As I delve deeper into the video world, the gulf between still and video photography is becoming more apparent than ever.
David Adam Edelstein left a comment this morning on whether I missed still photography when I shot video. What I miss is the ability to be completely involved and subsumed in the reality of the moment, and use that immersion as the source of my imagery. Perhaps I will get there in video, but now I am too technically inept with the camera to have any attention left for anything else. I'm still stumblefingered with the gear, and I don't have a good feedback loop in my mind to understand how what I'm doing is going to be expressed. A good chunk of the ideas I have at the time tend not to work. Such is the climb up a learning curve.
The still photograph is a complete work. By virtue of removing an image from the stream of time, it becomes compelling in its own right. Photography shows us a reality that cannot be seen any other way. There is no corresponding revealed instant in video. What you saw a moment ago affects how you'll respond to what you haven't seen yet, but are about to. The stream is the work. There is no decisive moment. It's a little like if the only way your photographs could be experienced was in a completed book, and you had to have the image of the book existing in your mind when you made the sequence of photographs.
So video, at this point, keeps me at a distance from my experience. I want that to change, and I think it will. Not only must I develop a new kind of camerawork, but much of the work of video is the composition of the final cut, and mastery of yet another set of tools. That part is a lonely, difficult task.
What keeps me going is the compelling storytelling capacity of the medium that trumps anything still photography can deliver. I've seen a lot of audio slideshows, using stills, that attempt to bridge that gap, but few have left me with anything except the sense that the wrong medium was in play. I'm seeking a better way.
What I'm working on now is a piece about the Tractor Tavern square dance. I have a Flickr set on the same subject, so compare the two when I post the video.
Doug, I've been following your recent heroic transitional struggles with the bemused interest of someone who has no need or desire to follow (as the old joke has it, "I love work: I could watch it all day").
The thing that strikes me about video (and why I have, as yet, no interest in it) is the way that it always foregrounds the "reality value" of its content. The thing most people never learn about still photography is how to see past the subject ("It's a squaredance") to appreciate the expressive 2-D aesthetic of shape, tone, colour and composition -- that's why they get hung up on things like sharpness, "white balance" and the like. Your Flikr set exemplifies the way a skilled, sensitive still photographer can capture a mood, and use a selective process to say "Look, this is what it feels like, it's a warm, pink, blurry, smiley, communal kind of thing".
The video of the same squaredance moves me along in chunks of real time, so that I don't dwell on (or have my attention focussed on) aspects of the scene that might challenge my everyday perception of what is going on ("It's a squaredance; there's a pretty girl; hey, nice shoes") but on the other hand it does give a much more accurate representation of dance moves, body language, context, etc. I'm getting more information about the subject, which my brain trusts (and selects) as if it were reality.
The dilemma is exemplified, for me, by this: there's a moment towards the end of your Tractor Tavern video when a girl is clogging on a raised platform, and her movements are magical -- I want to watch her, nothing else. Video reveals the movement to me, but also takes it away before I'm ready. Still photography would let me gaze as long as I like, but could only ever hint at her movements. Reconciling those two desires (identifying the "good bits"; putting them together in a satisfying and revealing way) may of course simply be what truly excellent video editing is all about... Lots of luck, Doug, we're watching your progress with interest!
Posted by: Mike C. | July 18, 2008 at 02:38 AM
Mike, thank you for a thoughtful exegesis of this whole enterprise. It's why I will continue to do both still and video, because each has attributes that are compelling to me. What you said about photography is spot on--a successful photograph is one which engages qualities removed from the context of reality, while still referring back to it. I can engage myself photographically, because some other trigger is at work--oh, nice swirl, great color, interesting juxtaposition--that might just as easily be triggered in some completely different environment. The clip of Skye clogging on stage is magical, and is so because of the flow and movement only video can record, and I can tease the viewer and up the tension of the piece by keeping the clip short and composing it within other elements.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | July 18, 2008 at 08:38 AM