Becoming an Eye Person

Learning to See 

For years I have resisted working with visual images. I've always believed that it is too optimistic to think we can do everything well. I've been hesitant about venturing outside of audio expression because if I spend time on the pictures, will I still be able to do audio just as well?

I've had a change of heart ... I figure I've been doing audio now for over 20 years, so if I spend a little time learning something else, it won't detract from my sound work.

And so last summer I went out and bought a video camera. And yesterday I got a cute little Canon still digital camera. It's probably very simple by professional standards but to me it has gazillions of features and makes me ask "where do I start?"

And I answer, like I would tell anybody asking me how to get started in audio, you just go out there and do it. You learn by doing.

That's what I did today. I took pictures of tree bark (as you can see above), shards of ice piling up on each other, some of the historic buildings in Olde Sandwich Towne.

I even have a little 30 second video mode on my still camera and was able to get a sheet of ice on the river scraping the edges of another sheet of ice. The sound was also remarkable ... I am inspired to go down there again and get some more ice floe images.

It's a whole new experience -- I know what kinds of sounds I am drawn to because of all the years I've spent sound gathering. I've always used my microphone to try to hear beyond the obvious. To really work my eyes and see beyond the obvious is the next step.

And yes, there is a film in the works. It will likely take me about five years but it is happening. It's a theme I started working on back in 1999 as an audio documentary. The images are so stunning and startling that to do it in sound alone will only tell part of the story.

That, I think, is an important idea -- if you don't need pictures, don't use them. If you do, it doesn't honour the story to tell it halfway by leaving them out.

It's energizing to be exploring new ways of telling the story ... however it wants to be told.