The middle-aged woman sitting across the aisle from me is covering her face with her hands in a most terrifying manner while fly attendants seem to have trouble keeping their balance. The pilot seems oddly silent about this situation… oh wait, he just flipped on the intercom to let us know that we're not crashing, it's just a terrible bout of turbulence. Does it ever go away, or is the guy behind me "backseat flying" making a valid point when he is rather loudly proclaiming that the pilot ought to "climb to a new altitude"--maybe that's to just ensure there are really no survivors left when we inevitably hit the ground. Hey, the higher they fly, the harder they fall, right? Moments like this show me that I am not afraid of flying.
I am, in fact, sitting on an airplane flying as I type this on my way to San Francisco where I'll be working with some creative people from around the country for the next three days on a live video broadcast from the headquarters of the Adobe Systems. You know, the company that made Photoshop. Yeah, that application that I use to retouch most of the work you're seeing on this website.
It's my first time flying to San Francisco and it's my first time doing a live broadcast for an audience of this size (Adobe has a personal and social media reach of well over 50 million people). I find myself strangely calm before such a big event, it could be the fact that this plane feels like it is being shaken to pieces by the never ending turbulence so just making it to San Francisco would be a win in-and-of-itself, or it could be that I sit back and close my eyes and see nothing but success coming from this trip and this broadcast. I am brimming with confidence, not a bone in body holds a single doubt. I know what I am capable of and I know I'll do the best job. Is that confidence, or arrogance? I don't know and I don't really care.
We're flying over the Rocky Mountains at the moment, apparently. I would have a visual and potential to take a sweet photo, but my seat was switched just prior to boarding to an aisle seat. I guess the crew thought it would be good for a few laughs watching me winch in pain each time they ram my elbow with the drink cart as they race up and down the plane distributing drinks like they're the second coming. "No thank you, ma'am, I don't need (another) drink, but I may need a cast for my elbow by the time we're landing.
I have not done any preparation for this 3-day broadcast, I keep telling myself that it's "because I'm trying to leave room for creativity" or something. We'll see if I'm good enough to free hand this thing in front of a relatively large live audience. I'll let the proof be in the pudding. Over the next three days, will I absolutely knock the ball outta the ballpark, or will I crash and burn? I can't even wrap my mind around the concept of crashing and burning. Ok, enough with that kind of talk, I'm still on the airplane.
On a serious note, I will be watching and re-examining my performance and the reaction that the viewers have to it over the next 7-10 days in an effort to further refine my content, quality, delivery, and general interaction skills. Everything is a learning experience. Even the ones that aren't.
One thing that the third-person version of myself admires about the real me is that I take these critical looks at myself and-by some miracle-I turn my situations into learning opportunities. For instance, a single, right-hand elbow pad is a vastly undervalued piece of any person's flying kit.
To wrap things up, I sure hope my pilot has the same visualization of success and unwavering confidence in his flying skills, because if the past four hours are any indication, all of us on this tube in the sky just might need it.
Nathan Joseph Dodson | Philadelphia Cinematic Portrait Photographer
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