Day 52

the four of us stood near the shore in darkness. the rest of the campers and staff sat far up the hill behind us, safe and full of anticipation. today is canada day and tonight became the most intense lighting of fireworks i'd ever seen. i'm not saying it was the most expensive show to shine, but this one was the most intense. i'm still pumped. tim the fireman-slash-paramedic-slash-police reserve-slash-pilot was in full firefighting gear, big kim the pyro-slash-maintenance man was ready to detonate the fireworks, his wife, little kim, was there to monitor any brush fires, and i was there to shoot- straight up. another camera man stood with the rest above the hill.

the launching pad was thirty feet ahead and was pointing away from us towards the ocean. there were some beautiful shots, but that's really not what made it so intense. we've already watched the footage several and even both of the kims came all the way out to my office to see it tonight as well. there were perfect shots of red bombs of light streaking back to the ground and whizzing past the camera's lens (i used a two foot, makeshift steady-cam for a little more protection?) to fall inches from my feet. balls of fire. i had ear protection, but the flashes of light still brought respectable punches to my chest. bouhwm.

i couldn't just start this post without letting that experience out. the rest of the day was really good though. my starwood dv clubs met again and, this time, all the kids were excited and involved and learning. the shy girl told me about her hobbies, the family camp boys were more talkative, and the rest of them were ready to go. since there's only a couple meetings left, i started teaching them editing and they all overcame initial intimidation to become surprisingly proficient at a fairly complicated editing software. final cut express isn't too different from the pro studio version we use to do all our video work. one pair of girls, one with the director personality, wanted to learn how to use the clapper, so we practiced the director-camera operator dialogue and then they happily executed the commands for a couple of extra shots that they wanted to get before editing.

i happened to run into one of the family camp boys while doing some camp shooting later in the afternoon and he asked me if i was ever gonna be a counselor. during some of the camps to come i won't have any starwood campers and this little conversation we had encouraged me to think about offering to counsel during those times. i'll have other video work to do during then, but it could work out. we'll see.

all in all the past couple days have revealed, in many more ways than i could even explain here and now, the beautiful balance that exists in the influences that staff/counselors have on campers and, especially, the vice versa reverberation. little things count and before you know it, you might feel a

bouhwm.