Still Only Still?
[By Leslie Burns-Dell'Acqua]
Do you shoot motion or have you already decided to define yourself only as a still photographer?
If you aren’t doing motion, why aren’t you? Self-defining as still only, without even trying on the new medium, seems like stifling your creativity. It’s a new world and the technological barriers are dropping. You can shoot video with an iPhone now, and the “real” equipment is totally accessible. And targets are eating it up when still photographers use it in their marketing, even if they aren’t hiring a ton of still photographers to shoot motion, yet.
Yet.*
This is your chance to play with the medium. It’s a new tool for you and that frees you up to experiment. There are no expectations on you. So make some art. Make lots of really, incredibly, painfully bad motion stuff and don’t worry about it. Remember some of the totally pretentious and/or self-absorbed, well, crap you made in art school? Sure, now you think back to some of those projects and groan, but remember how incredibly exciting it was to make that stuff? Find that place again. Laugh at yourself and get self-absorbed and pretentious a bit. Try it all on and see if you want to wear the new title: motion photographer.
That excitement you felt as an art student was your young creative soul trying to find its way out. You can do that again. You will find your visual voice somewhere in all that, if you open yourself up to it.
But the only way to get there is to do it. And just like any medium, you may play and work and curse and labor and laugh and wonder and make some good stuff, and then realize it just isn’t the right tool for you. And that is fine.
But when you get the chance to explore a new medium that is a natural fit to what you are already doing in so many ways, it doesn’t make any sense not at least to give it a shot.
At the worst, you will learn how to make better “behind the scenes” vids to promote your business. At best, you will find that all this time you were really a motion photographer who was just waiting to come out.
______
*More and more are getting work in both media, however. I expect this will only increase in the near future.
9 Responses to 'Still Only Still?'
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Good words Leslie. Play – explore – find yourself in another medium. You never know.
I’m researching cameras now, based on all the advice given by Gail Mooney on how to choose the right tools. I’m very excited by new opportunities with multi-media / motion.
Leslie,
I agree with you that it would probably behoove me to play with video to learn more about what it is, but I wonder about the rush for still photographers to enter that market. Our profession is continuously being diluted. I went from being a still photographer 30 years ago to being now a photographer, a pre-press person, a type-setter, a mechanical artist, a retoucher, a lab and a web designer, as well as an IT tech. Now I need to be a videographer. When do I reach the point where I do so much, I can’t do any one thing well. Not to mention, how do I afford all the equipment and editing hardware/software to produce professional quality video on top of what I have already invested on still. Being able to shoot video is a long way from being able to do top notch professional video work, just as being able to operate a digital slr is a long way from being a great still photographer.
This is exciting. Thank god I have a film degree. It can only get better
As long as commercial shooters see art as, and I quote Leslie Burns-Dell’Acqua, “totally pretentious and/or self-absorbed, crap made in art school,” you will never understand the creative process of producing a body of work with that fine thread that binds the work.
Artists contribute through the documentation of what the past, present and possible future for their culture represents. If you do not see that in a work the artist presents to the viewer you lack the skills to understand fine art, and yes, there is a difference between fine art and commercial craftiness.
I recently booked a video job and when I went to my insurance company for a liability certificate, I was told that video wasn’t covered. I’m going to have to go from paying $750/year as a still photographer to more than $2,500/ year as a production company. OUCH. We need some kind of hybrid insurance policy here.
What is it about everyone deciding to get into motion
all of the sudden. This medium has existed for
over a hundred years. Did it take canon putting
a video mode in the hands of still shooters
that makes everyone want to switch careers?
Don’t you think it’s a little more involved than
just experimenting? I’m not trying to burst anyone’s
bubble, but this is no different than telling any
hobbyist that buys a dslr to play around and
see if it’s a new career. We all know it takes a bit more work.
Michael,
Canon didn’t create the need for video – broadband did when it made it possible to watch online.
Gail
Practical