The value of video footage in travel
Bethlehem, Palestine
On Sunday, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired film footage of San Francisco in 1906. The footage, taken by a camera attached to a cable car going down Market Street, is less than 12 minutes long, and it is mesmerizing in a way a still photo cannot be. We see bodies moving, faces moving, vehicles and pedestrians weaving all over the place in an era few of us ever bother to think about. There is a hauntedness to it all, in part because we know what the people in the video don’t: many will die in just a few days in what will be called the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.
Some years ago I used to take a lot of video footage in my own travels, and I’m glad I have it today. On those rare occasions when I watch some clips, they evoke time and place in a way my still photos do not. A photograph can’t capture the crickets at night in Yanjing, Tibet, or the giggles of an innkeeper’s little girl as a radio plays Chinese classical songs in the background.
I’ve not traveled with a proper video camera since 2005. I feel I just don’t have the time to do video when I’m focusing on still photography — and trying to do decent writing at the same time. But my Nikon D300s does have a video function, and I’ll kick it on once in a while. The quality is poor, but it is enough to capture something that a single picture can’t. For this post I’ve uploaded to youtube a few video clips taken in the past year. If any of the following capture your attention, you’re most welcome to check it out (the girl in the photo above is in the first clip):
Wall and Playground in Bethlehem
Camels Clopping in Petra at Dusk
Dancing Kids (Lalibela, Ethiopia)
February 2, 2011 — Tahrir Square (Cairo, Egypt)
Category: Africa, Asia, Images from the road, Travel Video