The Curse Of The Camera?

by Fraser
Updated:

Taking photos and video of your snowboarding can be a lot of fun. It’s something that you’ll do with your friends and you can get a lot of satisfaction when you look back at the results.

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Frame a good photo, post it on Facebook or just keep it around on your phone, handy. Just glancing at them brings back the fun of the snowboarding.

And with video there’s often the additional step of editing the footage, which can itself be part of the enjoyment or challenge. Add some music, post it on YouTube, show your friends; making your own snowboard edit is something that appeals to a lot of snowboarders.

But can the camera steal your focus?

The thing is, there’s a cost to taking a photo or shooting some film. While you’re doing that – you’re not snowboarding. Does it sometimes shift our focus from having fun shredding, to making sure we get a good photo?

It becomes a mission. So you’ve decided you’re taking a camera with you on the next trip. You’re going to make a video of your snowboarding. You want to get good shots; you want to capture your best snowboarding.

How is it that when the camera is out, you don’t land the tricks so well? The day you stomped it you didn’t have the camera with you. Or you’ve been exploring the mountain and you found this great hit – now you feel you’ve got to go back there with the camera. There’s this strong desire to get something good on film. It’s a mission.

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Pictures, pictures, pictures… There are so many pictures out there, millions of them on the Internet. Digital cameras make it so easy to take as many as you want. But it can become really addictive, or maybe, automatic.

If you have a camera with you and you’re somewhere new, somewhere nice or doing something a bit special – sometimes we feel a need to photograph everything.

We went to Italy recently and visited a bunch of places in Tuscany, like Pisa, Volterra, San Gimignano, the Chianti region… We took over 500 photos – and that’s probably not a lot to some people. Leave the camera in the room and just get out there…

Practical concerns. Especially with something like snowboarding, there’s a practical cost to taking a camera – you’ve got to carry it it. Maybe it’s in your backpack, or just being bulky in your pocket. It can be a restriction.

And have you been in a medium/large group where everyone is waiting for the camera? It can really slow things down. Is he ready yet? Everyone waits so that everyone is on film. The camera can interfere with your snowboarding.

Just ride…

It can be refreshing to just ride. Lap the park without stopping. Take the run from top to bottom. If your friend saw that sick trick while they were riding – that’s awesome. If they didn’t, you can tell them about it on the chair, or over a beer.

Immersed. Just focusing on the riding, your friends, the mountain, the environment. Is there a fear that if we don’t stop to take a photo we’ll somehow forget it? Or not be able to show others that we did it? Sometimes it’s good to just let that go and just live the experience.

It’s a balance thing, right?

It’s always going to be a trade off. If you want good shots, it takes some effort, some time. And it’s not like a lot of people don’t enjoy the experience through the lens.

But it’s worth considering: do we sometimes get too drawn in? The lure of getting a great photo, or something awesome on video, to show where we’ve been or what we’ve done. Can that get in the way of enjoying the moment? The snowboarding.

Have your say. Is it worth it? Is it just a matter of getting the balance right? Are you getting the balance right?

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