Modeling and photography

In a world where everyone seems to be now focused on video, there is something to the lost art of stop action photography. Photographs allow us to freeze the world in a moment of time and examine it. A bird in flight, a car in motion, the biomechanics of a bicyclist in a race. There is so much to be seen that is often missed without the beauty of a photograph.

Similarly, models allow scientists to fly a plan, fast forward weather patterns and even analyze financial markets. Similar to a photograph, a model’s output can be frozen in time. In the example of a financial market, otherwise imperceptible forces at play can be examined at their tipping points and exploitive actions can be taken.

To best understand the potential of a model, one needs to look no further than a simple photograph and to ask themselves, “What do I see here that I otherwise would have missed in real time?”