Still and video

Still and video are different. Here is yet another way I've discovered how they are different.

This was the first video that I've shot for a college client. The design firm, for obvious reasons, was adamant that I separate the days I was shooting one or the other. With the 5D however, I often slipped, shooting stills with my subject, then switching to video capture. I love that it is so easy to do that with this camera.

Oddly, I find shooting video to be more connecting. That wouldn't seem obvious. I use a camera to deepen my awareness of a place, of the energy of the people around me, and of my internal sensations in response to my surroundings. My entire theory of how photography operates as a mechanism of mediation between inner and outer awareness is based on this notion. But still photography is also a witnessing medium, as opposed to a participatory one. Part of you needs to stand apart from the moment in order to capture it.

Video requires more cooperation from your subject, at least when your subject is a living, breathing person you've asked to reveal something with the camera running. There is a negotiation (can you help me with my video project?) a question, a cogent answer (if all goes well), and a goodbye. It is a dip into a brief, intense and sometimes intimate exchange. It turns out I am really liking it.

When I dip back into still mode, my participation is suddenly quiet and unspoken. I use my comfort with the medium and my awareness of the energetics of the situation to recede into the background. Even with two huge, honking cameras, standing in the middle of the action, I am able to disappear. I witness and record such that I am not generally a piece of the event.

I don't disappear in video. What I bring to the relationship is what gets recorded. I need to be involved in as significant a manner as my subject. It turns out I really like that part. Maybe I'm ready to become more visible in my work.