How To Win Friends, Influence People and Get Someone to Let You Shove a Camera In Their Face

The Real Housewives of Ngorogoro….

OK

Hellboy raises a really good question in the nyvs.com  Forum today:

“Even if I learn to shoot and edit perfectly, I feel like my real sucess depends on how well I can interact with people”

Truer words were never spoken.

Even if you learn to shoot perfectly and edit great and write like a demon, if you can’t get people to feel comfortable with you and to trust you and to let you in, what good is the rest? (Unless you want to spend your life shooting apples in your kitchen – and not a few still life painters and studio photogs suffered the same problem).

This is, for the most part, a ‘people’ business – but how do you connect with the people?

There are lots of answers to this, and we’re going to develop a whole course based on this very important question. in fact, we’re going into the studio today to do just that. But I wanted to address it here to get started.

The camera can be a device that either separates you from people, or gives you an opportunity to get into places that you normally might never get access to. It can be your calling card – and excuse to meet people, to talk to them, to be there.

When I was young I was painfully shy.  I discovered, however, that a stills camera gave me an excuse to go out and start a conversation with people (mostly attractive women it turns out), who normally would never have given me a second (or even first!) look.  But the camera gave me an excuse -  a reason for being there.  Later, I discovered that the camera was a kind of license to go to wonderful places from coal mines i Kentucky to factories in Detroit to pretty much any place i wanted.

“What are you doing here?”

I would hold up the camera.

“Oh. OK. Come on in”.

And that was that.

Amazing.

Instead of being a burden, the camera can become a passport to fascinating places and an excuse to be somewhere you are not supposed to be.

Many years ago (many!) I was in Kenya on an assignement for NBC.

They were doing ‘Africa Week’ and they wanted me to go to shoot a Masaai village in western Kenya.

It took two days to get out there by Land Rover – it was pretty far off the tourist beat – I thought.

When I got to the village, I took out the camera (a big Hi8 – EVO9000), and started shooting.

Suddenly, the Chief of the village descended.

“Five minutes, one hundred dollar” he said.

“But Chief”, I protested. “I am here for NBC News!”

He was unimpressed.

He reached into a small bag and pulled out a pile of business cards.

“Hmmm.. NBC”, he said, and showed me all his cards.

“Everyone pay. NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC….”

Yep…

I was a freelancer and NBC wanted a 5 minute piece! At $100 for every 5 minutes of shooting I would be broke before I got a minute done.

Then, I got an idea. I gave him the $100 but I made him promise that when I was done, everyone would look at what I had shot.

He was unimpressed. Waving his hand he murmered “OK, OK” and counted the hundred.

Then he clapped his hands and about a dozen women in full Masaai regalia came out of a hut, lined up and started singing a song and jumping up and down.  I had seen this same exact dance on National Geographic once.

I shot the whole event. The chief looked at his watch. When 5 minutes was up, he clapped his hands again and said “finish!”

“But wait Chief” I said…. and connected the camera to a small playback monitor (this was a long time ago).

Then I hit play.

These people lived in the middle of nowhere. They had no electricity. They had had every major TV crew in the world out there filming but ironically, they had never seen the product.

They were mesmerized. Particularly the chief.

He was so delighted he invited me to stay in the village for a week as their guest.  The only caveat was that he had to accompany me on every shoot and keep the monitor with him so he could see what we were shooting at all times.

He turned in to Cecil B. N’komo in no time.

“no no. Go back. He missed the goat!”