Photo Prose: Your Opinion Please
What are your photographic priorities?
How important is proper decorum and unobtrusiveness during the chuppah? Some studios not only have a half-dozen crewmembers in the aisle, but they act as if they are the show! A few place the guests’ view of the chuppah above all things . . . but does that mean you will accept lesser coverage of the chuppah while the crew was being more considerate?
There was a while when you wanted a photographer to be unobtrusive. I only know a handful of photographers skilled enough to make a lot of meaningful candid shots, and they are not ironically the ones claiming to be photojournalists. But then while one was being unobtrusive and covering the event in a photojournalistic way, people would interrupt with requests for photos. Since great candid shots require different camera settings than requested snapshots, it is inefficient use of the time to switch back and forth. Do you value candid shots of those unaware and not playing to the camera, or posed shots facing the camera?
A related question is that if the photos are meant to tell the story of the day, is the real story told when most of the supposedly candid shots merely show people smiling to the camera? Does that show the event or are those types of shots evidence that the photographer interrupted the event by taking the photos?
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Today’s Video, Part 4
Equipment is good. Experience is great. Talent is terrific. Skill makes it meaningful.
Last month I wrote how amazing new cameras are ironically leading to a reduction in the meaningful content that loved ones will enjoy in the future.
These cameras require accessories: brackets, stabilizers, and focusing aids because ergonomically these cameras are awful. Software and seminars are another expense. New products are announced daily, claiming to improve or solve videographer’s problems in shooting, editing, and output. Yet with all the money and time videographers are forced to invest, few ever think about investing in themselves!
My uncle was a pianist. He practiced ten hours a day. My mother a ballerina; ten hours a day. Practice makes one’s skills stronger. Gadgets are often a crutch that lead to atrophy and mediocrity!
How much more exciting and meaningful the video could be if the emphasis were on technique rather than technology. Skill will lead to substance. Over the years I have been a member of various professional videographers’ associations. They have monthly programs, speakers, and technical presentations. But no one talks about skills. Everyone is expected to have skill. Most are confident that they do! Some actually would love to develop more skills. But everyone is focused on technology—new gear and software.
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A short video can have the key emotional moments and be more effective in touching the heart, than one with long stretches between exciting, dramatic, and tearful moments. But videos frequently miss key moments, which often are unpredictable even when part of an expected series of actions, because they are made from short clips that are weak to begin with. Long videos are not any better, having longer weak scenes.
My previous columns explained that today’s video cameras do not have the ergonomics of older cameras, and are not easily able to track unpredictable action while maintaining tight, well composed, in-focus content. Now, 20 years since these small, lightweight economical cameras came out, many old time videographers have taken the easy lightweight approach in their senior years. Newer cameramen who do not mind carrying a 20 plus pound machine on their shoulder rather than a 3 pounder on the crutch of a pod, and who might actually want to do better, have serious obstacles facing them. Firstly, who can teach them? Secondly, budget greatly limits camera image quality, so their camera is probably not the best. Thirdly, their style is molded by studios who care most about the bottom line.
Only a few years ago, few considered short videos a desirable thing. They would want to see everything. Today, with imagery so prevalent and time so scarce, the amazingly crystal clear quality of new style cameras, coupled with the rapid high energy edits that music videos made popular, can make this product glamorous. If the studio also offers you a longer version with “all the footage,” it seems like a no brainer. But just rewind for a moment.
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Your cell phone may have great video image quality. But try following action from a distance with varying zoom and manual control over the exposure, and you realize it is impossible to shoot sustained coverage of an indoor event.
Specs, like resolution and zoom ratio, are usually considered when purchasing a camera. But ergonomics is not, and that can be critical in allowing or limiting what you can do with the camera. How the camera handles can make all the difference in the world, both to a skilled cameraman forced to accept limitations due to budget constraints and an amateur who might never think of that criterion before making a purchase.
The digital revolution saw drastic changes to photography from 2000 to 2005. Since then, many improvements have occurred. Mainstream video lagged behind photographic technology, with the biggest changes occurring in the last six years. I expect to see video refined similarly in the coming years.
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Short or Short Changed – Today’s Video – Part One
Heard the story of one who saved everything – even pieces of string too short to be of any use? That person we can be sure was never an editor! Editors must cut stuff out. Sometimes excising large trivialities and at other times desperately seeking just the right sliver to insert; a true editor must value content. You got to have the right footage first! Useful footage.
Call it cinema, film, a movie, or the name derived from the technology used: video has changed a lot, and will continue to change in the next few years. Let us understand the forces at play and how technology, cost, and convenience, all are affecting the scenes you will see in your event video.
There have been a lot of interesting and exciting things happening in this video revolution of the last few years. Going from VHS to DVD it turns out was not such a big deal. It did not have much effect on the image or more importantly the content. The story was still the story. It was told in the same way.
But today the story as we will remember it, could be missing much of the rest of the story…and this may not be what you might wish for later. This is the first of several articles on how video is changing along with how what we might expect it be is different today as well. The points I will be making are not so obvious. This is definitely not a situation of more merely being more. Rather I am questioning the specifics of content that is collected.
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As a photographer of 40 professional years, I am all about light. Except now I am thinking about sound. For 15 years I did not know to wear earplugs or hearing protectors at events. Then for a while I wore the unsightly ear protectors one uses in a gun range. Maybe they were not so ugly, but they were big.
What did clients think at the time? Most assumed I was monitoring sound. You know, back then video was not such a nice compact and neat sport as it seems to be today with small cameras, smartphones, and iPads.
Back then, video involved a sound person whose responsibility was monitoring and maintaining proper recording levels. This meant lugging around the second major piece of the video puzzle, the video recording deck, and making sure that the long, thick, bulky cable tethering that hefty deck to the equally valuable camera not only remained tethered but did not get kinked, caught, yanked, or tripped on.
So with others wearing headphones to hear sound, my using them to not hear the same sound seemed acceptable. For some projects, I used real aviation headphones to block out environmental sound and communicate to my crew. I even harnessed a video receiver to my electronic flash’s power pack along with a miniature—but those days too bulky—video monitor. This allowed me to see the videographer’s picture—the same one he himself was viewing in his eyepiece—so I could direct him as he was shooting and get the exact shots I wanted.
Today some guests press palms to their ears and try to use rolled-up paper fragments as earplugs. Men and women shout urgently to persons not a foot away. I use earplugs—high-density ones rated at 33 decibels of attenuation—and always carry extra earplugs to help others. Often it is the grandparents, but sometimes it’s a quiet child who looks uncomfortable, or it can be anyone who begs me for a set of plugs while complimenting me on my thinking to use them.
Sometimes even a musician will lean over from his bandstand then gesture to his ears to convey that maybe I might have some extra earplugs for him!
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