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my blog. People in Brazil started following
me every day; this was before Facebook or
Instagram. Back then I was shooting a Sony
DCR-VX1000 on digital videotapes. It was
certainly different technology to capture
the action and different tools of sharing, but
it still had a viral aspect to it, and I had a
pretty vast audience even then. When I was
ready to move on to something else, people
wanted to send money to keep me on the
road. My travels had become a part of their
life, a vicarious adventure for them.
SF
// How do you manage to integrate
your still photography with your
filmmaking now?
CD
//
I was early to embrace hybrid
cameras, digital single-lens reflex (DSLR)
cameras that could take high-quality stills
and also shoot video. In many ways I learned
to like those cameras better. They might
not have the convenient form factor of
a dedicated video camera, but the larger
sensors allow me to control the depth of
field to my artistic preferences. If I want
shallow depth of field in the background
to draw the viewer’s eye to some natural
behavior from a fish in the foreground, my
full-frame DSLR can accomplish that.
Sometimes I prefer to shoot stills rather
than video. If I go on a trip by myself, just
for fun, I tend to shoot almost all stills.
The postproduction workload is less, and
I still have the joy of creation. Pictures are
great for sharing on social media, or I could
potentially use them for a future book or to
promote a film. These days when I am hired
to do a job it is usually as a filmmaker, but I
always try to find time for some stills.
The tools I travel with depend on the
kind of assignment I have. For serious
broadcast television work I’ll pack my RED
digital cinema camera and my Canon EOS
5D Mark III. Fortunately, the same Canon
lenses work on both cameras; my favorites
include the 8-15mm fisheye zoom, the
16-35mm II wide-angle zoom, a 12-22mm
Tokina and the 100mm macro, often with
a Nauticam Super Macro Converter. I have
Nauticam housings for both cameras, and I
use Inon Z-240 strobes for stills and Keldan
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