turn it on.

When dark, you need to over-expose by 1 f-stop or 1 shutter speed.

On a backlit subject, always over-expose.

In a mixed light situation, under- or over-expose depending on what the light condition is in the most important part of the picture.

You have to over- and under-expose because you have a reflected meter (as opposed to an incident meter). No camera has an incident meter built into it. Every camera has a reflected light meter.

C-41 B&W

Film

Slide film/print film

Slide film is used for color publishing. Separate negatives for B&W, yellow, cyan, and magenta.

ISO, DIN, ASA – how fast the film is to light.

• Slow (25-100) takes a lot of light to expose the film
• Medium (200-400)
• Fast (500-1600)
• B&W – 3000

As the ISO increases, the quality may not be as good. You don’t have to worry about 1/60th of a second limitation if you have fast-enough film.

3 film makers

• Kodak
• Fuji
• Agfa (a German brand that makes Kirkland film sold by Costco)

All film is very good. Kodakcolor favors red/brown. Kodak ektacolor favors blue. Fuji favors green. Agfa favors brown/red.

Amateur camera – not heavy-duty, only for occasional use.

Professional camera – designed for heavy-duty use (100’s of films a day).

Two types of film

• Regular use film
• Professional use film is refrigerated as soon as it is made until ready for use. The negatives must be developed within 24 hours.

Freshness matters. Useful to think of the banana analogy – green, ripe, over the hill.

Types of photographers

• Amateur
• Professional
• Film Art

Filters

Get a filter to protect the lens. UV-haze filter is useful if you’re doing both B&W and color. You also get a daylight filter or skylight filter.

Polarizer filter is only used under 2 conditions – bright light, and large areas of snow. Also responsible for creating the “perfect blue” pictures of e.g. tropical seas. Do not over- or under-expose with a polarizer because it cuts light down 2 ½ times.

Ceran wrap, fog filters, and diffusion filters enhance “softness”.

K2, yellow filter gets you a picture like your eye sees it.

Sepia filter – everything is golden (has a brownish-gold effect).

Lenses

• Wide angle
• Telephoto and fixed focus
• Zoom

Normal lens is 50 mm. The most common wide-angle lens is 28 mm.

50 mm sees at 56 degrees.

28 mm sees at 78 degrees.

Wide angle lens is useful for close events, e.g. group photos during family events (allows you to fit more in a frame).

55 mm lens is called a macro lens. Macro lens can record something life size and is used to photograph objects like beetles and stamps. It’s good for close-ups, but it goes up to infinity, so it’s good for almost everything. It has a narrower (46 degrees) field of vision.

Telephoto lenses range from 75 mm to 5000 mm. Used for portraits, wild life, etc. where you have to bring the picture to you. Has a smaller field of vision. Creates good portrait with blur in the background.

Zoom lenses: The focal length of the lens has to match the shutter speed of the camera in order to hand-hold it.

For example, at 28 mm, use 1/30th and at 50 mm, use 1/60th. Suppose you have a zoom lens from 28 mm to 250 mm. When it’s at 250 mm, the shutter speed should be adjusted to 250 as well.

Stress management -- A few good reads

The following are some of the books that I have found helpful going back 10 years or so when I first became aware of the tolls that stress was taking on my health.  I don't do much reading nowadays, so this is mostly a collection of old stuff.

Inspiration

• Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss: Not very scientific but a good book to read just for inspiration. It reads well and even though I'm not a big reader, I was able to finish it in one long flight (from India).

Conventional psychology

• Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman: Explains how the brain functions and what causes fear to manifest, the physical symptoms of fear, and the health impact. Doesn't really tell you how to improve the situation, but at least you can understand why things happen.
• Masculinity Reconstructed by Ronald Levant: Learning to identify and work with emotions.

Meditation

• Meditation by Brian Weiss: This book has a CD for a guided relaxation (more like a self hypnosis) which I found very useful. I tend to use it during my most stressful phases, especially at times when I find meditation too difficult either because of too much agitation in the mind, or due to physical symptoms like pain or drowsiness.
• Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana: Good book describing what is meditation and what it is not and the technique of Vipassana (Insight) meditation. This book is available online for free.
• Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki: A classic on zen meditation.
• Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn: A book describing the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) class conducted by the author.
• The Art of Shifting Your Reality: 4 Deep Practices for Clearing Emotional Blockages and Harnessing the Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Drumheller: Methods to process emotions.

Stress and the adrenals

• Gaining vitality through the adrenal glands by Carly Polland: Video of a presentation explaining the effect of stress on the adrenals and how that impacts well being.  Remedies include deep breathing, yoga, meditation/mindfulness, visualization/relaxation, and adaptogens.

Resources for sleep

• Sleep for healthy mind and body by Carly Polland
• Sleep diary

Fear, anger, anxiety, and depression

I have written earlier about my struggle with anxiety which led me to meditation.  Even with regular meditation the anxiety has been been a constant battle, but at least I have the tools to recognize that the sensations in the body are those of anxiety and that they will pass.  It is not always easy to do this and there are times when it gets a bit overwhelming, but over time, I have been fortunate to see a reduction in those overwhelming moments.  I should say that even the ability to have a regular meditation practice is a blessing by itself because health does not always cooperate in this regard.

What prompted me to write about this topic is that these emotions appear to be all very interrelated.  I don't claim this as some sort of original thought.  It is just a documentation of my experience with it.  I am not qualified to give advice in this area and all of what I am writing may be incorrect.  Do your own research!

Lets start with fear.  Fear is built into us.  In fact, at a subconscious level we are aware that life will not last forever and we therefore try to cling on to "feel good" experiences.  This point was articulated in the first chapter of the book Mindfulness in Plain English.

Take any moment when you feel really fulfilled and examine it closely. Down under the joy, you will find that subtle, all-pervasive undercurrent of tension, that no matter how great the moment is, it is going to end. No matter how much you just gained, you are either going to lose some of it or spend the rest of your days guarding what you have got and scheming how to get more. And in the end, you are going to die. In the end, you lose everything. It is all transitory.

But because we don't understand the "root fear," instead we project that fear on to various situations in our lives (e.g. fear of being disliked or fear of future or certain phobias such as such fear of heights and so on).  Most books about anxiety talk about the fight or flight response which comes from a very primitive part of the brain, one that reacts much faster than the cognitive parts which process information.  Fear prepares the body for flight.

Which brings us to anger.  Anger is a close relative of fear.  It prepares us to fight.  Dig deep below the anger and there is almost certainly some type of fear (and as mentioned earlier, dig deeper into the fear and one finds that it is the fear of death that is really bothering us).  It triggers various biochemical reactions in the body to prepare us to fight.  We may act on our anger, which typically won't yield good results because reactive mind is at play and we are unable to think clearly in that situation.  Or we may suppress our anger, sometimes for years on end.  An interesting observation I have found to be true in my case is that when anger arises, I project it on to whatever is going through my mind at that time which may or may not be what is happening in that instant -- may be the traffic, may be a family member, could be a coworker, a store clerk or even the weather!  I am very adept at suppressing the anger (I have decades of practice), but that is not the correct way to deal with it.  Unbridled expression also does not appear to be the correct solution in this case as it only leads to escalating anger and confrontation that is not likely to result in anything productive.

Which brings us to anxiety.  Suppressing fear and anger over a long period of time creates excessive stress hormones in the body which are not given appropriate release, e.g. a punching bag or vigorous exercise might provide a reasonable outlet at a physical level.  Really these need to be addressed at an emotional level so we understand what is causing these emotions.  In my case, these unresolved emotions have been buried for decades.  But in the absence of that, eventually these will cause symptoms of anxiety and physical ailments associated with anxiety.  It throws the adrenals in overdrive and causes us to always be in a hurry.  This in turn causes a loss in energy levels.  It's like having a caffeine high which eventually leads to a crash.  Occasional anxiety is probably normal.  Anxiety that lasts weeks or months or years is a problem.  Physical discomfort and ailments only serve to make this worse.

Which brings us to depression.  The body can maintain the heightened energy levels in the anxious state only for so long.  Anxiety attacks that happen often enough lead to depression.  One might think that depression is the body's way of shutting down and trying to repair the damage done by the anxiety.  Unfortunately, when the energy levels recover, we go back to anxiety and we cycle back and forth between these states.  And thus we remain stuck in this vicious cycle.

What is the solution?

I haven't experienced it fully yet.  Vipassana meditation teaches us that we should never react to sensations, but just observe them.  I have found that useful, and I'm able to invoke it more and more with regular sustained practice, but yet have overwhelming moments.  Bhakti yoga instructs us to chant mantras if we notice we are in such a state.  Chanting immediately calms the mind.  I use this practice as well when I remember to do so and find it especially useful when the sensations are too overwhelming to simply observe.  A couple of other practices I have found useful are gratitude (life could always be worse) and forgiveness (both for others and for the self).

In all of these states (and actually several other states, but that is a topic for a different time), Vipassana teaches us that the breath will be altered.  Usually the breath will speed up but is very shallow or even stall when in these states.  Which is why remembering to take deep breaths is often cited as a remedy to deal with the mind that is stuck in one of these states.

Sattvic food on the go

(Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on this subject so use this information at your own risk.  Also, if you have any information to add, please let me know.  My email address is available in my profile.)

This is going to be a very long post, and I expect to update it over time.  It contains some general guidelines that I follow when traveling or eating out.

When traveling there is very little control over the type of food we have access to.  There are actually ways to cook even while on the go by carrying a portable rice cooker or hot plate, but for the purpose of this article I'll ignore the cooking option; if I ever figure out how to do that efficiently, I may write another article about that.

I have written about the subject of sattvic food in an earlier post.  I try to eat sattvic food as best as I can, but this means very limited eating out, because sattvic food must be fresh and needs to be prepared a certain way.  Since this post is about finding sattvic food on the go, it's mainly about where to find near-sattvic food based on the ingredients alone when eating out.  There's also the issue of chemicals in the food used as taste enhancers or preservatives but I'll ignore those as well.  FoodBabe is an excellent blog dedicated to investigating some of the weird ingredients in the processed foods found in restaurants and on store shelves.

So for the purpose of this article, we define sattvic food as lacto-vegetarian without onions, garlic, mushrooms, or vinegar.  I admit this is quite a warped definition, but we need to start somewhere!

Often, no one knows what's in the food

Unfortunately, because of the "industrialization of food," the people serving the food are seldom aware of the ingredients.  In many cases they will have to go to the kitchen to ask the chef.  In many cases, the chef uses pre-prepared ingredients devised by an executive chef so unless there's information provided by the corporate office, even the chef may not know.  Most servers will claim that their food is "prepared from scratch and they can leave out any problem ingredients" but after checking with the kitchen they will come back and apologize.

Most restaurants do not understand the term lacto-vegetarian.   In the US, restaurants usually understand vegetarian as being lacto-ovo and assume cheese would be OK (even though it may contain animal rennet) as would sour cream (which sometimes contains gelatin).  However, they do understand the term vegan in which case they would avoid all animal products, so unless I have had the chance to thoroughly check the ingredients of the dishes, I usually ask for food that is vegan and without onions, garlic, mushrooms, or vinegar.

I'll start out with the different cuisines and what I watch out for.  I ask a lot of questions and I'm a pain when I eat out.  Often, I try and call ahead to find out what is possible, since many places cannot accommodate these requirements.  This is why I have only a preferred handful of places that I frequent.

A side-effect of skipping onions and garlic is that I can actually taste the underlying ingredients a lot better.  In many cases,  I find the ingredients like vegetables are stale.  Earlier there were times when I'd still just eat it.  Then I stopped eating it, but I'd still pay the bill and leave hungry.  Nowadays I usually complain to the server and if they still want me to pay, I will, but I leave hungry.  I would rather not mess up my already sensitive digestion.  Of course, a bad experience often means I will strike a restaurant off my list of places to visit.

Some places will accept the special request, but will serve food with onions and/or garlic anyway and hope that I won't be able to tell.  Unfortunately, my palate is now too sensitive, so I either send it back and have them redo it, or leave hungry with/without paying (depending on the options that they give me).

American/Sandwich

Most restaurants tend to have eggs in their bread.  They would not know that but for egg allergies being fairly common.  They usually don't know about rennet in cheese.  They often use frozen ingredients (e.g. fries) and may or may not know what goes into them and their seasoning.  Most veggie burgers will contain onions and/or garlic in the patties as do many of the side vegetables.  In general I try to avoid these places unless they can clarify with some certainty that the food is vegan with no onions, garlic, or mushrooms.   Sometimes all they have to offer is a salad, but I usually have to skip the dressing because of the eggs, onions, garlic that are often used in those.  Even vegan restaurants are often a challenge because their seasonings almost always contain onions and garlic.

Chinese/Thai

Most sauces are either pre-made or use starter pastes or powders that already contain onions and/or garlic and/or mushrooms.  Really, the only thing that is safe at both Chinese and Thai restaurants is a bland stir fry of vegetables in oil, possibly with fresh tofu.  If the tofu is "spiced," typically the hard type, it will often have onions and/or garlic.  Many Thai restaurants use fish sauce even in vegetarian dishes unless there is an explicit request to exclude it.  Many of the noodles are made with eggs.  If the tofu is sour, I assume it's gone stale.  I eat only the vegetables that taste fresh and leave the rest.  Fortunately, portions are usually oversized so I don't end up hungry.  Fortune cookies are almost always made with eggs.  

Many strict Buddhists avoid onions and garlic, so many places will understand this requirement.

Indian

Indian restaurants tend to be safer on average because usually they will have heard of the requirement for no onions and no garlic because of the Jain community.  However, I have found several surprising things.  In upwards of 50% of the restaurants in the US and Europe, they use eggs to make naan bread.  A safer option for bread is the tandoori roti which is made with whole wheat flour.  The sauces are usually pre-made or use pre-made powders and so the menu for items with no onions and no garlic is very limited.  Desserts such as kulfi may contain eggs; in some cases they source their desserts from some place else and they don't even know what ingredients they contain.  Usually, at Indian restaurants they tend to have the butter tomato sauce (makhani) which can be made without onions and garlic, or else it's pretty much sauteed vegetables such as cauliflower or okra.  Sometimes the okra is frozen; I found that out from a friendly server at one of the restaurants I frequent.

Italian 

Pizza crust is often made with eggs.  The sauces will usually contain onions or garlic.  Many times the olive oil they use is infused with garlic.  The breads they serve sometimes contains eggs.  Fresh pasta and stuffed pasta (e.g. ravioli) is usually made with eggs.  And the cheeses often contain animal rennet.  Among the seemingly lacto-vegetarian desserts, I try to watch for eggs in icecream and gelatin in things like panna cotta.

Usually, they can make a dried pasta tossed with a few vegetables in olive oil and salt.  If the pizza crust is made without eggs, they can usually skip the sauce and in some cases even the cheese (if unsure about animal rennet) and just top the pizza with some vegetables.

Foodbabe has a nice investigation on what's in your pizza.

Mexican

This is a really tough one.  Salsas usually have onions and/or garlic.  The cheese may contain animal rennet.  Most of their sauces have onions and/or garlic as do the beans.  Rice may be made with chicken stock or cooked with onions.  Flavored tortillas (such as spinach or tomato) will usually have onions and/or garlic.  About the only thing that may work at a Mexican restaurant is a quesadilla, but if I have to leave out the cheese, there may be little else to put it in.

Temples

Many temples such as the Hare Krishna temples offer food that is truly sattvic.  When traveling to other cities, I often try and look for these.  Even if they don't advertise meals as open to the public, they will often accommodate a visitor.  And some of the temples like the ones in Dallas and Vancouver have a restaurant attached to the temple.  Here is what looks like a fairly comprehensive directory of ISKCON restaurants.  Unfortunately, because is ISKCON is now quite fragmented, I haven't been able to find a reliable directory of temples, but I can usually rely on Google when looking for a temple in any given city.

Some cities have Buddhist temples that offer food without onions and garlic but they usually do use mushrooms.

Airlines

Most flights in the west tend to only offer vegan food and usually contains onions and garlic.  Some airlines offer Jain meals which work out really well.  Jain food does not contain onions or garlic but is even more strict by excluding certain vegetables such as potatoes.  Many airlines offer the Jain meal option only on flights to/from the Indian subcontinent.

Looking for vegetarian-friendly restaurants

HappyCow provides a worldwide directory and user reviews of vegetarian friendly restaurants.  Yelp is also helpful in this regard.

In a subsequent post, I will cover what I have found about the ingredients at popular chain restaurants, usually from communicating with their corporate office via their website.

Chain restaurants

Below are some options for sattvic food at chain restaurants.  Again, this is really using the term loosely as defined earlier in this post.  Most of these findings are based on private communication with their corporate offices via their website.  This information is accurate as of this writing, but things can change, so it never hurts to double-check at the time of ordering.

• California Pizza Kitchen: CPK has a great resource on their website for vegetarians and vegans, which has a separate section for lacto-vegetarians, but then you have have to figure out how to exclude onions, garlic, mushrooms, vinegar, etc.  But a simple pizza would typically work OK.  They have several cheeses without animal rennet and their crust is made without eggs.  I have not been able to confirm whether their pizza sauce is made without onions and garlic.
• Chipotle: The cilantro-lime rice is fine as is the cheese quesadilla (cheese does not use animal rennet).  The beans, tofu, salsas all contain onions and/or garlic.  They actually publish all their ingredients.  Wouldn't it be nice if all restaurants did this?
• In-n-Out Burger: French fries are about the only thing.  Their cheese is made with animal rennet.
• P F Changs: All of their sauces are either non-vegetarian or contains onions and garlic.  About the only thing you can get at PF Chang's is the steamed Buddha's feast (asking for no onions) and replacing the spiced tofu with silken tofu (the spiced tofu has either onions or garlic).
• PizzaRev: Only the blue cheese contains animal rennet, other cheeses use vegetarian enzymes. The tomato sauce contains garlic powder.
• Subway: They source their cheese from several suppliers so they can't guarantee that it will be without animal rennet.  Most of their breads are OK.  About the only thing you can get is a veggie sub with some fresh vegetables, topped with olive oil and salt/pepper.  Most of their dressings contain one or more of eggs/onions/garlic/vinegar.  For me, Subway is a last-resort type place because the quality of their food isn't all that great.
• Wolfgang Puck: This is for the location at Denver airport.  Pizza dough is made without eggs and mozzarella and gorgonzola cheeses are without animal rennet.
• ZPizza: Their mozzarella cheese does not contain animal rennet.  The crust is made without eggs.  The tomato sauce (different from their marinara sauce) does not contain onions or garlic.

Cheese brands

• Bravo Farms: All cheese is made with vegetable rennet.
• Emmi USA: Despite the labels on almost all of their cheese just listing "enzymes", from private communication, I found that only 2 of their cheeses from Switzerland are made with vegetarian rennet--the Switzerland Swiss and Don Olive.  The others are all made with animal rennet.  They also offer cheeses made in the US and most of those are made with microbial rennet.

Concert at the Yoga Farm: Karnamrita Dasi

This Thanksgiving weekend at the Yoga Farm, we were lucky to have Karnamrita Dasi for kirtan on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.  She played the harmonium and was accompanied by a tabla player (a different one on Thursday and Friday/Saturday) and someone who alternated between playing the guitar and mandolin.

I knew this was going to be a treat.  I had seen Karnamrita several years ago (before I started writing this blog) at a performance at the Yoga Farm.  It was a great experience back then, so much that I bought her CD, Prayers by Women, and have listened to it regularly over the years.  I went hunting around for more music by her, but while there are lots of random recordings from festivals and such on youtube, the only other recorded piece I was able to find was her piece titled Om Purnam on the Sri Isopanishad in an album by Bada Haridas.

She brings an amazing energy with her sharing various stories from her and life and educating the audience about the lyrics and encouraging participation.  She grew up in an ashram community in the US, but spent several years in India learning music.  I really cannot adequately describe her voice or even the experience of being at the concert.  Her CD might give a slight glimpse into her voice, but there is so much more that is not captured by recordings.

On Friday evening, she told us to remember the name of an album she wanted to recommend --  the Radha Krsna Temple album which was produced by George Harrison (free version at archive.org, CD version, iTunes).

On Saturday morning I found it on iTunes and it instantly sent me back to my college years when my dad would play this music at home in the mornings.  I cannot seem to tire from listening to Govinda, which contains verses from the Brahma Samhita, specifically verses 5.30 and 5.32, reproduced below.

veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣam-
barhāvataṁsam asitāmbuda-sundarāṅgam
kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya-viśeṣa-śobhaṁ
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi 

aṅgāni yasya sakalendriya-vṛtti-manti
paśyanti pānti kalayanti ciraṁ jaganti
ānanda-cinmaya-sad-ujjvala-vigrahasya
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

This was the first time I actually understood how to pronounce the words as Karnamrita had walked us through it on Friday night.

Listening to it over and over brought tears to my eyes as my mind was flooded with (mostly unhappy) memories of my teenage years and I started to realize how incomprehensible the meaning of life is with so much sadness and suffering as we go from birth to youth to old age and finally to death.

She said that she only sings in sanskrit (with a few exceptions), and also mentioned that memorizing the sanskrit texts such as the Brahma Samhita would keep ones memory sharp, such is the nature of the sanskrit language.

This was really a beautiful weekend as I spent three evenings in row at the Yoga Farm enjoying wonderful food cooked by Shambu and some of the most enchanting kirtan.

Albums featuring Karnamrita Dasi

Since first writing this article, I have come across some other pieces featuring her singing.  She doesn't do a good job of advertising her music but the following is a listing of the pieces that I've been able to find where she has either sung solo or as part of a group.

• Prayers by Women (Song #5 is available free at archive.org)
• Nectar of Devotion (Songs #3 and #8)
• Divas & Devas (Song #3)
• Om Purnam (Song #3)

Why is it hard to trust our instincts?

This is something I've been wanting to write about for a long time.  It is something that I found in the movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  The movie itself was an interesting, gripping watch, not to mention very violent as well, but this is about one specific scene in the movie.

This is towards the end of the movie in the scene in the basement with Mikael Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig) suspended in chains and Martin Vanger (played by Stellan Skarsgard) about to kill him.  Martin says to him:

Let me ask you something. Why don't people trust their instincts? They sense something is wrong, someone is walking too close behind them. You knew something was wrong, but you came back into the house. Did I force you? Did I drag you in? No. All I had to do was offer you a drink. It's hard to believe that fear of a offending me is stronger than the fear of pain, but you know what? It is. And they always come willingly, and they sit there, they know its all over, just like you do.

These lines seemed very powerful and stuck with me.  Why?  I realize I often ignore my instincts and act in ways that might make me appear more socially acceptable.  In fact, I'm so used to burying my natural instincts that it is hard for me to even pinpoint what it is trying to tell me.  This is the kind of thing that leads to analysis-paralysis during decision making because the external parameters are often inadequate when capturing the effect of unknowns.

This quote from the movie did two things.  It articulated something which I felt has been true for me and also made me aware that it is probably not that uncommon.

A thin wallet

A few years ago, I looked for ways to thin my bulging bifold wallet. I had several bank cards (credit & ATM cards), airline cards, insurance cards, membership cards, etc. filling up all of the pockets in the wallet.  I used to carry the wallet in my back pocket.  It was a standard billfold that I used to buy from a company called Creative Leather Concepts, and had ordered so many from them over the years that they automatically discounted my purchases.

One day I decided one day that I wanted to simplify things.

Reducing the number of cards

So the first step in getting to a thinner wallet was to reduce the number of cards.  I separated my cards into piles -- cards that I'm likely to need daily or in an emergency, and cards that can be kept away.  In the first pile were my license, bank cards, insurance cards, and membership cards.  I decided all of the loyalty cards could stay out of the wallet and instead put them in a separate card case.  Next I reduced the number of bank cards by canceling all but 2 ATM and 2 credit cards.

The switch to the front pocket

That still left me with about 10-12 cards and so I continued using the same wallet and continued to carry it in my back pocket, until one day when I decided to try moving it to my front pocket.  This was the first time in around 35 years of carrying wallets that I decided to change the habit.  It immediately felt more comfortable and secure.  That's when I decided to try and find a slimmer wallet better to suited to carrying in the front pocket.

Incidentally, I later found that sitting on a fat wallet can cause sciatica.  I'm glad I decided to switch before I had any problems.

The alternatives

Searching around on the 'net I found a bunch of alternatives:

• The Slimmy: This is one of the first ones that I came across.  But it would not have fit all the cards I needed and it required a complete change to the way I carried currency.  There were complaints from reviewers about stuff falling out of the wallet and all over the place.
• Tyvek:  The next one was the Tyvek wallet.  These are more of a traditional design and super slim, but it just felt weird to be carrying around something that's a piece of paper, plus it looked like stuff would slide out too easily (especially the cards).  NICO is a slightly more sophisticated take on the Tyvek wallet.
• All-ETT: I don't see the original All-ETT wallet listed here, but you can get an idea of what it looked like by looking at the sample in the link and thinking of a design that had 4 card slots, 2 on each side, organized one on top of the other.  This made the wallet too big to carry in a front pocket comfortably, but it seemed like an interesting design for a back pocket wallet.
• Big Skinny:  Back then, they had only one product, which they no longer make!  The closest one they have now is the sport wallet.  That one was slightly larger (the size of the multi-pocket bifold) but it had one less compartment than even the sport wallet.  And the material was a microfiber similar to those in Prada bags.  They seemed to be able to accommodate 10-15 cards quite easily and had solved the problem of stuff falling out of the wallet by using a rubberized coating.  It was also non-leather, super thin, and at $20 was quite reasonably priced.
• Money clips: This just didn't seem like a good idea with no real protection for the currency and the chance for cards to fall all over the place.

My choice

I ended up deciding on the Big Skinny because it seemed like the most practical of the lot and I wouldn't have to make any further adjustments to what I was carrying in my wallet.  I went through several of their original design.  And, since it has been discontinued, I have switched to the multi-pocket bifold.  I don't like the change in material, which now feels more like regular cloth, but I guess I can live with it.

One of the problems I've had with the Big Skinny is when traveling to Europe the currency is often too large and sticks out at the edges.  I usually end up having to fold it in interesting ways to get it to fit, and since these are very short trips, I don't bother to try to address it in a better way.  They do make a world wallet, but that takes away from the compactness.  Being an engineer, I've been trained to optimize for the common case.

Other interesting wallets

Here are some other wallets that I've come across later that I think look interesting, but I don't see a reason to change from the Big Skinny.

• Unifold: Made from a single piece of leather.
• Bellroy: Website claims they're made from leather from end-of-life cows (i.e. cows that weren't slaughtered).  I saw these at Nordstrom and wasn't impressed with the thinness or the quality.
• RAGGEDedge: The material is too stiff and not conducive to holding many cards.
• Mitchell: A slim money clip design.
• minimum squared: Made from a single piece of very thin goat leather.
• DUN: Claims to be the world's thinnest leather billfold.  Holds up to 8 cards and 10 bills.
• Wally: Several styles available.