Long-time readers of mine know that before I started a little website called 1P5 that eats up all my time and immerses me in a constant bath of pure negativity, I used to do some photography. It’s a long-neglected hobby of mine, despite me picking up a Nikon D7200 back in 2015 in the hopes of doing some shoots for articles.
Before photos, and before professional writing, I actually went to school for radio and television production. When I was a kid, I made radio shows and movies, using a busted-up boombox I got from a neighbor or borrowing whatever camera I could get my hands on. (My parents never owned a video camera, so I had to find people who did.) My movies were terrible, but they were a start. My radio shows weren’t much better.
Fast forward to 2019. I’ve spent a good chunk of the past year playing with video again. The Nikon, as it turns out, while stellar for photos, is pretty much garbage as a hybrid shooter — adding video to the mix. Constant problems with autofocus and white balance have made it impossible to move around with the thing, making narrative storytelling impossible. I could work with stock footage, like I did in this Memorial Day video, and I can do in studio shoots, like this one for my wife Jamie or my 1P5 Minute videos like this one.
For Christmas of 2017, I picked up a DJI Spark, which has allowed me to do some drone work. It’s been fun, but I start playing with it before learning anything about Premiere Pro, or color grading, or…anything I needed to make my videos look the way I actually want. Results aren’t bad, but they’re not stellar, either:
Which brings me to the reason for this post. There are some guys out there making absolutely brilliant looking films, and they’re putting a lot of what they know on YouTube so you can learn from them. I really enjoy the work and tutorials from guys like the guys at Moment (a lensmaker for phone cameras), Parker Walbeck, Matti Haapoja, and especially Peter McKinnon. Peter is just one of those really likable guys — he reminds me a lot of my best friend in high school — and his talent is off the charts. He recently made a short documentary about getting the “bucket shot” — the one photo he wanted more than any other. The photo he dreamed about. The one that he could see in his mind but had never seen with his eyes.
It’s a fantastic bit of filmmaking and storytelling, and I found it quite inspiring. I wanted to share that with you, too:
Steve, I cherish your personal emails to me; your articles are always interesting and to the point. There is always an underlying boundless Catholic faith which is so ‘reviving’ in this desert in which we live today.
Besides your obvious intelligence and your undoubted obvious artistic creativity in the selection of your truly beautiful photos and pictures which add so much to the individual article.
I cannot thank you enough for your coverage of Cardinal Pell’s obvious phoney ‘trial’, which anyone with eyes to see, is a sick joke. I was physically ill when the guilty decision was announced. You are the only one, I’ve found, so far, that has blared forth the connection with the uncovering of all the guilt in the Vatican Finances and the sudden revival of the ridiculous charges – totally improbable in the details of the attacks.
Everyone does know it is a farce. So much for our Justice System; so much for the state of the Catholic Church in Australia. Our leaders have sowed the wind and reaped a whirlwind.
God bless you and your family. I loved your very amusing and ‘homely’ account of your early life.