Week 9

Jordyn Dunseath
April 09, 2024

TIP OF THE WEEK

Here’s a very specific camera tip. Are you ever shooting in auto focus and then it starts doing a really bad job but you’re in the middle of a video that you don’t want to ruin but you have to toggle that switch on your lens to manual and it creates a shake in your footage or you accidentally toggle off the “stabilizer” switch instead? (I hope you enjoyed that run-on sentence, haha) Well, to make your life 10x easier…program a custom button on your camera to toggle between auto and manual focus instead. This will be way more efficient and save you from a lot of those issues above. You can also customize another button to a specific type of auto-focus on your camera (like switching between face identification and center). This is what I do and I love it!

JORDYN UPDATES

Highs of the week:
• That gif above is showing me on the edge of a major cliff at Horseshoe Bend. That’s why I’m laying down. To protect my life haha. So that’s a high for sure - I went on a family trip this past week to explore Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona and the surrounding areas. Of course, I captured as much as I could while also enjoying the time with family.

Reality of the week:
• You can read a lot of the reality in my bigger update below 🙃.
“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength” Philippians 4:12-13

Let’s talk about limitations. As I was out capturing tons of beautiful photos and videos this past week around Arizona, I was well aware of the many things that put limitations on my creativity. For the majority of the trip, there was a major wind storm blowing through the area. Dust was pelting me in the face and definitely getting into the vents of my camera. It was also way more difficult than you would expect to keep my camera stable because the wind was truly that strong. Antelope Canyon itself is now under very strict regulations. You can only visit by tour at a specific time of day with a bunch of other people. The tour guides make you walk through at their pace. They also make sure everyone can get a photo of the empty canyon which takes away the ability to get a shot with a subject in frame. My family was kind enough to stop a few times on the side of the road to let me capture some amazing views, but of course this trip isn’t all about me so there are many things I let pass by as well.

Okay, why am I sharing all this? Because this is reality. I was pondering the idea this week that I will never be able to capture everything I want to. There are millions of ideas and stories and shots I will never get to pursue. There was one night this week where I chose to wait for a timelapse to run its course during a sunset and afterwards realized it was kind of a dumb timelapse. As we continued to drive, I saw so many other potential shots I could have gotten if I made the decision to move on earlier than I did. Again, I share this because this is reality and I am so glad I was faced with that “loss” (the loss of a potentially amazing shot) so many times this week. It reminded me how important contentment and gratitude really are in the creative process as well.

There is no peace in the feeling that “I’m always missing out on something”. "If only I could go to Antelope Canyon at a time of day I wanted”. “If only we didn’t take this vacation on the weekend when a wind storm was blowing through”. That mindset is so negative and lacks so much gratitude. I would rather walk away from this trip with a deep thankfulness of the beauty I did get to capture. And even more, the blessing it is to even see beauty like this with my own eyes. The fact that it even exists for me to enjoy - incredible.

I decided to write about this as a reminder for you too. If you are feeling like you’re missing out on things or you can’t do what you want to do yet…I want to remind you of the blessings that are already present. In fact, limitations in creativity is actually a gift. Because if you really could do it all, then how would you ever finish anything? I now have the challenge of creating a beautiful story out of the footage I did capture within my limitations and I’m sure excited to pursue that challenge.

This week’s creative challenge:

This week make it a practice to bring your camera in the car and actually stop when you see something worth capturing. Maybe it’s something new or maybe it’s something familiar. Make the effort to finally stop at that place you pass by 100 times and think “dang I should have brought my camera to capture that.”

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