Procrastination Museum Tour. Art Cuddling with my Fuji X-Pro2.

One of the things I love about Austin, Texas is the Blanton Museum. It's a great space and it's filled with lots of fun and engaging art. Sure, there's some conceptual stuff that I don't really get, and some pretentious stuff from the 1960's that wears thin quickly, but for the most part everything is pretty cool, right down to the furniture. I can be a cheap bastard so I tend to go on Thursdays when admission is free. And I always bring a camera along....but you knew that.

It seems as though my relationship with the Fuji X-Pro2 is getting more serious. I seem to bring one of the two that I own with me just about everywhere. And, bowing to peer pressure, as well as the persuasive set up of those cameras, with their optical finders, I find that one always sports the 23mm f1.4 while the other one is always adorned with the 35mm f1.4. The combination seems so Leica-like in that respect. They are devilishly good tools for convincing oneself that good work is being done when, in reality, you've just snuck out to look at art as an excuse to put off work that's no fun.

The cause of my procrastination is my huffiness about video editing. I just am not a big fan. I think if I did it more often I'd build up some sort of resilience but so far I just find most video editing to be tedious and boring. An apt occupation for people with different values. Or a punishment in some countries for shoplifting....

When I walked around the museum today my mind wandered and I found it loitering around ideas concerning what it is I do for a living and how much longer I want to pursue it. I've been an assignment oriented photographer for over 30 years and the sad thing is that creative concepting and budgeting seem to be going backwards; devolving. I keep getting comps to bid on that call for images that I would never want to put in a portfolio. Much less frame and put up on a wall. I'm in a bit of despair about the implosion (paucity) of cerebral quality I keep seeing from advertising agencies. At what point did the creative personal capitulate entirely to the business side of the business? 

I recently watched a V-Log by James Popsys who is currently my very favorite photographer/v-logger. It's a video that explains why he exited the assignment arena to pursue self-assignment and direct sales and it's a video that spoke very clearly to me. Here's the link: Link. 

Of course, this kind of thinking always occurs to me after I've volunteered for, or accepted, some project which sounds like so much fun when we're in discussions and turns out to be so much drudgery when we get down to the actual shooting and/or post processing....

I'm quite confused today so I'll default to my typical dodge: Wasn't the gear great? And yes, the X-Pro2 is a fun, fun camera. Even if the images are no better than any other camera with the same basic sensor configuration the more complex and selectable viewfinder at least gives me the feeling that I'm doing something serious and constructive. Even if I'm not. 

I came back to the studio and got back to work on the videos. Typical client point of view: We need to include: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ in the video, and it needs to be no longer than :60 seconds. If you figure in the introduction and the art and logos at the end you have about 40 seconds left for content. How many thoughts can you convincingly cover in forty seconds? I'd say you're lucky to get two out. But 26? Pure fantasy. 

Tomorrow I'll re-commit to doing nothing but still photography. The way God intended it...

Kirk switches to Canon. Oh...no...wait! That's just a point and shoot camera. No big switches on the horizon....

I had an interesting day. I discovered that Ben and I are absolutely great at shooting very sharp, clean and interesting video footage (file-age?). We're also pretty darn good at getting clean audio in our video stuff. But I'm coming to grips with the fact that I just absolutely hate to edit video. Especially unscripted video. Most emphatically hate unscripted video. So much so that I stood up from the desk and went to the Blanton Museum in a fit of pure procrastination. 

Here's how I wish every (commercial) interview would go: We'd set up cameras, lights and microphones and the talent would come into the scene. We would aknowledge, and they would agree, that we're aiming to get a specific message across in a set time. The talent would have memorized a script and practiced it. The script would be made up of perfect sound bites that all fit nicely together. Additionally, there would be a teleprompter synced up on each camera; just in case. 

An interviewer would cue the talent (after we're all set) and the talent would do two or three perfect takes of each phrase, sentence or bullet point, pausing five seconds between takes to make it easy on me to edit. Every interview would take place inside an anechoic chamber and we'd add canned room ambiance later. During every critical juncture of the interview process all the extraneous people (anyone who is not the on-camera talent, the sound engineer or the camera operators) would be called away to deal with an emergency phone call, or emergency potty break, or they would just go outside to smoke a cigarette, or stand on a street corner and give every passerby their two cents worth on anything at all. 

There would be wonderful craft service and the Champagne and caviar would flow. But most importantly the client would speak the magic words, "We have this great editor we'd love to use on this project. Can you just send them the footage? Can you send us the bill? Oh, what are we saying? I think this is enough..." as they pull wads of hundred dollar bills and gleefully shove it into our waiting hands. 

But no..... it just doesn't work that way. At least not often enough....

People in front of cameras seem to have a super powerful ability to stretch out whatever answer they need to give from one simple sentence to an endless soliloquy. They help us fill up even the biggest memory cards and then, once the cards are full, they finally deliver the perfect one liner. 

No matter when we film; even in the dead of night, there will be audio interference of the most profound and jarring nature. A fleet of chubby Harley riders revving up their hogs at the accounting firm's  building down the street, at 3 in the morning. A cute couple trying out their his and hers chainsaws just outside the door of our location. An impromptu live fire exercise on the next block. Each mortar round hitting just as the talent finally gets the name of the product correct.....

The electrical power in the (client) chosen location will be iffy. The air conditioning will be about as effective as a small, slow fan blowing over an ice cube in a sauna; but as loud as a 747 taking off. The beautiful background? It generally turns out to be scared and worn wood panelling left over from the 1970's along with the orange shag carpeting which makes the custom white balance so.... special. 

And the craft service? Whatever they have on sale at the local Seven/Eleven. Twinkies and Lite beer? Again? 

But I'll gladly put up with all of that if I don't have to do the edit. Three cameras means three times the crap to wade through. I knew I should have studied harder and become a psychiatrist. At least I could take a stab at solving my own masochism....

Just random thoughts in the middle of an editing session. I'll get Ben in here. He'll fix it.