After the show, Eric McCormack came out to meet his fans (very cool of him).
I feel like the hardest thing about going to stuff alone is finding the awesome person who’s gonna take the picture of you and the person. Are they gonna take a good one? Are they gonna get the right moment? Why don’t I have more cool friends in L.A. who want to go to the same things I want to go to? Who knows.
So, I recruit this guy to take my picture for me. I had my iPad all ready to go. (That was the whole reason I brought my iPad – hoping for one great shot of Eric McCormack and me.)
Now, I’ve already admitted I have no idea how to take pictures at a concert. Guess what? I also have no idea how to take pictures with famous people. See, I actually like to have someone just hold up my phone or iPad and take a movie of the short meeting and then I’ll grab the good screenshots.
I feel like this is both a good and bad strategy. Sometimes you get great moments. (The hug was captured, and that’s all I super cared about because I love hugs.) But sometimes the best moments are too blurry and your screenshot doesn’t look good… But, if those moments are fast, was someone taking pictures really going to be able to capture that anyway?
Now, I’ll admit I don’t know tons about pictures. But I think jpegs the camera makes are higher quality than screenshots for a video. So, when it came to the posing picture, we switched from video to camera. I don’t really know if that was the right idea because at the end of the tiny video you can see Eric McCormack pull me in and it’s looking like it’s going to look really cute, and he starts giving that face that he gave in all the Will & Grace promotional stuff – that cute smile, sort of looking down look.
But then I ruin it by reaching for the iPad to help the person switch it to camera. And as I reach, I sheepishly explain it’s been on video to catch the hug. And Eric does this adorable laugh as I’m sort of making fun of myself, but we see that we just barely miss it as I take the iPad and switch it over.
This is why you have to take movies, so that you don’t miss those cute things! I almost left it on video camera because really, how high quality does the photo have to be of just a candid photo of me and a fun famous person? I think a screenshot probably would’ve sufficed just fine.
However, the guy taking it already felt weird about taking a movie. I can only imagine if he was just holding the camera steady while we posed for a nice screenshot. I thought he’d blow my cover of it being on movie, not straight camera… so I just blew my own cover.
Also, Eric McCormack lovingly made fun of everyone when no one knew how to use each other’s cameras (and some of us didn’t even know how to use our own).
So, what’s the right way to document things in life? Who knows. I’m pretty sure it’s just become wildly famous and have a team follow you around and get everything, right?
(Though I’ll admit, even on reality shows where people are paid to catch all moments that could be anything at all – we miss things sometimes. Maybe the moral of the story is just to live more and worry about documenting the perfect moment (or any moment perfectly) less.)