12/4/07

Hi friends, I learned a valuable lesson last night while filming some trucking sequences from a skibbie boat, (It looks like the kind they use in the everglades with the propeller behind the driver.)

Anyway, when we take our “A’ camera on the ice it is housed in a somewhat bulky, insulated cover that is rated up to –50. (I don’t ever want to test the rating. I’ll just take the manufacturer’s word for it!)

So, the lesson I learned, again, is patience. I was having trouble with the rocky movement of the boat and my gloves combined with the awkwardness of the housing surrounding our “A” camera. There are many instruments and switches and buttons to coordinate to set exposure, shutter, focus, etc, etc. And I was just not doing a good job.

So, what did I do? No, I didn’t practice patience. I took my right glove off so I could manage the camera better. Truthfully, I don’t know how long I had it off. My guess is ten minutes. For those of you who have never experienced a level of cold that frosts your mind - at one point my right hand went from being very cold to experiencing an excruciating amount of pain!

I’m not talking pain. I’m talking PAIN! The only thing I could immediately think of was getting back to the boat and getting my hand out of the conditions. I threw my glove on and hightailed it back to ship. I wrapped it in a warm towel and hoped it wasn’t frostbite the second I hustled into my room.

The bottom line is it wasn’t frostbite. But, even as I write this I still don’t have full feeling back in my hand.

I’m wondering if my next environmental project can be in the Caribbean?…


-A.C.