I just watched a brilliant video, that offers a good lesson to those of us in the video industry. Many of us are obsessed with “capturing the moment”. Smartphones can fuel that obsession, thanks to the video cameras that come with them. But every now and then we have to step back and remind ourselves: Don’t view life through a viewfinder.
Capturing moments that matter, of course, is important. But if you live your life through a camera lens, you’ll miss out on real life. It’s important to come up for air, and pay attention to what’s going on in your peripheral vision. Sometimes that’s where a better moment is happening anyway.
It can happen to the best of us. A photographer I used to work with, who is incredibly dedicated to the craft, was out shooting fireworks on the 4th of July a few years back. He was so caught up in capturing how people were reacting to the fireworks, he didn’t shoot a single frame of the ACTUAL fireworks. Missed them completely. And since it’s hard to tell a story about fireworks without any video of fireworks, his footage was pretty much useless. We all had a good laugh about it. At Bill’s expense, of course. (Sorry, Bill! Such a good story, I couldn’t resist repeating it. AGAIN.)
Viewfinders galore!
For me, the moment, 45 seconds into the video, of the guy videotaping himself proposing to his girlfriend hit home. Believe it or not, the first thing my soon-to-be-husband said to me after I had walked down the aisle in my wedding dress was, “I think I forgot to turn on the wireless microphone”. Seriously. He had set-up the camera, which a friend was manning, to get video of our wedding. And instead of thinking about saying his vows or how gorgeous I looked in my dress, he was concerned about the sound quality of the wedding video. How romantic? Don’t worry. The mic was on. And his heart was in the right place. Love you, honey!
Video geeks, myself included, can do themselves a favor by putting down the camera every once in a while. Because sometimes, it is better to LIVE in the moment, rather than capture it.