Day two, mission review

Hardly any sleep, but that’s okay. I woke up, charged all my devices, and jumped on the bus to an undisclos.. okay, it was somewhere between here and the north of Amsterdam. My backpack, which I specifically do not call a camera-bag, is filled with a macbook pro, ipad air, iphone 6s+, and a simple old point and shoot camera, a couple of small tripods, and wide angle lenses for the iPhone, and a bunch of wires, batteries and a battery pack. And maybe a bottle of water and a sandwich, but that’s not important.

The weather predictions are a bit of sunlight in the morning, and clouds and rain the rest of the day, it wasn’t lying. Just as I arrived and picked one of three spots to set everything up, the clouds went away, the sun broke through and I started my timelapse and did a video recording of something for later this year. Not soon after while I was waiting for the time lapse to complete, I figured out why the point and shoot wasn’t working. Because I am an idiot! I thought I saw the memory card was inside it, but I was wrong. I can’t be used today. Then I set up the iPad to get a different angle, and work on the behind the scenes. All is well, right? Nope, I am a noob at this, now that it mattered, the concentration was too much on getting the shots, versus production. I set up the manual stuff on the video, but I didn’t select the external microphone as a source. I have like 4 meters-away audio, unusable. But ok, that is perhaps something I can do as a voice-over in post. Even on my current iMac perhaps. Yes, I am still waiting for Apple to release a new iMac, but more about that in a near-future blog post (so stay tuned!).

The rain started coming down slowly, so I started to cover up a few things, put everything back in the backpack and finish my sandwich. And by the way, that was the only thing I had since last night at 3 am, when I was prepping for this (well, I was also playing Minecraft maybe). I had crispy chicken bites, and a bit of fries for dinner. And now this sandwich. I had nothing to eat all day. But more about that in a minute.

Anyway, putting it all away, I noticed that the iPad was complaining with a popup, so that couldn’t be good. It was on airplane mode, nothing should come through. Yep, out of storage. The last 4 minutes weren’t recorded. Oh well, writing it off as another mistake for today. I have enough material I think. We’re good.

On the bus I connected the iPhone and iPad to the battery pack to guarantee enough power to transfer the clips and pictures to the project library – a few people might have been staring at me and my little mobile studio laid out over the seats, but I don’t care.

Clips moved over, everything organised. I just have to import it when I get home, and move the backup to the external drive before I do anything. And I could talk geek and tech for hours, but I am sure you are already bored by the details.

So, when can I share something that I shot today? Sigh, probably not anytime soon. The mission has started, and it’s one of many, and I enjoyed doing it, despite a few learning curves. I am new to this. But it was a bit of a test, and only when I am happy with the footage I will share something on Instagram, 500px, etc.

A few things I did learn: concentration on getting the shot, “to be ready”, comes with a price. You forget to think of everything, even if you think you thought of everything. And you can’t control your environment, including the weather. I also wish I had a shooting partner that would have the time to just jump up when I need her or him and spend a few hours getting some shots. Doing this alone requires a lot of compromises, but it’s fun to learn and figure it all out.

Okay, about the food. Sometime this week I will publish a blog about new years resolutions and stuff like that. And you won’t see me run to the gym just because it’s January 1st. I’ve never done that. But I really would not mind if I actively think about what I am eating and drinking. And like every other couple of months… it’s nice to perhaps take this a bit more serious again. Anyway, it was a good sandwich. I wish it came with a steak hehe.

And about that iMac, I need to do screen recordings, and have multiple 4k / 1080p windows open etc, and it all drags down to a couple of frames per second on any device I get my hands on. No matter what people claim and say, windows, mac, it’s all shit when it comes to ‘affordable’. So I was saving up, and a bigger update about that really soon, I promise. But there hasn’t been an update because we were waiting for Apple to release one. And they haven’t.

Todays photoshoot mission: 4 out of 10, because of my little mistakes, inadequate resources, limited time, and no good iMac to do post on. But, it was not a fail, I enjoyed today and I hope to have many more. For now, after about 9 hours, .. it’s time for todays dinner and sigh, laundry.


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