Doing it all simultaneously
When I was a teenager, maybe relaxing and reading a book on a weekend morning, my dad would often say, “While you’re resting, go mow the lawn.” The phrase “While you’re resting …” was big with him. He was well aware that I couldn’t simultaneously rest and mow the lawn or perform another household chore. Having been a New Englander of long standing, he was exercising New England irony to good effect. And getting the lawn mowed.
As a working photographer, I often get similar requests. Not “while you’re resting,” of course, but requests like “While you’re shooting stills for our website, can you take some video as well?” Or, “While you’re photographing the event can you post to social media?”
I do shoot video as well as stills, but the two tasks are not the same, and require different equipment and attention. Multitasking is a fiction—we can do only one thing at a time, and trying to do multiple tasks simultaneously leads to multiple tasks executed poorly. Stills and video can’t be shot simultaneously by one person. And social media is a job unto itself: shooting, posting, tagging, and commenting on social media images all take time and attention.
So, obviously, one thing at a time. I can’t personally do it all simultaneously, but some things I can do sequentially. And I can bring in one of my partners to get it all done simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously. Needless to say, there are costs associated with each activity. There’s no free lunch.
Get in touch if you have a project in mind, and I’ll help you find the best way to get effective images for your project.