30 Seconds a Week – Week 1

Sometimes you get the urge to do something that expands your skill set or otherwise stretches yourself in a new direction. I guess now is as good a time as any for me to start to exercise my long dormant creative side.

Back in the day I used to do more creative writing—short stories, poetry, etc.—but most of that fell by the wayside as got deeper into graduate school and began doing more analysis rather than creating. Recently, though, I have felt the urge to express myself creatively yet I lack the time and focus to dive back into creative writing. But during a conversation with a friend an idea hit me. It was simple, easy, and most importantly not all that difficult time wise. I have an iPhone, which has a great quality camera, and I live in a place that is both stunning visually, but also interesting in many ways. And then the title of the project came: 30 Seconds a Week.

For this project, I would strive to take 30 seconds of iPhone video a week. 30 seconds of something interesting, beautiful, thoughtful, or thought provoking. Something that makes me pause in my daily life and consider things. It is both a reflective and creative exercise. It also dips my toe every so carefully into the world of film making (obviously something I am passionate about), but on the most amateurish level. There will be no editing of the video (except to trim it down to 30 seconds), no cuts, no music (except for the ever present music of John Cage and his 4’33”), and no staging. This is just me looking around the world and using my phone to mediate the experience in some way to express what I find intriguing.

For this first week, I shot some video while waiting for my bus after the CU campus closed early on Wednesday, January 5, 2017, due to a winter storm. There are few things more beautiful and peaceful and yet bitter and dangerous than a winter storm in the Colorado foothills. The power of nature still rules over all of humanity’s achievements.

I am going to do my best to post a new video every week, though I make no promises about posting days. We’ll see how this goes.

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