So, I’ve had this little chip on my shoulder for a long time, and at this point I think it’s here to stay. It gets bigger and heavier when I do things like watch a youtube video about how some photographer accomplished one of his favorite images, or attend a workshop aimed at journalists listed as, “It’s Easy to Make Better Video.”
Here’s why.
In the youtube vid, the photographer inevitably says something like, “So as the crew packed the gear, and I went out to the equipment truck…” and I’m like…”Wait…wait…wait…Equipment truck? Crew?…What kind of freakish, drug-induced fantasy is this?”
I don’t know any photographers who have new shoes and an assistant on the same day, much less an “equipment truck” and a “crew.”
Our photog may as well continue, “My subject that day appeared to me to be a little tense, and it’s important for my subject to be comfortable if I’m to get the emotion and connection that I desire. So I sent one assistant out for lattes, and the other, who is also a trained masseuse, began to help my subject relax by incorporating reflexology and aromatherapy, and then softly playing the harp we bring with us everywhere.”
I think it’s great that some photogs have this kind of support. Carrying your own gear is so déclassé, and I don’t know about you, but my beret has a wandering mind of it’s own. If I don’t have an accomplished beret-minder, well…I might as well wear a navy-blue watchcap. But are the rest of us actually supposed to compare ourselves to this?
And the journalism conferences…like the last one I ever went to actually…will have a lecture titled something like, “Improving Your Short Videos.” You know what I expected, help with those videos you have to knock-out on the Memorial Day Parade, or the office building implosion, or the opening of Little League…all on the same day, while you shoot your jpgs and get names.
I kid you not, this is what we heard, “…and this is a portion of a video we did on the encroachment of industrialization on indigenous peoples of Brazil. Our producer, sound engineer, fixer, and myself were there for 5 weeks…and after we returned there was about another 3 weeks of post-production. I think the project turned-out rather well.”
I was there hoping to get some tips like, “How to Edit Video While Eating a Burger and Explaining to your Spouse Why You’ll be Late Again,” or “Shooting Video of Yourself Getting Arrested While Continuing to Make Top-Notch Riot Images.”
But no, I learned that flying first-class is a big plus because you get to check more gear.
I think my issue is that so many of these videos, lectures, classes, etc. aren’t designed to help the 99% of us that slug-it-out every day. Intentionally or not, they feature the lucky few showing the rest of us how good they’ve got it. It might help if they were based more on the reality of what the average shooter deals with every day, instead of what can be done with seemingly unlimited resources.
Here’s one for you, and this is true. I was in Manhattan shooting a business portrait of some high-powered lawyer/businessman/Master of the Universe. His plane was late, he was late, and he breezed past me with a “Sorry…no can do,” and headed straight into the board meeting.
I was like, “Really, man? And I wore my blue blazer and everything…”
So I grabbed a piece of paper, wrote, “30 seconds…please…” on it and gave it to one of his assistants when they came back with the Perrier or Cristal or whatever.
To my relief, (because no editor cares why you didn’t get the picture, they just remember that it was YOU who didn’t get the picture) he came out of the conference room, handed the note back to me, stood in front of the windows, looked at his watch, and said, “Go”…and I spent 12 seconds positioning him and then tore through about a foot and a half of Ektachrome.
I think that project turned-out rather well, actually.
I’d like to attend a seminar dealing with that.