Home for Earth Day

Dear Earth,

I forgot your big day was last week. Honestly I’ve been preoccupied with my own stuff, and I haven’t thought about you very much. Nevertheless, I wanted to make this little video to remember some of our favorite moments together. I can’t wait ’til we can travel and hang out again. I miss you. Happy belated Earth Day!

-Stephen

Since all of my normal work has disappeared due to the pandemic I’ve directed my creative energy at personal projects during the past six weeks of quarantine. This is one of them, but it would not have been possible to create it if I hadn’t been filming one second every day for the past six years. Not only am I grateful for all the incredible adventures I’ve experienced but also that I now have a substantial library of imagery from which to draw. It’s encouraging to see this simple project now fueling other creative projects. Art has a way of perpetuating and reinventing itself if we stick with it long enough.

New York at Rush Hour

For anyone wondering what it’s like in New York City these days…

At What Cost

Work has been uncomfortably slow the past couple months. My savings account is hemorrhaging, so I’m not going out very often or doing any of the varied, exciting things I normally do. Most days lately I’ve spent at home working on personal projects and trying to find new clients. It’s been pretty dull and disheartening honestly. For me, this only increases the volume of my daily question, “What am I going to film today?”

I have three guiding principles for my One Second Films: Each scene has to be from my perspective, it has to be descriptive of the day, and it has to be honest. Those are all pretty easy to achieve on a day spent at an amusement park, but what about the days when nothing extraordinary happens? Or when the most poignant moment of the day was painful or embarrassing? Do I show that? If so, how?

Many times over the years I’ve wrestled with capturing and conveying the unglamorous days. For example: How do I show anger when I can’t film myself? How do I portray the weight of sadness? What about exhaustion, insight, sex, loneliness, or frustration? Filming something on those days is never easy nor obvious, but to hide those parts of my story would be dishonest.

When I asked myself recently, “What is this day about? What am I doing today?” the honest answer came back immediately: Today feels like I’m wasting money. And suddenly I knew exactly what I needed to film:

Filming it was easy enough. The hardest part for me is sharing it. Not only do I feel vulnerable talking about my finances, but the scene is both irrational and illegal. Is that something I want on the internet? I don’t know. However, it communicates exactly what I intended.

So I wonder, at what cost am I willing to make and share my art? Should I be concerned about what might happen when I click publish? Focusing on the consequences is surely the best way to never do anything consequential.

On the other hand if I felt comfortable and nonchalant about sharing it, would I be creating art that really matters to me? I think there’s always some struggle involved in meaningful work, but this, to me, feels like I’m teetering on the edge of danger. Maybe this is how others artists often feel, but it’s quite new to me.

Deep down I feel like I need to share this. Maybe I’ll regret it, but at very least it feels like a fantastic mistake.

Today I am thankful...

A Better Life

It's remarkable how differently I think now. I started off thinking I'd film 365 seconds, and then be glad it's over. What I didn't realize was how much can change in a second. ...or perhaps, how much these moments would change me.

For better or worse I have a reputation for making these tiny films. I'm also known for greeting everyone with a high five, writing gratitudes daily, and being a positive person in general. Each of these things began as a simple choice --something I wanted to do, and something repeatable every day. I didn't realize until much later that these tiny actions inform the way people describe me. By the same token, how empowering it was to understand that I can write my future reputation with a few simple, repeatable actions today.

That shift in understanding was huge for me. What began as a simple one-year project turned into a garden that I tend daily because it, in turn, nourishes and enriches my life:

At this point I can't imagine my life without these One Second Films. In some way it feels like they've been a companion and witness to the best and worst years of my life. On the best days it's saying, "Enjoy this! Soak it up. Remember it," and on the worst it says, "This too is an important part. Keep moving forward," all the while nudging me to make my art.

Yet, there may come a day when I no longer feel a need or desire to keep filming. That also may be part of my story. Committing to a lifelong project is perhaps admirable but also very daunting. I want to give myself permission to be a different person tomorrow than I am today. After all, that's what this project has been trying to teach me from day one.

Remarkably Mundane

“Your life is so exciting!” someone commented on one of my monthly films, followed by another, more self deprecating version, “I want to do this, but my life would look so boring.”

The truth is your life is as exciting or boring as you think it is. How you choose to view your life often dictates how you live it.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve had some amazing opportunities and a fairly unique lifestyle. Yet, I often have really boring, uneventful, and downright crappy days. What am I supposed to film on the days when I get out of the shower and immediately put my pajamas back on? Or the days where I haven’t eaten anything because I’ve been staring at my computer for the last eleven hours. Let’s not forget about sick days, travel delays, heartache, and Mondays. They're all a part of life, and the majority of it is ordinary, uneventful, and wouldn’t even get a Like on Instagram.

The trick is found not in seeking out excitement but in choosing to look for beauty and creativity in everything.

So even on the days when the alarm clock goes off too early, the cereal tastes stale, the emails are endless, and the trash still needs to be taken out we have a choice to see it all as part of a beautiful, exciting life; or we can view it as sequence of things that get in the way of a beautiful, exciting life.

Call it your attitude. Call it your perspective. Whatever it is, call on it daily. Your life, especially the mundane Tuesdays, will be richer for it.

An ordinary day in 60 moments.

A Memorable Tuesday

The comments from my first One Second Film took me by surprise. It wasn't that they were numerous or even specific, but rather it simply made me realize that people are watching. For better or worse these little slices of my everyday life were being viewed by others. Suddenly my story felt like it had an audience.

The only thing I was planning to do that day was edit some photos from a recent shoot. In other words, all I was doing was work as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing special. Nothing memorable. Just another day. But who said it had to be that way?! Why did I wake up this morning thinking today was going to be anything less than remarkable? When did that thought creep into my psyche and inform the majority of my life?

Naturally I wondered, what can I do to make today different? What can I do to make my story more interesting --if not for my audience, at least for my own well being?

Thirty minutes later I put the finishing touches on my snowman. He was nowhere on my agenda at the start of the day, but he quickly became the highlight of it. How easy it would have been to dismiss it as the most superfluous waste of time. Yet how much more unique that day was because of it.

I want to be a filmmaker when I grow up, which is another way of saying I want to tell great stories. Ironically it's this desire to live a great story that made me realize I'm already telling one. Being aware of this fact simply helps me write better scenes for my daily life.

Ever since building that snowman I’ve been repeatedly struck by the question, “What am I doing today that’s worth remembering?” This ideas has worked its way into my subconscious and added a layer of intentionality to my days. I choose to capture something every day regardless of whether or not it seems special. The beautiful irony is that because I’m capturing it I want to make it exceptional. It does not work the other way around.

Imagine if a photographer was going to capture your life this Tuesday. You're not getting married or having a baby this Tuesday. It's not your birthday or Christmas. It's just another Tuesday with the same snooze button, the same commute, the same TPS reports, happy hour, Netflix, and chill. "What's so special about Tuesday?" you ask. Well, that's up to you.