Close you're eyes and imagine this. You've waited all your life to travel and you're finally here, you've made it, you're smack dab in the middle of a foreign country, thousands of miles from home. You're driving on a long stretch of open road, winding through mountain ranges with no sign of civilization. The nearest gas station is an hour from where you are and your hostel is another hour further.
You stop along the side of the road to take pictures of the mountains which looks so majestic with the warm sunset reflecting upon them.
You can't wait to post a picture on your Instagram later when you connect to the wifi at your hostel. You drive off as darkness sets in. Arriving at the gas station, your heart drops to your stomach when you realize you had put your phone down on the hood of the car while you were enjoying the beautiful sunset.
Just like that every picture, every memory, from your four months of traveling, is gone forever. Your phone is probably shattered and sitting in the middle of a cow pasture, somewhere among the mountain ranges. This happened to me.
It wasn't until I arrived back home in America that I remembered I had been recording my entire trip on my GoPro. Since day one, every memory, every moment, I had captured through video.
Yes, my precious pictures were gone, but I had all of the ingredients for a four-month documentary, right at my fingertips.
I've always had a passion for videography. Since I was young, I used to listen to music through my earbuds that seemed to go with life around me. In high school, I used to collect my friends Snapchat videos and put them into iMovie to turn them into a stupid little summary of the year. When I got to college, I upgraded to a GoPro.
I would drag my sister or any other convinceable subject, on some surprise adventure and record them walking through a stream or running through a field. I pictured a scenario in my head, a story I wanted to tell or a memory I wanted to recreate.
I'd put the videos into iMovie, throw them into slow motion, add a dramatic song and BAM, I was a videographer.
As time went on, I would watch youtube videos on different film techniques, trying to teach myself the basics on how to turn the memories I captured, into the movie of my life.
When I went abroad for four months, I was constantly filming. You couldn't do anything dramatic without me there holding a camera to your face. I started making short videos to sum up different trips and adventures. Before I knew it, I had a library of all my favorite moments that I could watch whenever I pleased.
If I hadn't been so adamant about recording my life on my camera, I would be a lot more upset about losing my brand new iPhone in the middle of New Zealand.
I love videography because it is a hobby that anyone can learn. I knew nothing about cameras or video editing and I never took any classes on it either. I taught myself over the years and it has become one of my favorite things to do. I now have an entire folder of every memorable trip, event, and moment in my life.
One day when I am old and missing my youth, I will be able to show my kids what life was like when I was young and I will thank myself for capturing it all on film.
