Stephen Covey wrote a book called “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. In this book he writes about paradigm shifts, which are hard to explain, but he gave a really good example.
He wrote about a man on a subway who encounters another man and his two children. The two children were running around the subway car hitting people and just making the ride for everyone else miserable. The father just sat there with his head in his hands doing nothing about it and the observer finally had enough of the situation and asked the man to control his children. The gentleman just picked his head up and said, “We just came from the hospital. Their mother passed away and I don’t know how to tell them.”
That is a paradigm shift. A dark one, but it illustrates the phrase.
I think I’m half way through one right now after listening to an incredibly awesome interview with Kristen* on F-Stop Beyond. She is one of the top videographers in the country and she talks about the industry, her work, and how she got there. It’s incredibly enlightening because her perspective is so detached from mainstream photography and all of the trends that run rampant out there and, because of this, she has remained surprisingly under the radar. The interview has given me a fresh perspective that translates into a very big step closer to what I think will ultimately be my approach to this art.
Part of what is so enlightening about the interview is how she uses super 8mm cameras to film weddings. That’s right, super 8; no high definition stuff. I never though of this, but it is apparently making a comeback.
Here is a link to a sample.
Honestly…I like it. I really like it. I think the dated aspect to the film gives it heart. It’s kind of like Seabiscuit (super 8mm) versus War Admiral (HD). War Admiral had all of the great training and pedigree, but Seabiscuit just had that little something special about it.
I’m not getting into videography. Let me say that right now, but there are definitely some similarities between videography and photography that must be respected and learned from and I think this little nugget of gold will serve me quite well going forward.
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