“Can’t you make up your mind?”

I am asked the very question of this blog’s title quite often, mostly in a passive form. I even find myself asking this very question at times.

“Why do BOTH photography and cinematography???”

“These aren’t the same thing. Wouldn’t it just be easier to pick ONE???”

“What is it that you’re trying to do, exactly?”

Yes, I realize that photography and cinematography aren’t the same thing, And yes, it would be a lot easier to do just one of these. Yet, at the same time, I also see photography and cinematography through the same lens as “one in the same” (pun on the “lens” remark was kind of intended - feel free to reprimand me later). So, what is it that I am trying to do? It’s simple: camera art.

I’m no different from many people: I love movies. I love good photography. I love the art of images that use contrast and lighting and shadow, both in the still form and as moving pictures. I love seeing the framing and composition of images. I love discovering the story that an image is telling. When I was younger, I never realized how much I have actually loved these things. I always felt it in my heart, but it wouldn’t be until later in life that I would find out just how much I do.

When I was younger, to which I am referring is the late ‘80’s, my high school friends and I would borrow our parents’ camcorders and we would film us doing a variety of things: re-creating our favorite movies, starting our own mock-TV talk shows, filming original movie ideas.…the sky was the limit. We filmed a lot of stuff! Even though our works never went beyond the VHS tapes that would eventually collect dust on our shelves, we had a ton of fun making those things back then. But, for me, this is also where my love for filming began, and sadly, would also end for the few years that followed.

I never understood the intricacies and technicalities to filmmaking when I was younger; I just simply popped a VHS tape into the camcorder, pressed record, and ran around like an idiot and filmed whatever I could (nostalgic moment: I can still hear in my head the whirring sound the camcorder made after putting that VHS tape in it as it calibrated, and it brings a smile to my face every time I think about it). I would discover something amazing while my friends and I were filming a re-creation of 1989’s “Batman” when I got curious and started messing with lighting, coloring, and creating shadows. My dad, who is truly a gifted artist in his own right, had some colored light bulbs lying around, and one of those lights was blue in color. While filming the scene when Batman is donning his outfit after telling Vicki Vale that he has to “go to work,” an idea popped into my head to grab a desk-mount light and put in the blue light bulb, which I could then hang over my friend who was playing Batman. The goal that popped into my mind was to re-create that dramatic shot when Batman looks up into a pale blue light. We turned off all the lights in the room, turned on the blue light, hung it over my friend, and BAM! We got a damn-near-identical shot from the movie. When my friend saw the playback, he screamed with excitement about how - and I quote - “FUCKING COOL!!!” it looked. He was right - it did look pretty fucking cool. Little did I know then that that’s when my love for cinematography would begin.

Sadly, after we wrapped, all of our filming endeavors ended. You know that quote from The Sandlot, “at some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time and nobody knew it”? That’s what that was for us; after filming that re-creation of Batman, we all silently disbanded and went our separate ways. That was my crew, the only ones I felt comfortable enough to do any filming with. No one else I knew would be interested, unless they only wanted to kick my ass for being so nerdy. Suffice it to say, since I had no one to film anything with, my filming days ended.

Growing up in Northwest Indiana in the 80’s and 90’s, there weren’t any opportunities to become involved in filmmaking. Sure, there was Chicago, but the only film school there at the time was pretty expensive, and I couldn’t afford to go. Plus, there weren’t a lot of opportunities to work on-set for movies that came to Chicago - you really had to know someone to get in on that, and I knew no one. End result: no more filming, kid…

Fast forward into the latter 20th century/turn into the 21st century: I became a parent, which meant that it was time to become responsible. After sifting through various odd jobs, I ended up going to a local college to study for certification as a pharmacy technician (long story on how this happened), and through that, I was hired to work in a hospital pharmacy setting. After my first few weeks of working as a hospital pharmacy tech, I got to see how pharmacists could positively impact providing care for hospitalized patients through pharmacy interventions and optimization of medication therapies. I was astounded by this, and it drove me to want to do more beyond the pharmacy technician role. I felt like I found a career in pharmacy, so I enrolled in and was accepted into pharmacy school, earning a PharmD degree.

What does THAT have to do with anything about cameras??? I’m getting to that…

After graduation from pharmacy school in 2004, I began working as a clinical pharmacist in various hospitals. I would make rounds every day, practicing in the ways that I first inspired me as a pharmacy technician. Even though I had my life and career set as a pharmacist, I always felt that something was still missing in my life. I often found myself thinking back to the “good old days” when my friends and I would film our crazy stuff (and I confess, I still think about those days quite a lot). I had my own camcorder that I used for filming personal events, like my kid’s school concerts and stuff, but I never did anything serious with it…

…not until at least around 2008…

As a person of science, in my own right, I felt like I could explain anything. After all, I’m a pharmacist - I’m someone who thinks and acts rationally and professionally. Life has a funny way of slapping you down sometimes, and as fate would have it, a jarring event would shut my mouth and change my thinking about things pretty quickly.

It was just me and my doggos who lived in my house in 2008 - I had three min-pins and a black lab (sadly, they’ve all since passed). I sleep with all the lights off in the house, typically. During the wee hours of the morning, somewhere around 3:00 or 3:30 AM, while I was sleeping on my left side with my back to the edge of the bed, I felt something press down fairly hard and deeply onto the mattress right behind me. This, of course, woke me up. I looked over my shoulder through tired, hazy eyes and I saw what looked like my black lab. I asked her if she wanted to come up onto the bed to sleep, and I guided my hand up to her to pet her and lead her onto the bed.

I promise you, what happened next was not a dream….

My hand passed through what I would discover was nothing but a cold, dark mass, which quickly dissipated when I touched it. I shot up so damn quickly and turned on the light on my nightstand, seeing nothing there. Needless to say, I was wide awake for the rest of that morning, I carried that with me silently for some time. I hadn’t spoken to anyone about it for quite a while, but I eventually felt that I needed to or else I would go insane. I spoke with my mother about it because she is someone who is immediately available and who I can trust when I disclose personal stuff. She told me about some TV shows that were on then that showed teams of people who investigated these kinds of events. I was intrigued, so I took some time to watch some of them, and it was then that I finally felt comfortable enough to know that I was not only not alone, but that I wasn’t crazy. Seeing what these teams were doing, I started using my camcorder to film more than just family events; I began studying the paranormal world.

This new venture would lead me to watch as much as I could about all-things paranormal. When I started watching various documentaries about the paranormal, it started to sprout a “crazy” idea in my head: what if I, too, could do something like this? Would creating a documentary of my travels fill the “need for creativity that I’ve been craving? In short, it did. With the availability of the internet and online tutorials, I learned more about cameras and filmmaking, and my passion for creating was, once again, rekindled. I have been privileged to visit, film, and investigate a plethora of locations that have claims of paranormal activity. In time, I discovered one particular place that was only a short four-hours from my home that I would end up falling in love with: Whispers Estate. I found myself visiting this location countless times before I made the bold move to make my first documentary ever, which would be about this house and its paranormal activities. To this day, “When The Walls Talk: The Whispers Estate Documentary” is doing well on various streaming platforms.

Through technology advancements and the availability of DSLR cameras, I started to discover photography. I had never given this area much thought before; despite my strong appreciation for artistry that captured contrast and shadow and lighting, I was always too wrapped-up in filming things to even think about photography. I bought my first DSLR Nikon camera in 2009 as part of my paranormal investigating gear, and I discovered that it could do both video and photography. It was here that I started gaining experience in the exposure triad of aperture, speed, and ISO. After visiting many locations for my paranormal ventures, many of which that have historical value, I started taking photos for my own keepsakes as well as for investigating. My love for photography was now born.

My career as a pharmacist had elevated into a managerial position that I have held for some time, but with all that is happening in the healthcare world, I can honestly say that my passion for pharmacy has, officially, dissolved. I won’t spell out the details of all that here, but as things stand today, I am preparing myself for stepping away from my pharmacy career and turning more toward the camera arts. As much as pharmacy, and even healthcare as a whole, has changed over the last five or so years, I am grateful for having had such a wonderful opportunity to have been a part of such a meaningful career; being a pharmacist has taught me the value of compassion, professionalism, organization, managing, and patience - characteristics that I don’t think I would have learned through anything else, especially in my younger years. Plus, being able to help people with their healthcare needs is truly rewarding. Having been an integral part of a care team for hospitalized patients and seeing how the interventional recommendations that a pharmacist makes to optimize a patient’s medication therapy can provide quality outcomes.…there simply are no words to how awe-inspiring that can feel.

So, why leave pharmacy and go into camera work? It’s simple: I mentioned that there are changes happening in pharmacy and healthcare; these changes are not only vast but they are ones that I, personally, can no longer find it in my heart to be aligned with. Again, I won’t go into detail about all of that here, but I will say this: my love for humanity and life compassion is at an all-time high, and I would rather live that out through creating beauty in my camera work than continue to subject myself to the dogma of productivity metrics that have overtaken the true meaning and quality of healthcare.

So, to answer the question that started this all: can’t I make up my mind? Yes, and no. It honestly took me years to figure it all out, and I can honestly say I am happiest when I am behind a camera. I love creating beautiful images that pass through any lens, be it for filmmaking or for photography. To be able to convey a story through images alone is a gift. To discover the value of this through continually creating and practicing the art of imagery is absolutely priceless, and to live as I have so far, to find and become who I needed to be, is a privilege that not many get to experience.

So, this is why I choose photography and cinematography. I choose to create images as beautifully as I can, and to share that with the world.

In the next blog, I will break down the differences between photography and cinematography. As I mentioned earlier on, these two are different, so I will share why that is, and even why I look at these as the same when it comes to camera art.

Thanks for hangin’ with me.