If any of you think digital imaging technologies aren't merging at a rapid pace, think again.
If you're making your living as a photographer and you think it's a bad idea to merge your skills, i.e., by integrating multiple imaging technologies into your skills arsenal, think again.
If you don't think change is constant... I emphatically encourage you to think again!
I'm not talking about simply buying a Canon 5dmk2 or some other dSLR with video capability and thinking you're "all that" because, suddenly, you can shoot video with your pro digital still camera. And I'm not talking about hocking your first born to some evil corporation in Dubai who feeds off indentured labor so you can afford to purchase a RED camera. I'm talking about learning the art and craft of these multiple, merging, digital, imaging technologies and putting that knowledge, somehow, to work.
Yeah, yeah. I know. It's already time-consuming enough keeping up with photography. Well, it's not. It's not enough, that is. You need to keep up with more than that.
Hey! No one forced you into becoming an image capturing fanatic!
And don't give me that "I'm just a hobbyist" crap. Or the "I don't need to learn more stuff than my photography hobby requires" line. C'mon! Admit it! While those lines might be true for some of you, maybe way more than a few of you, there's plenty of you who harbor secret hopes that your "hobby" can someday become your career, trumping the money you're now making doing whatever it is you now do for a living. I'm not saying that to crow cuz I make my so-called living with cameras. I'm just saying.
I don't think it's an anomaly that photographers of Alexx Henry's caliber are adding video to their bag of tricks. BTW, check out Alexx's site. (By clicking on his name above.) Some truly kick-ass work there! I also don't think it's coincidence that some "A" list shooters are also embracing these merging technologies in various ways: Guys like Chase Jarvis and Vincent Laforet and more. Again, I'm just saying. You can hear it and ignore it or you can hear it and run with it.
Here's another one, i.e., another photographer embracing video, featured in a New York Times article, RIGHT HERE.
BTW, if any of you, after watching the video, were thinking you should start using hot lights, as depicted in the video, instead of strobes because you're put-back by those sticker-shock prices for high-end, mega-marketed monolights and/or packs-n-heads some manufacturers are
5 comments:
Hey Jimmy, here's another link from NY Times along the similar lines to your post:
http://bit.ly/3RAD7m
KS
@KS, Thanks! I just updated the MMMMMY story with the clip you linked.
You never spoke a truer word!
Hocking my first-born for a RED, hey? Hmm...rather tempting, but alas he's our lead camera man so we kinda need him :-)
I hate to say it Jimmy but every photographer turned videographer I've ever worked with was a pain. Photography and video are 2 different animals. Photography is about capturing that one perfect moment. Video is always moving so it can't stay perfect. Photographers seem to have a problem accepting that. My last run in with a photographer/videographer was with a guy who said he needed 4 hours to set up a talking head.
@Anon,
I don't disagree that, from the perspectives of many people, and in many ways, photography and videography are two different animals. But being a long time photographer AND videographer, I see it a little differently. I notice all the similarities rather than the differences.
Take digital photography, for instance. So much of it, the technical stuff that is, was born of video. Videographers have been using gear with CCD and CMOS chips for a long time. Videographrs have been white balancing, dealing with reduced contrast and blown-out highlights, working with scopes that look-like and act-like histograms (wave flow monitors and vectorcopes) for I don't know how long.
From a technical standpoint, making the segue from film to digital photography, for me, was a snap. That's not a brag. It's simply because I had years of experience as both a videographer as well as a photographyer when digital photography busted onto the scene.
BTW, I don't think this is going to be all about choices. I think video and photo technologies are merging to the point that photographers won't have much of a choice, leastwise, those trying to make their livings with cameras in their hands. How so? Because clients are going to ask,... then demand it. Just my opinion.
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