This time last week, I was sunburned in the desert, being chastised by a drag queen for my reluctance to wear sunscreen. Working on a music video set in the Eastern Sierras for a week was, in a word, magic. I'm still coming to terms with the entire situation, picking through my web of feelings in the same way we picked through the sagebrush to find audio cables and cooking utensils, makeup mirrors and folding chairs after high winds ripped through camp midway through the week.
Like I told the EP, working with this particular Seattle-based production company is always an easy and resounding "yes." I trust them to gather the kindest, most talented, inspired team and curate a supportive, collaborative energy on set. And they did just that.
What started as a vague text (some dates and "it’s a very cool shoot in CA") turned into me toting a camera around a remote rock buttress, shooting behind-the-scenes photo and video of goose-bump-worthy shots as an ethereal track reverberated off a 600-foot granite wall. I swear I had chills most of the week. At one point our talent hung from ropes rigged by professional climbers at the precipice of the buttress, dancing vertically on the wall above the desert floor hundreds of feet below. It's a miracle I ever got my jaw off the floor long enough to help shuttle huge cameras (never have I ever held a 50-1000mm lens), water, wigs, and high-heeled boots up what I can only describe as a class-three scramble at 7,000 feet of altitude.
I can't share specific visuals until the video comes out in the spring, but the entire project was shot in black and white. I have long had a bias against the treatment; I've seen too many photogs try to hide poor lighting and fuzzy focus by slapping a black and white filter onto a sloppy shot and calling it art. (Sorry.) It has made me hesitant to shoot anything but film in black and white. Sure, my BTS shots didn't need to match the stills or motion the rest of the camera team captured, but knowing the project would end in black and white pushed me to play with shadows, shapes, and motion blur in a way I might not have otherwise. After editing the color selects, I put them into black and white just for the heck of it. Honestly, I'm excited by the result. The high drama of the stark values "serves cunt," in the words of our resident drag artist, and that's all I could hope for.
Projects like these are double-edged swords in so many ways; they hold paradoxes in a way I'm not yet fully comfortable with. Before I left, I was feeling like I was in the right place, at peace with the risks I'd taken with my money and time. But being on these projects is an emotional whirlwind. It's like seeing that your wildest dreams are not only possible, but you're living them. It's incredibly special to feel so energized by work and connected to the creatives around you. Then you drive (a diesel truck pulling an airstream trailer no less) for two days straight back to "real life." It's like whiplash.
For now, I feel incredibly lucky to know what makes me feel alive—and to know it's possible. A big part of my dissatisfaction with freelancing in the writing, and to some extent photography, world is the individuality and isolation. I miss working as part of a team that supports an ever-evolving creative vision, and I got to do that last week.
I think a lot of my post-trip whiplash comes from a familiar feeling, one that I've found my dream job, but I'm unsure how to make it my everyday rather than an every-now-and-then gig. It feels equally attainable and impossible; like there's some mysterious "right path" I need to find and follow. For now, I find it invaluable to have time on set with inspired folks who are so willing to share their advice and expertise.
So here's an ode to the desert, to nerds clusters powering us through an 18-hour drive and delicious sunsets and wrap runs and scrambling with an ARRI.
