A few moments from my trip that didn’t fit in anywhere else, but moments filled with life, connections, wit, and joy nonetheless.
Watching this only makes me miss France, Britain, and all the people there even more. Maybe I’ll get to see them again soon.
Filmed another lovely wedding.
There were lots of fantastic little details, especially in the way people interact with their hands, but my favourite moment is when the pastor does a little tilt, mimicking the kiss between the new husband and wife.
Last day.
There was much left to do and see, but that’s all for another time.
Overlooking Chartres.
When Mike asked me what my dream job is, I told him that I’d be a director. So he asked me to direct the next segment of his documentary because I tend to have a good sense of the larger scope when it comes to storytelling, and that would let him focus on the cinematography and the interview.
Our roles overlapped more often than not since this was his creative vision, but that only meant we made a great team. I could bounce an idea off him, and he’d immediately understand what I was talking about. And if he saw a technique I could do better, he’d tell me how to work differently and I’d understand without needing an explanation.
It’s fascinating to get a glimpse into someone else’s photographic process. I’d love to include more in this video because there were a lot of brilliant, touching, intimate moments during the interview, but it’s Mike’s project and it wouldn’t be right to reveal the concept to the world before he did.
When the shooting was done for the day, something which took several hours and left us thoroughly exhausted, we took the night off for food and more photography.
Cockburns haggis with clapshot (potatoes mashed with swede turnips and chives) and onion gravy. I couldn’t possibly resist ordering haggis while in Scotland. It has a taste similar to ground beef, only with a much richer taste. Eating this gave me the meat sweats.
We rented Canon’s EF 400mm f/2.8 L IS lens to film parts of the documentary, which meant we could also get some nice moon shots too at such a focal length. This lens is so big, the case has wheels.
100% crop.
I wanted to see if I could get a few shots of a tiny village across the water, and it turns out they happened to be setting off fireworks at that exact moment. I didn’t even realize this until I looked back on the photos on my display. It was much too dark to see with the naked eye, and only showed up when I left the shutter open for 25 seconds.
Mike initially told me I could stay with him for three days, because he soon had to travel to Scotland to film a documentary. Over the phone before I even arrived to meet him, however, he suggested that I come with him to Scotland to make it the trip of a lifetime. I couldn’t say no; to see Scotland has always been a dream of mine. And seeing as how we used the same photo equipment, I could give him a hand with his film while cutting my teeth on using a lot of gear I’ve yet to afford.
So we loaded up the Range Rover with a ridiculous amount of gear, and left by 6am just so we could make it there before too late and to record the transition from sunrise to night. swinging by to pick up Liverpool Liz as another camera operator before leaving. Mike set up his 20D to take a picture every 10 seconds, and we made this stop-motion video.
The journey took 13 hours by car, straight up to the north-west coast of Scotland to small town called Ullapool, where his friend Jean-Marc lived, who was also a subject in Mike’s personal project. We made it as far as Inverness before the batteries died, which is about 900km (and another 90km to Ullapool), and took about ten and a half hours. If you watch the GPS in the video, you get a fast-forwarded view of our path through the rain and the Scottish mountains.
This was a pretty damn good sandwich, from a Marks and Spencer road stop. They had a huge selection of types too.