Days away from change

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" : John Lennon.

If you'd asked me two weeks ago what I was going to do when I left Missoula I'd have given you a pretty comprehensive answer, at least as far as the photography goes. Ask me today and you'd get a more cautious answer. It would be rather vague as I am still working it out, it would also be an answer that was more passionate and a truer reflection of myself I'm sure.

One of the early posts on this blog featured a song that a fellow student had posted on the student bulletin board. It came to mean a lot to a few folks here. With one week to go on the last of the five courses here at RMSP I realise the song and the moment have come round again and I'm once more only days away from change. Here it is again.. click to listen.

So what's happened? Well over the course of this summer we've had a range of photography based professionals come to talk to us. It was during a couple of these talks in the past two weeks that I realised I need more than just skill with a camera. I need to connect my vision and a passion if I am to be different. Cameras tend to reveal what's inside you as well as what's in front of the lens. And looking at some photos I had to show in class I was reminded of the vision and passion that have been with me for a few years now... and which in a way I'd lost sight of in my rush to plan. I also realised that bringing those qualities to the types of photo work I want to do are not just nice to have, they are essential. That's why I'll set about the list of things I have to do back home with a different emphasis and with revised priorities.

There won't be too many more blog posts in this blog, and with all the work and other changes there have been less than I'd expected over recent weeks. I'll carry on writing though, sometimes they'll be as posts in my other blog, seenfrommycorner.blogspot.com, as and when things catch my eye. I also have in mind a new blog on my new photography website which I'm working to set up at the moment.

A sense of direction

For now it's time to rest as the final week at school starts tomorrow.

Wonderful World

Sometimes life brings along unexpected surprises as well as frustrations that often aren't as bad as they seem. Take last week's video classes for instance.

First surprise: after many weeks of getting to be pretty much at ease with my camera I switched it to video mode and felt like I was back in a photographic kindergarten. It wasn't the first time I'd switched the camera to video mode; of course it wasn't  - you can't have a button on a camera and NOT try it out pretty early on. The difference this time was that I had someone teaching me how to do it properly, and it did feel like I was learning the camera all over again.

Second surprise: I liked it. Kids in kindergarten play and that was the beauty of this class - I didn't know what I didn't know and simply played and enjoyed the discovery, for the most part at least - the enjoyment increased as the week wore on.

And the frustrations? Well a laptop is not quite the thing for editing video so there was a lot of being patient and learning to go with the flow. Getting hot under the collar wasn't going to make the computer work any faster that's for sure.

Will I play with video again? Yes, for fun mostly. I had a great time playing and discovering this whole new set of toys, and coming to it with no preconceived ideas I had a great time. Here's one of the videos from this week to prove it. Enjoy!

(The video was shot in 1080 HD mode but due to limitations of file uploads here it is a lot smaller)