It’s all too common a sight to arrive at a popular tourist destination to be met with a crowd of fumbling people who all have their faces glued to a mini screen. We are obsessed with capturing our digital footprint. The choice of Facebook, YouTube, SnapChat, WeChat, WhatsApp & Instagram has grilled us with a calling of needing to leave our mark: #iwashere. It’s 2017 and incredible Capture-Technology is readily available. We all want to keep a memory of our great adventure and there is nothing wrong with that, but something has gone wrong along the way. This capture-obsession is a borderline phobia that has us believing we will not be able to remember a place we visited, unless we get the right photos & videos. If you stop and study a photo-hungry mob that is crowding around an attraction, you will sometimes notice there is one guy standing amongst the crowd taking in the fresh air, looking around and smiling. He is the only one there, enjoying himself. He is present. He is relaxing. Is this not what a vacation is all about? We have forgotten how to live in the moment. And here is the kicker: It’s not going to change. Something you can change however, is your ability to capture the moment quickly so that you can pack your little screen away and be present. All it takes is a little knowledge in knowing what to look for and how to capture it best.
Even the wildlife is bored of selfies.
How often have you grabbed 20 similar snapshots of a scene and not bothered to pick out the best one to use in a printed photo album? You end up placing the whole lot in a folder, placed within a folder within another folder labeled “To sort out — Cape Town Trip”. You are beginning to become a digital hoarder. A digital hoarder is worse than a real hoarder, because you can literally sweep an elephant under the rug. Since film-developing died a sudden death in the early 2000s, the value of taking an important picture has died with it. This is why only one family member was responsible for taking the photos back in the day. It was expensive, especially if you didn’t know what you were doing. The time, money and effort they put into getting each shot compelled them to make amazing books of our childhood adventures. What will our kids get? A 130GB monster folder.
So, what do we do? Throw away our phones and buy film-cameras again? Assign only one iPhone bearing adventurer to the task for our travel party? No. The first step is to embrace technology. Smartphones are an all-in-one production kit. Use it. The more people that have phones on them the quicker you can get the job done. The quicker the job is done the more time you have to live in the moment. This requires just a little bit of planning. Before heading out for your day draw up a little shot-list of 10–20 shots. This list should consist of a variety of shots that include, the sign, the location, the participants, the action and the attraction itself. Use a combination of wide, medium & close-up shots to tell your story. You can assign different people to different shots and make it a family or group activity. The goal is to capture what is on your list and what is on your list only. Once it’s done, pack your device away. It shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes.
It felt like I was the only one really there.
When it comes to reliving a memory no amount of video or photos will physically take you back to that moment. (No, not even VR just yet). The only part that really takes us back is the feeling we felt while we were there. The photo or video you took is only a reminder to trigger your emotional recollection. Spend more time living in moments that create memories, than time making memories out of missed moments. People who weren’t there only need a glimpse of what they missed out on, not the entire shebang. Fomo is created by teasers & trailers, leave making feature films to the professionals.
Want to learn how to make short engaging travel videos with your mobile phone? We teach you what to capture and how to capture it so that you can tell the world #iwashere, all while still living in the moment.
Steem on #iwashere
More about our online course here: http://travelvids.tv/