I’m quite excited to have something new to focus on right now as to be blunt, the past year has been very difficult for me and I am sure the same is true for many people who have been effected by lockdowns and had little to no financial help. My good lady lost her salon of 20+ years and my graphic design business, which is mainly events driven, has fallen on it’s arse as my core customers have been unable to operate themselves. For the first time in my life I have been truly depressed and very worried for our futures. I honestly don’t like using the term depressed as I’m really not the kind of person to dwell on things but this really got to me over the past few weeks.
However, I am determined to come out of this mess stronger than I went into it so a new project is born for me to focus on whilst my own work is crawling along. I can’t sit on my backside doing nothing, I can’t sit around and allow my demons to get the better of me, I had to do something I love and something I am striving to get better skilled at. That something is cinematography and photography.
I already have a vlog on YouTube about our alternative lifestyle living on a narrowboat and filming/editing that has been enjoyable and a bit of an escape for me but I now want to do more. Our vlog is very light hearted and I want this project to be done in a similar way. I don’t want to be vanilla, I want to be me and I will be me warts and all.
So, what exactly is this all about?
I will be totally honest here and say well, I’m not entirely sure but the idea is to document my journey from someone who shoots mainly with action cameras like the Osmo Action and Insta One R series through to somehow getting my hands on a cinema camera such as the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro (that’s a mouthfull!) to produce some really epic films. Right now there is no way I can afford a cinema camera so what i propose to do is push the kit I already have right to it’s limits and to show you how I do it. Don’t get me wrong, this is not going to be just another film and photography tutorial website and YouTube Channel – it’s going to be in a Vlog style where I truly hope you will want more and more every week.
One week I may film a narrative, the next a sensory type film and the next perhaps a documentary of some sort mainly focused around the canal network and surrounding villages – let’s just see where this takes us. I say ‘us’ because I would love you to be involved too. I will set up social media channels on MeWe, Twitter and Instagram (not Facebook and I’ll tell you why another time!). And I will set challenges that anyone can achieve with their mobile phone – be that a photographic challenge or a video challenge. All I really do know is that this is going to be a lot of fun and I would love you to come along for the ride.