sharing – Page 4 – Journeys of a Hybrid

February 11, 2011

Abandoned Expectations

Have you had any lately? Expectations that you may have had – pinned your hopes on and had to abandon? I have had to let go of more than a few hopes, dreams, and desires over this past month alone. My struggles seem to always come in cycles and there are some days when it seems like I’d be better off not having any hopes and dreams at all. Those dark days are tough and tax everything I have and am, but I try to remind myself of one very important thing – and that is – that all this “bad stuff” has to happen in order for me to grow and be the person I am meant to be.

If you are like me (and many creative people are) the passions inside of you can act like a double-edged sword. They can move you up and down on a roller coaster of emotions and wreak havoc inside your head. But rather than succumb and be a victim to those emotions, I try to channel them into something more positive and productive. Writing helps me a lot. Just trying to articulate how I’m feeling, seems to move me through whatever it is I’m struggling with.

I imagine that most people who may be reading this are creatives, and have had their share of “strawberry days” and “onion days”. Strawberry days that are so sweet and onion days where you just want to break down and cry. But maybe that’s just how it should be – because that means that you are “feeling” and “trying” – both essential ingredients for personal growth. I know that my onion days make my strawberry days that much sweeter. I also know that every successful person has had more failures than triumphs along the way. Its just part of the process.

So, here are a few things that I do when I hit a string of onion days:

I remind myself that those days will pass and there will be better days because of them.
I reach out to my friends. Your true friends will be the ones who are listening.
I tell myself that everything happens for a reason in order to get me to where I need to be.
I walk.
I meditate.
I think about everything I have that I’m grateful for.
I think about others and I try to help them with their own challenges.
I find something to love about who I am.
I seek to understand others.
I carry on and do the dance I was meant to do.
And I listen to music.

With that said I’ll leave you with some wise words (lyrics) from Jackson Browne:

From For a Dancer:

Keep a fire for the human race.
Let your prayers go drifting into space.
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear.
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don’t let the uncertainly turn you around
(the world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you’ll never know

February 9, 2011

Grow or Die

I’m borrowing the title from Ian Summers, a creative coach and visionary. Through personal sessions with Ian as well as from his writings, I’ve learned that there is joy in any exploration, especially the exploration of the creative self. Ian expresses what he does more beautifully on his blog: Heartstorming

“ I co-create an environment where people are safe to bring what they love and what matters to come into being by being a compassionate teacher and expressive painter.”

There is so much to learn simply because it’s such an amazing age we live in. I try to take advantage of that and embrace new skills and knowledge to further my creative self. Learning and exploration is a necessary ingredient in my life. It stimulates me, it brings me wonder and joy and it empowers me. The more I learn, the more I grow, and the more the universe opens to me and sets my creative spirit free to be the one I am meant to be. Learning is happiness.

Here are some links to some wonderful sources for learning – some technical and some inspirational – but all valuable in their own way.

To start with don’t miss Selina Maitreya’s Clarion Call 2011, a free 2-day professional photography telesummit.
I’ll be on at 10AM Friday, Feb. 11th.

If you’d rather have the benefit of networking face to face with your peers then sign up for ASMP’s Strictly Business 3
Next one coming up is in Philadelphia Feb. 25-27, 2011.

Here’s a few a my favorite links to continued learning:

Video Vimeo School – Tutorials, articles
Creative Cow – Tutorials, forums, articles
2 Pop – Forum, articles
Ken Stone –Tutorials video

If you have any real or virtual places that you frequent to learn, please feel free to share.

The key of course to learning is to apply the knowledge that you’ve learned. So be ready to grow when you set out on your explorations of learning. Embrace that thought and ready your mind to be open and receptive to new ideas and ways of seeing.

February 7, 2011

Monday Morning Quarterbacking

Ok, I’m just going to come right out and say it. I was one of the few people in America who did NOT watch the Super Bowl yesterday. Before you try to enlighten me as to the merits of the game and sentence me to watch NFL highlights, let me just say I don’t like football. Just never got into the touchy feeliness of the sport. And besides, I’m still chained to my editing station – finally starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.

But this morning I couldn’t escape the pundits grading and scoring the Super Bowl commercials as I clicked through the morning programs looking for the “news”. It was interesting to hear their “take” on what commercials were successful. Most of the pundits made their assessments through the eyes of their “ad men” (and women) persona, debating which commercials caught the attention of the viewers.

One “expert” frequently commented, “now this one had people telling their friends – be quiet – I want to hear the commercial. I’m not quite sure what Super Bowl party this person went to, but no doubt it was a party made up of other advertising folks. Now, I’ve had very limited experience attending Super Bowl parties, but as for the ones I have been to – nobody has ever said “be quiet – so I can hear the commercial”. With that said, as I watched many of the spots this morning via YouTube, some of the most effective commercials required no listening at all. Check out this one for Bridgestone.

I guess the creatives who made this spot go to the same kind of parties as I do – parties where people don’t ask someone to turn the volume up for the commercials. Actually, I’ve learned a lot about editing by watching TV commercials with the sound off. The “story” either becomes apparent – or not.

The New York Times did a pretty good critique of the ads this morning. But what I found most interesting was the running commentary from the “average Joes” via Twitter and Facebook. No doubt some of these advertising experts were paying as much attention to the social media chatter this morning as Mumbarak’s men were. Hands down, the Chrysler “Detroit” spot won the most hearts – mine included. It drew me in from the start and kept me the entire two minutes. Imagine that – a two minute commercial! When was the last time you saw that? A beautiful mini-film told in credible brevity. Quite frankly, to me it would have been just as effective without Eminem or any celebrity for that matter. It evoked emotion – that’s what kept me watching.

At the end of the day, the commercials that resonated most with just about everyone – pundit and laymen alike were the ones that told a simple story that rang true with the human spirit. Works every time. To tell those stories, one needs to get out of the meeting rooms and late nights at the office and spend more time living life. Otherwise, what you end up with is a bunch of people creating commercials about what they think life is like.

January 31, 2011

Being Authentic

There are certain words and phrases that tend to become over used just because they seem to express the idea so well. Ironically, the word authentic is becoming over used now in our culture and in a weird way is on the brink of becoming a contradiction to what it means. So, I cautiously use the word “authentic” in the real sense to say – be who you are meant to be. Be authentic.

When I returned from my round the world adventure this past Fall after completing the shooting aspect of a personal project, I discovered that people were responding to me in a different way. Perhaps they sensed there was something inside of me that they wanted to connect with. It’s a very difficult thing to explain but I think what they were sensing, was my contentment. I was content and feeling a sense of “satisfaction” because I was following “my purpose”, both personally and creatively and in the process I was discovering many other people, all over the world, who were doing the same.

On the outside what may have seemed like just a very long, exotic “trip”, was really more of a journey. It was a journey that I had begun a long time ago when I became an explorer, through my eyes and through my camera. I use the word explorer in a literal and figurative sense. Throughout my life, in my never-ending nomadic need to explore the world and its peoples, I was finding my own vision and how I “saw” and I was sharing that with others.

Ethan G. Salwen expressed it beautifully in a recent post on his After Capture blog:

“We always say that learning photography is really learning to see, and this is true. But we tend to express this sentiment in relation to a very limited sense of seeing — the visual sense. Older photographers seem to continue to learn to see on a much deeper level, in terms of what it is to be a working artist and, most important, how this relates to their continual growth and satisfaction as an individual.”

I think Ethan nailed it by talking about “learning and seeing on a much deeper level and how this brings growth and satisfaction as an individual.” I use the words “ being on purpose” to describe “satisfaction” within oneself. I believe that as creative individuals, when we begin to find meaning in who we are and how that fits into the world, it will shine through our work. Some use the word “vision” to describe that certain something that they see in someone’s creative work. Maybe that’s what was in the back of my mind when I came up with the title of my project and film, Opening Our Eyes.

In a way, I use my “eyes” and my camera to do what I do best – to share and connect with others. When I travel, it is not to assimilate with a culture, but rather to learn and exchange our cultural uniqueness, embrace that and share it with others. When I’m being authentic and true to myself, that happens in a magical way. When someone tells me that I’m the “real deal”, that is one of the highest compliments they can give me.

I think Susana Esmoris, one of the subjects of my documentary said it best. “Live life intensely. Wear the color that you want in life. Dance what you want to dance.”

January 16, 2011

Collaboration in Video and….

During one portion of my career, I spent a lot of time shooting still photography assignments for magazines like the National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian and Travel & Leisure, to name a few. I was hired to shoot the images. A writer was hired to write the story.

Every magazine and every story worked differently as far as how I would collaborate with the writer. Sometimes the writer and I would just have a conversation about focus and approach and then we’d be off on our own, each bringing our own perspective to the piece.

Sometimes, I’d be given a manuscript that had already been written and I was expected to illustrate it. This worked well when I, the writer and the magazine would agree on the focus of the “story” and match our talents to that end. But there were times when a magazine would want very literal illustrations of the words, which not only stifled the images but weakened the words. One time I was asked to photograph “the lurkage of limousines.”

And then there were times when I went to a destination with a writer to do a story on that destination and even though we were there at the same time, we came back with different stories. I got my story done on site and the writer did most of his/her work after returning from the destination.

With video collaboration is essential because there are so many facets, each calling for different skill sets. Some collaborations occur simultaneously on set and some later in post-production but all have to work well in order to get to the same end in harmony. Harmony meaning, not just being able to get along but to communicate and work well together as one, but also where each respects each other’s role in the process.

It’s very tricky to assemble the right mix of people, but here are some important things to look for when building a team or even a partnership:

Trust – You have to be able to count on someone to do their job. And likewise, you have to also commit to uphold your end of the deal. The team is only as good as the weakest link. That becomes even more critical, the smaller the team is. If you’re only working with one person and you can’t count on them – you’ll be doing the work yourself. It’s important to know that someone has your back.
Working Style – While it’s not important for all to be morning people or night people or have similar working styles in that sense, it can be extremely frustrating for all concerned if there are procrastinators on the team. That’s because timing in video production is important for workflow. If someone doesn’t deliver when they promised – it holds up the whole production. We had one situation where a motion graphics artist held the entire post-production up for months.
Expertise – Surround yourself with experts. They will make you look good. But remember, just because someone is expensive doesn’t mean they are the best for your job. There could be someone who is more right for the project who is less expensive. Keep style and vision in mind. Talk to potential crew members and get references.
Right for the job – The “best” editor in terms of the commercial world might not be the right person for your project. For me, I want to work with an editor that is also interested in the project besides the money it pays. I look for an editor who will also bring a different perspective as to how the story gets told.
Bottom line – Work with people you can count on – otherwise the job might not get done.

November 16, 2010

The Power We Have as Visual Creators

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.

October 26, 2010

“Kickstarting” a Passion Project

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.

October 4, 2010

Re-Charging and Seeing

A friend reminded me recently that I needed to take some time for myself and “recharge my batteries”. This past month has sailed by – I’ve been out of town 25 % of the time and the rest of the time, deeply focused on editing my documentary. I needed a break from technology, airports and work. So I took his advice and with my husband, headed down to the NJ Shore for a weekend getaway.

A friend of ours had invited us to her beach house in Ocean Grove, NJ, a shore town where time seems to have stood still – especially in the month of October. Ocean Grove is an old bible town just down the boardwalk from Asbury Park, the town where Springsteen had gotten his start at the Stone Pony decades ago.

Asbury Park is a town that’s slowly coming back from a state of decay and dilapidation over the last 40 years and vastly different from its religious neighbor to the south.

It was typical October weather – sunny and brilliant one moment –

then changing to moody and melancholy, the next. Sunday, I woke up early, got my bike and headed to the boardwalk for a ride. I didn’t have a camera with me because I thought that I needed a break from technology. But as I rode down the boardwalk – I started “seeing”. I was observing everything – noticing the mundane – the ordinary

– the old and the new – not the exotic that I had become accustomed to on my recent 99-day journey around the world.

I immediately thought back to when my husband and I had just moved back to the East Coast after living in Santa Barbara, CA. Our first summer back on the East Coast, we headed “down the shore” every weekend, taking our cameras and our bikes, going to different parts of the shore each time. We’d hop on our bikes and just ride the boardwalks – shooting and documenting things and people that we observed. It was a wonderful summer –biking, shooting and at night, sometimes getting a room at a rooming house if we felt like splurging, or most times, sleeping in our van, awakening the next morning to explore again.

As I bicycled down the boardwalk this weekend, I realized that I had a camera in my Blackberry, which I rarely used.

I pulled it out and started taking photos of my observations – just like I had done so many years earlier – and I was having the time of my life doing it. I was “seeing” and documenting what I saw- no preconceived notions or plans – just letting serendipity happen. Ironically, because of technology and the fact that my cell phone can capture images – I had simplified the process and gotten down to the basics of just “seeing”.

My batteries are sufficiently recharged with fresh air, solid sleep and getting back to the basics. Perhaps, this weekend has even triggered a new project idea – or at least has planted the seed. We’ll see.

September 28, 2010September 27, 2010

The Power of Sharing and Networking

I’ve always been an independent creature, starting with a year long backpacking odyssey as a 19 year old traveling solo, following the “hippie trail” around the world. That sojourn led me to pursue a career as a still photographer, using my camera as a tool to gain access to people, their cultures and their stories.

I’ve had a great ride these past 30 years shooting assignments for high profile magazines that have taken me to all parts of the globe. For the most part, I was a solo act, spending hours, days and weeks observing people, then becoming more intimate as I proceeded to get to know and tell their stories and share them with others.

When I started shooting motion and in particular digital video, eleven years ago I embraced the notion of collaboration. Video production has a lot more facets to it than just the shoot and I knew that even though I knew how to capture reasonably good sound and edit a respectable rough cut with Final Cut Pro, I also knew that working with professional sound people and editors would raise the bar on the quality of my projects.

This past weekend, the value of collaboration, networking and using social media to get my ideas out to the universe, really hit home. I had been asked to speak at the Photocine News Expo in Hollywood, CA about my latest documentary that I was working on, Opening Our Eyes. I had gotten to know two of the organizers of the event, Michael Britt and Lou Lesko, through social media. They had taken notice of my blog and my project, which I had decided to shoot with the HDSLR cameras and had written about it in their blog, PhotoCineNews.com.

I was honored and humbled to be speaking at the same event as some pretty heavy players like Vincent LaForet and Shane Hurlbut. I was a bit intimidated at first, but I knew that I was there to share what I knew and that is how to get a passion project from just an idea – to a reality. So, after returning from my 99-day journey, with just a couple of weeks to prepare a sample from some of the 145 hours of footage that were shot, I flew out to LA.

Here’s a rough cut of that 10-minute sample: Opening Our Eyes – Tease

I suppose I can legitimately say that I have had a theatrical showing of my documentary in Hollywood. True enough – but the real value for me this weekend was in sharing with my peers and making connections with people who I will work with in the future that will help me grow as a filmmaker and storyteller and more importantly who will bring their expertise to my film.

It’s an incredible time that we live in with a realm of possibility. Literally anything is possible. When you share and put things out to the universe – you just never know what you’ll get back. I’ve learned that I share because it makes me feel good – not because I have expectations for an immediate or monetary return. But each and every time I do share – I get back so much more in return.

September 7, 2010September 7, 2010

Post-Production – Overcoming Inertia and Getting Started

I returned back to the United States a couple of days ago and before I even did my laundry, I sat down to edit a quick behind-the-scenes interview video clip of my daughter and I discussing the documentary we had just finished shooting, traveling around the world. I was motivated by a deadline where I needed to provide a video clip from the project, right away.

I was fortunate in that we had just shot interviews of each other talking about the making of the film, while the experiences were still fresh in our heads. So it was relatively easy for me to pull a couple of soundbites from the interviews, sync the audio which had been recorded separately and add relevant B-roll. Within less than 24 hours after stepping off the plane, I had a 5 minute behind-the-scenes short. Nothing fancy, mind you but in addition to providing an opportunity for the film to get awareness, it forced me to start thinking about the overall structure of the piece.

The hardest part of editing is getting started – figuring out how the story will be told. In my case, I’m facing the daunting task of looking through 3 months of material – interviews, B-roll, still images, and behind-the-scenes footage that I need to figure out how I will put it all together. There are a dozen different directions where I could take this film in the editing process. I could choose to make each subject’s story an independent video, with the full length documentary being comprised of them all. Or I could weave the stories together – structuring the piece more thematically. Or I could include the mother/daughter aspect in the film and add some interview footage of the two of us talking about the project.

Just in putting together this quick sample, I have forced my mind to start thinking about the next step – crafting the story. My next deadline is to make a trailer for this film that hasn’t even been edited yet. I will be speaking at the PhotoCineNews Expo in LA in a couple of weeks and I’m motivated by this opportunity to present the workings of this project to a live audience.

As it turns out, jumping right into it was the best thing to do. I overcame the inertia that’s always present, and started focusing on how I was going to tell the story of not only our subjects but the experience itself.

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