A Tale in Three Parts

From 1957 through 1959, I spent my summers at Camp Onota in Pittsfield, MA, where for two months each year, several acres around a lake in the Berkshires became a distant suburb of Westchester County, New York.  Although I lived in state and much closer to the camp than my bunkmates, I was displaced by their cultural geography and my personal inclinations.  Not only was I athletically inept and disinterested, I was constantly surrounded by these twelve émigrés from my cabin who talked fast with odd accents and worshipped at the altar of Mantle and Berra.  While the camp had the usual run of activities including arts and crafts and nature lore, sports predominated and was the barometer for social standing.

Apart from Baseball which pervaded the life of Onota like slots in Vegas, the camp placed great emphasis on swimming instruction and waterfront skills.  There was an extensive dock complex on the lake and a large outdoor pool where swimming lessons were given twice daily.  In the first week of each summer, tests were given to determine each camper's competence, and classes were divided accordingly. Although blessed with a corpulent buoyancy, I was a terrible swimmer with no endurance.  For all three years, I landed in the lowest levels and remained there while the rest of my bunk progressed to more advanced training and deeper water.

I tried several times to pass the deep water test which required swimming four continuous widths of the pool.  It wasn't a great distance, but for me, it might as well have been the English Channel.  I would usually make into the third leg before my wind gave out, leaving me to bob and wheeze helplessly in the water like an asthmatic marshmallow in hot chocolate.  The failure itself was not half as bad as the very public humiliation of heading back to the shallow end to rejoin the camp's youngest and least able swimmers.  It made me reluctant to try the test again, even when I was technically able to do it.

On the last day of my last year, I gave it one more shot and succeeded. This meant I could join my bunk at the far end of the pool and whoop it up joyously for the rest of the period.  It was a triumphant and liberating moment, but it came with the bittersweet knowledge that my unwillingness to face failure and humiliation sooner limited my victory to that final hour of free swim.

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On May 2, The Boston Globe printed side-by-side articles about two new Polaroid cameras and the attempt to revitalize instant photography.  The first piece was a straightforward product evaluation by the Globe's technology critic, Hiawatha Bray.  He listed several drawbacks to the new cameras, particularly the high price of the film and the tiny size of the prints, as compared to the low cost and versatility of digital photography.  He did pay lip service to instant photo nostalgia buffs and those professionals who found the old system useful ("cops and coroners"), but the title of the article said it all: "Even modernized, an idea past its time."

The second article, by Globe art critic Sebastian Smee, praised the cameras for the same reasons that Bray disparaged them.

"It’s about the return of risk.

Part of what makes photography in the digital age so different from photography in the fast-receding age of negatives, darkrooms, chemicals, and prints is that, with digital cameras, there is nothing at stake. You can click away incessantly, and know that you will never feel depleted.

And yet some kind of law of diminishing returns seems to be at work, because you never quite feel satisfied, either.

Polaroid film isn’t cheap...and after shooting that set number of prints you have to go through the laborious process of reloading. But what this means is that each photo you take matters — in a way that photos taken with a digital camera don’t."

I suspect that for the vast majority of camera users, the drawbacks far outweigh the advantages, and that the excitement and engagement of risk aren't worth the expense.  I include myself in this group since my shaky hands and jittery eyes inevitably produce more blur than beauty, and going digital gives me a fighting chance to produce a decent image without taking out a loan.

But Smee's point has wider implications.  The advent of digital graphics, music, audio mixing, video, and video editing has taken these arts and crafts from the realm of a relatively few professionals to the average computer citizen.  The term bandied about these days is the "democratization" of the media, and it grants John Q Average Producer the same tools and nearly the same exposure as the mainstream media.  Like some democracies, it's prone to demagoguery and mob rule, but for better or worse, it's now the right of the people.

Yet having experienced this phenomenon as a video editor, I know that the difference between skilled professionals and amateurs isn't the gear but the willingness to take risks when your livelihood and reputation are at stake.  This means having the guts and nerves to cut a unique but untried approach to a story when the absolute deadline of airtime won't permit you to change course. The risk is mitigated if the editor, through innate talent and years of experience, has developed a finely honed instinct for making wise creative decisions quickly.  But falling off the tightrope is always a possibility and, I believe, the ultimate impetus towards excellence.

It's scary and exhilarating, and when you fail, you fall hard but learn in an instant what a thousand tutorials can't teach you.  If failure is too much to handle for your wallet or ego, you should probably choose a different career.  When you succeed, there is no feeling like it on earth.

I don't feel diminished because I can't shoot pictures like Herb Ritts, Ansel Adams, or Dorothea Lange.  I'm a digital photo hack and accept it.  But editing is my craft and my joy, and since being laid off, my access to the sweet drug of creative terror is gone.  I miss that as much, if not more than the paycheck.

So now I write, exchanging the raw fear of the show clock with the challenge of filling a blank page.  It's not the same; there's no chasm to fall into when I sit down at the computer.   If my stuff is good, that's nice, but if it's awful, no real harm done.  I need to find that element of risk if I'm ever to accomplish with words what I used to with raw footage.  I need to dread the consequences of uneven pacing, clumsy phrasing, or forced jokes as much as I feared missing on-air deadlines, and in spite of it, still have the sand to try something new and perilous.  I need to do this soon - it's the last free swim of camp.

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An old Jewish joke:

A distraught man enters a synagogue, takes a seat in the front row, and looks toward the ceiling.  "Master of the universe, my business is in trouble, and if things don't improve, I'll go broke.  I've never asked you for anything before, but if you could just let me win the lottery this week, I'll be grateful for the rest of my life."  Having spoken his mind, he leaves.

He returns the next week, more upset than before.  "Lord, I asked for one simple favor, let me win the lottery, but apparently you decided not to help me.  Now I'm in real trouble and facing bankruptcy.  What do I do now?"

Suddenly, the roof of the shul opens up and a loud voice booms through the sanctuary.

"Herb, at least meet me halfway.  Go buy a ticket."