Still Life

I've decided that my life was not meant to be recorded on film.

This goes back a long way really.  On a trip to Russia with my parents to pick up my older brother, our video camera was stolen out of our bag.  When we were engaged Jeremy and I drove to NYC to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. His video camera was lost/stolen in a parking garage.  My sister gave us their hand-me-down video camera for Christmas when we were first married.  But the first mini-cassette which we filled with videos from our early marriage and Owen's babydom has been lost somewhere during our half dozen moves since we got married. 

Since getting digital cameras we can take videos again.  But we never buy a more expensive video card with more memory (I upload my pictures and start fresh every 36 photos--just like the good old days) so we can't take more than a minute or two of video.  Last month I did the classic home video fail of only getting half of Owen's two sentence part in his school program on video. 

That's so classic right?  Starting recording in the middle, or you weren't zoomed in on the right kid, or the camera was already recording some excellent "FOOTage" as we called it, and right as the action is about to begin the cameraman lifts up the camera and presses the record button just in time for you to miss what you were supposed to be watching.

So I've just decided it's not for me--I'm not going to stress about video-recording things.  My life was not meant to be on video!

 Maybe my life is just as well captured as still life.  I love my photos.  And I love to write about my life.  I love finding the right words to paint the picture and tell the stories that I care about.

And maybe that's my problem with video.  Movies attempt to present an unbiased documentation of what occurred.  But what is life without our interpretation?  What is life without the emotions we feel through it?  I record those feelings and perspectives through writing about my life, and I like it better that way.