It’s hard to believe that it’s been 30 years since John Lennon was shot and killed outside outside The Dakota, his apartment building in New York City.
From the first time I saw the Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show as a young girl in February, 1964, I decided that John was “my favorite Beatle”. There was something about him that appealed to me. Sure Paul was the cute one – but John was the …. well he just sort of struck me as more rebellious which was very exciting, even back then.
John followed his own path and used his voice to speak for Peace. After the Beatles broke up, he went on to have a great solo career and then when his son Sean was born, he pretty much left the limelight. He had recently resurfaced and had recorded a new album – and then he was killed.
I’ll always remember that night. I was watching the local NYC 11 o’clock news that had been delayed because a football game had gone into overtime. Half way through the anchor’s report came a breaking news bulletin saying that an unnamed man had been shot outside the Dakota, on West 72nd St. I instantly got a jolt and somehow knew that it was John Lennon and within a half hour it was confirmed that Lennon was dead.
The following week was a sad one in NYC. People gathered in Strawberry Fields, a section of Central Park that John and Yoko used to frequent. Night after night there were candlelight vigils and people took comfort in the collective.
The entire world mourned the loss of John and along with that went any and all hopes that the Beatles would get together again.
Rest in peace John. You made a difference in many people’s lives.
Einstein said “Logic will take you from A to B but imagination will take you anywhere.”
I have always had a vivid imagination, spending many waking and sleeping hours dreaming and picturing myself in all sorts of situations. Some of my dreams were just crazy ideas running through my head and some were very real dreams that I believed would come true. I was thinking about what I wanted in my life – not what I didn’t want.
Everyone has dreams for how they want their life to be but not everyone believes their dreams will manifest. The future has to become the present in one’s imagination. And one needs to commit to their idea for it to happen – not just have intentions. Intentions without conviction is a waste of energy.
At this point in my life, I have been focusing more and more on pursuing my thoughts and ideas that have been running through my head. It was a year ago, that I made the decision to embark on the biggest personal project of my life, Opening Our Eyes. I’m now in the midst of editing hundreds of hours of footage. It’s tedious because there is so much, and there are interviews in foreign languages that need to be translated and transcribed before I can edit them. All the files need to be transcoded, which is taking far longer than I imagined it would, but now that I have my workflow down, it’s going faster.
When I’m finished with this film, it will be the most satisfying and successful project I’ve ever worked on. I use the word successful to mean that it was an incredible accomplishment for me personally and professionally. That’s not to say that it won’t be financially rewarding, and in fact every personal project I have ever self-funded has always been profitable, just not immediately.
More importantly, by executing my ideas, without needing validation from someone else, I am following my purpose. I am doing what I’m meant to be doing in my life. That in itself is the biggest reward of all.
We all have our own music inside of us. Find yours. Don’t die with the music still inside of you.
I haven’t done a lot of tech talking lately, but a couple of new items have me thinking that way. Here’s some interesting news about products, firmware upgrades and video delivery.
To start with, for all of you who own a Samson H4N Zoom digital recorder, and have been frustrated that you aren’t able to independently change recording levels on inputs 1 and 2 – you now can. Here is a link to the firmware download and instructions.
For all you “big chip” aficionados, Sony just announced the PMW-F3
Sony PMW F3
camera with a 35mm CMOS imager. However, with a price tag around $16,000 for the body and an extra $7000 for a set of three Sony prime lenses, it seems more like a competitor in the RED market, rather than in the DSLR niche.
“We recently went through the process of re-designing our website with one of the primary new objectives being adding motion content. So I did extensive research on the websites of directors, cinematographers, and leading production companies to see how they presented videos. I was surprised at how little effort most are making in this area.
I suspect the thinking of the directors and cinematographers is that nobody hires them for a serious commercial gig by discovering their website. It’s very much a matter of relationships and playing the inside game.
But I also think the world is changing fast with the barriers to entry lowering in the motion world, and with talented people increasingly able to compete on creativity rather than on access to expensive cameras and lights. The importance of a strong web presence is rising and becoming fundamental for directors and cinematographers.
So I set out to find the best-in-class practices and leading suppliers of related tools. I found some methods of integrating and presenting video to be more engaging than others.”
PhotoCinenews has also announced that the DVD set of their 2010 PhotoCine Expo is hot off the presses. It’s an 8 disc set of presentations from 14 filmmakers. I am honored to be one of them and as one who attended many of the other presentations, I can tell you it’s worth every penny. Check it out.
“Women’s Wear Daily offers a report that this iPad-o-newsthingy, which has been in covert development for several months, will be called “The Daily.” It will, apparently, have as its pulsating spirit “a tabloid sensibility with a broadsheet intelligence.”
Oh, and there is a price for this melange of the tabloid heart with a broadsheet mind. A ticklingly enticing 99 cents a week.
The Daily will, apparently not enjoy such dated concepts as a print edition or even a Web edition. Instead it will be beamed straight to the iPad (or Galaxy, if you can afford one) from News Corp.’s high pod somewhere in Manhanttan.”
“YouTube attributes the growth to several factors. First, the company’s decision to increase time limits from 10 minutes to 15 minutes per video has helped. It also pointed to the site’s file size limit of 2GB. With the help of mobile phones, YouTube said that consumers are finding it relatively simple to quickly add videos to the site. It also doesn’t hurt that “more companies [are] integrating our APIs to support upload from outside of YouTube.com.”
Lastly, a thank you to everyone who has contributed to my film Opening Our Eyes, on Kickstarter. We have gone past our half way point, meaning we are more than halfway toward our goal. And to anyone who may be thinking of making a contribution – it’s a win/win because you get a DVD of the film if you make a $25 contribution. The money will all go toward the hire of a professional editor who will give the film the polish it needs to have a chance at wider distribution – and with that, the possibility of inspiring more change makers in the world. Here’s the link – please pass it along to people you know who may like to be a backer.
There you have it – a mixed bag of some interesting “new stuff”.
The last two weeks have been enlightening and humbling for me, and I’ll try to share some of the thoughts that have been racing through my mind.
I was honored to be asked to speak about video, at ASMP’s Ohio Valley Chapter’s Photo Tech conference last week. It’s a great event and an enthusiastic and engaged group of people. I also had the pleasure of seeing Walt Jones presentation: “CGI – Friend or Foe”. Walt is a talented photographer and CGI artist. He is in my opinion a new breed of visual communicators. He started out by showing examples of “images” and asking the audience if they were photos or CGI. I was 100% wrong with every one of my guesses. The point is – I couldn’t tell the difference. I was in awe of the power of these relatively new tools that we as “image creators” have at our fingertips.
It really got me thinking that “seeing is NOT believing” anymore and the ramifications of that. I started thinking of the ethical consequences and how in the wrong hands this power can be misused. But as I tossed those thoughts around in my head, I realized that this is really nothing new as far as the power we, as visual creators have, to manipulate an image or skew the story or the message. Even before Photoshop and similar applications hit the scene, we as image creators could sway opinion or belief, just by what we chose to show, or not show. If you look back in history, photographs, film and TV, have swayed public opinion long before the tools of Photoshop and CGI.
Yesterday, I got an email from a photographer, Aaron Huey, with a link to his Ted talk. He told the story of the Lakota Sioux Indians through his words and his images. He presented a timeline of this tribe’s history through his words, as he showed his images of modern day Lakota on their reservation or as he refers to it – their prisoner of war camp. It was one of the most powerful Ted talks, I have ever seen. It also reinforced the notion of the “power” that we all have as visual creators.
I’ve been thinking about that power a lot, and the responsibility that comes with it and that I believe that we all have the obligation, to use it wisely. A few years ago, I created a documentary entitled Freedom’s Ride, a story about two diverse groups of high school students who rode the bus together to Alabama, tracing back the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. The words of one teacher that I interviewed have stayed with me. He said, “we can pass all the laws we want – but we can’t legislate morality”. I’ve been thinking about that statement a lot this week. It’s never been more important than it is now, because of the tools of technology, that we make sure our moral compasses are in check and headed in the right direction.
For the past two years I’ve been traveling around the country presenting a seminar called “Should I Be Thinking of Video” for ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers. This seminar had become quite popular with still photographers as interest in video escalated, partly due to the hybrid cameras and partly due to the increased demand for video content for the web and mobile devices. The iPad in particular is a game changer and everyone seems to be keen on either creating video content or buying it.
With this rush to find or produce video, I’ve seen quite of few people attend these seminars because they feel they have to get onboard. A few weeks ago, someone in the audience, who appeared quite annoyed, raised their hand and said, “but you didn’t answer the question – should I be thinking of video”. He went on to say that there was nothing new about video and weren’t there plenty of videographers already out there. I replied that he needed to answer that question himself. I could only provide him with background information about video production but that decision as far as if he should embrace video was for him to make. I also said that yes there were plenty of videographers out there working in traditional markets that have been around for decades. What is new is the increased demand for video because we as a society are moving more toward an electronic means of communication and away from print.
I think the most important point here is that no matter what creative path you may wish to pursue, you need to have a reason for doing it. For me, I started shooting video more than a decade ago because as a storyteller, I felt the need for motion and sound to adequately tell the stories that I wanted to tell. I certainly wasn’t chasing a trend – not that video is a trend. Just like in still photography, it’s not about the tool or the camera, it’s about your vision and if you don’t know why or if you should be shooting video then how can you possibly have a clear vision.
I can probably better answer the question “should you be thinking of video?” this way. If it’s because you have a camera that is also capable of shooting in video mode then then the answer is no – you shouldn’t be thinking of video, because you will be a technician or a button pusher and will compete with every other person who has that same tool. But if you are thinking, seeing and feeling projects and stories that are all about motion and sound, then you’ve answered that question for yourself.
What a difference a year makes. I’ve been going to Photo Expo since it started, whenever that was some 20 or 30 years ago. It used to be held at the Coliseum, New York’s old convention center, when it was much smaller. Over the years Photo Expo got bigger and bigger, with huge sections of the floor devoted to lab equipment and hundreds of other booths displaying everything from cameras to computer software.
The last few years the Expo has gotten smaller. Gone is all the lab equipment of course, but also not present are some of the big vendors like Adobe and Apple. This year was the first year there was another photographic event happening simultaneously, called “Shoot NYC….an advanced photography forum”. This event was hosted by Hasselblad and Broncolor, and just few blocks away from Javits. I didn’t get a chance to get down there but I heard rave reviews from those who went saying it felt like it was geared more for the “professional”.
One difference I have noticed over the years of attending Photo Expo is the shift in the attendees, more toward retail photographers and prosumers. That was reflected both on the floor and in the seminar selections. There was an entire seminar track this year devoted to weddings and portraits. Another sign of the times was seeing an entire seminar track devoted to video and multimedia, as opposed to one or two seminar choices in previous years. I could only find one seminar this year about stock photography; actually it was about microstock in particular. That’s a big change from when there were a dozen seminars relating to stock photography to choose from.
I presented a seminar with Paula Lerner called “Multimedia and Video” and was part of a panel for a seminar called “Ethics and Photography” which was streamed live globally, but I did find time to sit in on a couple of very interesting sessions. One of my favorites was “Affordably Simple Marketing”, given by Juliette Wolf Robin. She provided a lot of terrific tangible information. I also enjoyed seeing and hearing Lauren Greenfield talking about her documentary work. And even though I’m not a teacher, I found “Teaching in the 21st Century” quite interesting. As always Blake Discher’s seminar on “Sales and Negotiating for Photographers” was fantastic and fresh. I also attended ASMP‘s annual member meeting where Tom Kennedy spoke about the new media landscape which was right on target.
The floor was smaller and as mentioned before, Adobe and Apple not present. Canon and Nikon had a lot of action and interest with their hybrid DSLR cameras as expected and I saw a lot more third party gear for the hybrids displayed – Zacuto rigs, Redrock Micro rigs, and Glidecams, along with fluid head video tripods. This trend is not going away and in fact isn’t a trend at all, as we move more and more toward electronic publishing with magazines scrambling to produce versions for the iPad and get their app designed.
The annual “bash” was more of a bust, leaving people hungry and thirsty due to no food being offered (except bags of potato chips) and a cash bar. It was held at the Intrepid, which sounded like it was going to be interesting, but not a great venue for a party. But it was nice to see my friends and colleagues and catch up with them.
It will be interesting to see what this event will look like next year – I can only guess that there will be plenty more changes.
For anyone who has been reading my blog, you know a few things about me – I love to dialog and share with others, my work and my pleasure are one in the same and I always have a passion project that I’m working on.
I can’t say that I’ve always been like this. In the beginning of my career it was a lot harder to dialog and share with people – pre-social media and email. And as my career took hold and I became busier with work, I didn’t have time for sharing or personal projects. But for someone like me who is a dreamer, I was starting to burn out.
When I started exploring the video medium in the late 90’s, it triggered a spark in me. I started thinking and dreaming about all the stories that I wanted to tell – that would be possible for me to tell – through this medium. One of my first attempts at telling a story with video was a short documentary I did on my daughter’s youth symphony. I couldn’t have picked a harder subject if I tried because it was all about sound, which I knew nothing about. And anyone who has ever shot a musical concert knows that it’s almost impossible to do with only one camera. But I naively pursued with this project and learned a lot in the process.
My next passion project was The Delta Blues Musicians that I envisioned as a multimedia project combining still environmental portraits of these musicians along with video interviews, capturing their life’s stories. It was a lot of work and for the most part, I went it alone – doing everything myself. For anyone who has ever tried to shoot both stills and video on the same job, you know it’s not an easy thing to do. That project will always be near and dear to my heart and continues to reward me in ways that I never knew were possible.
There have been other passion projects since these first two and my head is usually full of ideas that are rumbling around, just waiting for the right time to surface. I am in the midst of a project now, Opening Our Eyes that is perhaps the most ambitious one I’ve ever dreamed up. This past weekend I launched the project on Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a website that posts creative projects for the purposes of finding funds. It’s a perfect example of crowd funding where one can donate anywhere from $1 to $10,000 to the project of their choice, and in the process make someone’s idea come to life.
I launched Opening Our Eyes on Thursday and within 3 days we reached 30 % of our goal. We still have a long way to go and have another 71 days to get fully funded. The way Kickstarter works is that if you don’t get funded 100%, then all bets are off and you don’t receive anything. So, I’m doing my best to do what I like the least and that is make a pitch for pledges. My intent is to secure enough funds so that I can collaborate with a professional editor and raise the bar on the film that my daughter and I shot this past summer on our 99-day adventure around the world, about people who are making a positive difference in the world.
It’s really a win/win for anyone who chooses to give – even a pledge of $25 will get us closer to our goal and you’ll receive a DVD of our film when it’s finished. So please check out our project on Kickstarter and pass this link along to others. Ultimately our goal is to inspire and motivate other change-makers through the power of our film. We know we can do it with everyone’s help and it will make you feel good to give – it always does.
I’ve just experienced one of the most extraordinary weekends of my life – all because I said yes. Barely more than a week ago, I sent an email with a link to the trailer of my documentary to Rebecca Self,
Rebecca Self at the European Summit for Global Transformation
Rebecca is an amazing woman – she’s a connector of change makers. The day after Rebecca got my email, she replied “Would you consider coming to Amsterdam this weekend and showing your trailer at The European Summit for Global Transformation. My first thought was “wow” – and with a title like that, it was bound to be a gathering of very interesting people. My next thought was, “it’s not possible – there’s not enough time – the airfare will be high” etc. etc. All very practical thoughts – right?
And then I flipped it and told myself all the reasons I should say yes. I ‘d have the opportunity to show a culturally diverse audience a sample of my film and talk about the idea behind it. I would get to see Letha and Maggie again because they were going to be speaking. And most importantly, I would be spending the weekend with people that not only believed that anything is possible – but are making the impossible happen, together. So I replied to Rebecca and said YES.
For two days I listened, as all kinds of people told their stories – people who are actively doing things that are making our world a better place. They awed me with their courage, their commitment and their passion. But the most empowering part of the conference was connecting with these people, who were not only there to talk about what they were doing, but also to network with others to help them make their commitments a reality.
As I write this, on my last night in Amsterdam. I’m ready to head out to have one final dinner with some of the most fascinating people I have ever met. It has been a powerful weekend, being part of this group of people, from all over the world that are making extraordinary things happen. This is what my film is all about – the power of the individual, working together to make things happen – across the globe.
To be able to show my ten-minute trailer to these amazing change makers was an honor and reward in itself. But to spend the weekend with such a unique group of people who believe that anything is possible, was extraordinary and fortified me as I go forward in editing over 150 hours of footage.
I have a friend who is always telling me that I need to say “no” more often – because I tend to spread myself too thin. But this time, I was glad I said “yes”.
I’ve always been lucky because there’s a very thin line between my work and my personal life. That’s because I’ve never looked at what I do for a living as work, or at least if one defines work in negative terms.
I became a photographer and later a filmmaker because I’m a born storyteller and the camera is a means to that end for me. I come from a long line of storytellers, as evidenced by boxes of old letters telling the tales of family long gone. While they may have told their tales by pen, through their words, I have chosen the camera as my tool to tell the stories that I have to tell. So how could I possibly equate the word work with the professional life that I’ve built – telling the stories of people and companies around the world? It’s in my blood.
Sure, there have been jobs through the years that seem a lot more like work than others, especially when a client hasn’t trusted their instincts in why they hired me by allowing me to trust mine. But there have been so many other jobs where I’ve had to pinch myself to believe that they’re real.
I’m also a firm believer in following my instincts and that has led to many rewarding opportunities in my life. I’ve been doing that a lot lately and the universe is opening up for me. I’ve stopped waiting for someone else to validate me in order for me to pursue a project that I’m passionate about. I’ve stopped telling myself all the reasons that I shouldn’t do something and I’ve replaced them with all the reasons that I should. I think about the pros and don’t dwell on the cons. And that’s because I’ve blurred the lines between work and pleasure.
I’ve just completed a 99-day journey shooting a documentary on change makers – people who were making a positive difference in the world. Over the weekend I got an email, inviting me to show my ten-minute tease at the opening of the European Summit For Global Transformation in Amsterdam, this weekend. I immediately started to discount it, telling myself that I didn’t have enough notice etc. etc. Then I saw it differently – I saw it as an incredible opportunity to not only show the tease of my film but to network with like minded people. So, this evening I’m headed to Amsterdam.
Years ago when I was traveling a lot, shooting for magazines like Travel & Leisure and National Geographic Traveler, as I departed for my trips, my mother always used to say – “have a nice vacation”. I used to get annoyed because I thought that she didn’t recognize the fact that I was working and not going on vacation. But, as I reflect back on the “work dynamic” that I’ve set up for myself, I think – maybe she was the one that had it right. It’s been one long pleasure trip.
Lennon would have turned 70 years old today. That’s hard to believe. It’s been 30 years since his tragic death and I often wonder, like so many others, what John would have done over the past three decades if he had lived. No doubt he would have been true to himself, because he always was. That was his appeal.
Even as a young girl, I was drawn to John, he was “my favorite Beatle”. There was something exciting about him – and I always felt like he was giving it to me “straight”. People just seemed to connect with him because of his sincerity. He was his own person and he was following his own path. When his second son Sean was born, Lennon dropped out of the music limelight to raise him. A lot of people thought he was crazy to do that – to take a break from the music scene at the pinnacle of his career. But that was John following his bliss, staying true to himself.
“People say I’m crazy doing what I’m doing, Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin, When I say that I’m o.k. they look at me kind of strange, Surely your not happy now you no longer play the game,”
“People asking questions lost in confusion, Well I tell them there’s no problem, Only solutions, Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I’ve lost my mind, I tell them there’s no hurry… I’m just sitting here doing time,”
I’ve been very fortunate over these past few months, to be around other extraordinary people, the subjects of my film, who are staying true to their own convictions as they pursue the life they are meant to live. You can read more about these people here. Like John, they are imagining the world to be a better place. They are activists for change and they live their lives in that pursuit. John would have loved them.
So, today my thoughts are on John and what he left us – his music of course, but more importantly his beautiful spirit and his belief that things can be better. In traversing around the world this summer, I met so many other inspiring people who believed the same thing and were following their own bliss, making the world a better place for all of us.
Journeys of a Hybrid 