Blogocentric Formulations

Photography: Part II & Breaking Bad

PROMPT: Photo albums. On the first day (yesterday), tell us all about your experience with photo albums (physical or electronic). Do you still have pictures from when you or your children were young? Did your mother ever bring out your baby photo album at an inopportune/embarrassing moment (family reunion, boyfriend/girlfriend visiting, etc.)? Feel free to share some pictures with us if you want to Bigsmile On the second day (today), let us in on your future photo album plans. Any big trips coming up you hope to document? What is your motivation for recording these important events if there is potential they will only sit in their albums on a shelf for most of their life until they are removed, leafed through, and winced at? As a follow-up question: do you think that hiding behind a camera lens removes the photographer from the experience taking place in front of them?


I honestly don't have any future photo album plans. I'm taking a trip to New York in a couple of weeks for work, and it just happens to coincide with spring break for my wife's school, so she's going to tag along and we're going to have a week in the city together. Then, in July, we're both taking a trip to Brazil for a few weeks. While we're excited about both trips and I'm sure there will be plenty of photos taken, I don't think I'll be making a conscious effort to compile photo albums to share with people. As the prompt itself mentioned, photo have great potential to "only sit in their albums on a shelf for most of their life." I've also been on both sides of a photo presentation where I've showed people hundreds upon hundreds of vacation photos and found them fascinating... as well as been a viewer of someone else's hundreds upon hundreds of vacation photos and found it tedious and dull.

The truth is, I often hide behind the camera because I don't like being in front of it. Being the photographer does remove one from the experience taking place in front of them, and it's tempting for me to fill that role, standing aside as an observer rather than being a participant. I've also found this to be the case as a filmmaker, both for narrative short films like the ones I worked on in film school, and for documentary-style projects like the few wedding videos I've made. There's something safe and secure about being removed from the action and always able to keep everything at arm's length.

What I've started to realize, though, is that I don't really want to be behind the scenes and removed from the action. I don't really want to be in front of a camera, either, though. Documenting an experience is far less important to me than actually living it, so I tend not to take too many photos when my family and I are on vacation. There are the obligatory photos for the Facebook wall and to send to family saying, "Wish you were here," and I have no problem with those few photos... but I really have an issue when a vacation or an activity on a vacation is entirely consumed with making sure it's properly documented. In my relatively short life and relatively few travels, I've seen a sunset from the top of a Hawaiian volcano above the cloud layer, wandered through a 12th-century Spanish castle, traversed the creepy tunnels of the Catacombs of Paris, been to the top of the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building, and taken a hot-air balloon ride over the vineyards and orchards of California. During some of these excursions I've meticulously documented the experience, while others I spent time living in the moment and simply enjoying the experience. What I've come to realize is that, after the initial rush of the vacation is over, I've never once wished I had taken more pictures and spent more time documenting the experience, but I have wished that I had taken more time to enjoy the experience while I was there.

It's not just vacations, either. I have friends who will not start eating their meal until they've snapped a photo with their smartphone and uploaded it to Instagram or Twitter or Pinterest or Facebook. I have family members who want to spend half a day away from everyone else at a reunion so they can take a certain picture of a certain location at a certain time of day. I have coworkers who attend our movie premieres and awards season parties and spend more time worrying about how they look, whether they can get a picture with someone famous, or if they'll show up in a photo in the trades the next day, than they do enjoying the accomplishment of the movies we've made or the awards we've won. To me, it seems like a rather sad existence to spend more time worrying about how your life is documented and what others think of it than you do worrying about what you're doing and whether or not you're enjoying yourself.

There will always be an important place for photographs and their sharing with others. It's amazing that we're able to capture a moment in time and preserve it forever. But I think our society is moving in a dangerous direction where we're more concerned about the posterity of it all than we are with what we do in the moment. And that's the real problem... when the experience itself is secondary to the recording of it.

Personally, I'd rather have the more vivid memories that come with experiencing something than having more documentary evidence that I was physically there. I'd rather remember the things I've done rather than the photo ops I've captured.

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PROMPT: Pick any television show you want (that you haven't already used) and explain why you picked it/why we should watch it.

BREAKING BAD
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903747/

I'm writing about BREAKING BAD today because it's one of the most popular shows I haven't seen. Technically, I've seen a couple episodes, but not even half a season of a show that, by all accounts, is spectacular. I mean, the way Twitter blew up every time a new episode came on, the way coworkers breathlessly asked each other if they had seen what happened on the show the night before... the fervor and excitement over this show easily matched - if not exceeded - the hype and excitement of any other series I've seen, including shows like LOST and ALIAS. I mean, everybody loved this show, even other actors, writers, and producers.

I mean, seriously, Bryan Cranston received a fan letter from Anthony freakin' Hopkins! Here it is, if you've never read it:

Dear Mister Cranston.

I wanted to write you this email – so I am contacting you through Jeremy Barber – I take it we are both represented by UTA . Great agency.

I’ve just finished a marathon of watching “BREAKING BAD” – from episode one of the First Season – to the last eight episodes of the Sixth Season. (I downloaded the last season on AMAZON) A total of two weeks (addictive) viewing.

I have never watched anything like it. Brilliant!

Your performance as Walter White was the best acting I have seen – ever.

I know there is so much smoke blowing and sickening bullshit in this business, and I’ve sort of lost belief in anything really.

But this work of yours is spectacular – absolutely stunning. What is extraordinary, is the sheer power of everyone in the entire production. What was it? Five or six years in the making? How the producers (yourself being one of them), the writers, directors, cinematographers…. every department – casting etc. managed to keep the discipline and control from beginning to the end is (that over used word) awesome.

From what started as a black comedy, descended into a labyrinth of blood, destruction and hell. It was like a great Jacobean, Shakespearian or Greek Tragedy.

If you ever get a chance to – would you pass on my admiration to everyone – Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Aaron Paul, Betsy Brandt, R.J. Mitte, Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Steven Michael Quezada – everyone – everyone gave master classes of performance … The list is endless.

Thank you. That kind of work/artistry is rare, and when, once in a while, it occurs, as in this epic work, it restores confidence.

You and all the cast are the best actors I’ve ever seen.

That may sound like a good lung full of smoke blowing. But it is not. It’s almost midnight out here in Malibu, and I felt compelled to write this email.

Congratulations and my deepest respect. You are truly a great, great actor.

Best regards

Tony Hopkins.

I mean, wow. Anthony Hopkins, one of the most acclaimed, brilliant, and talented actors alive is telling Bryan Cranston that his portrayal of Walter White is the best acting he's ever seen; enough to make him binge-watch a show! If that's not a ringing endorsement of a show, I don't know what is!

The main reason I haven't watched the show yet is because I don't have a whole lot of time at home alone, and my wife isn't a huge fan of the concept. As a teacher herself, she's not particularly keen on a concept where a struggling teacher decides to cook meth on the side to make extra money, and I can't say that I really blame her. I know this is a dark show and it's not meant to be a happy-happy, uplifting type of story which are the kinds she usually prefers. But I've started watching shows in bed as she goes to sleep. The series (or at least the majority of the seasons) are available on Netflix, so instead of reading in bed I've been getting caught up on shows that she doesn't want to see that I've really been meaning to get around to. I just got caught up on HOUSE OF LIES, and now I think I'm going to rip through BREAKING BAD and then maybe tackle GAME OF THRONES. There's just so much good television out there, it's hard to keep up with it all!