Seth Naugle
As I reminisce on my 15-ish year career as a cinematographer, I'm left with a simple feeling of contentment, knowing that with all measure of success aside - this has been a life well lived. While this industry can be volatile and at times cutthroat, it has offered me incredibly diverse, intimate and soul enriching experiences that few other art forms can rival.
But with all this variety, major pitfalls are revealed along the way, and thus the unspoken challenge is to keep heading in the direction you first intended.
We live in a culture that glorifies work, our jobs, our purpose - and thus we spend the majority of our time doing the thing that makes us money. Therefore to me, carefully toiling for years at elaborate physical and intellectual tasks that can foster such moving reciprocity - is a beautiful way to live a human life.
As a massive bonus, the fact that this work has the potential to change others for the better, or at least their minds for the evening, is a virtue that has left me fundamentally satisfied, which I believe is the best we mortals can hope for.