Compliance has its virtues.
This time I followed instructions. Our assignment was to find an activity, something repetitive. Our goal was a one minute story. Our instructions were to shoot every aspect of this activity from five points of view: wide, tight, over the shoulder, reverse, and a fifth direction of our choice.
The first coffee shop wouldn't let me behind the counter without a call to Marketing, but they directed me to their favorite coffee place around the corner where the owner let me have free rein. Kimberly gladly made me latte after latte (I only drank one). I stumbled with the camera, struggling with focus, with the on-off button (every time I've taken the camera out I have a long take of my feet, or a ceiling), with getting a clear view through the finder, or trying to see the screen through the bottom of my bifocals. And I'm trying to remember my instructions. Which view am I forgetting? Where did my left brain go?
I'm used to the gear being a non-entity in how I connect with my subject. In this case, the gear is everything, since I'm basically incompetent at operating it. I'm in a visual mode, but I don't know how to make the connect between what I'm seeing and how to capture it. I just know that it's really, really hard to do both at once. It must be what every beginning photographer feels, still or video. I think this course is going to make me a more empathetic teacher.
I think the frustration is much worse for you than for a beginner because the beginner doesn't know what it is like to be in visual mode without the gear in the way. This is the beginner's first experience.
Posted by: Tommy Williams | February 27, 2008 at 10:33 AM