Video focusing on people and places — deserts, cities, forests, oilfields — and the sometimes troubled relationship between the two.

My videos document the deadpan juxtapositions and found surrealisms I see around me in the deserts, forests, oilfields, and streets of California and Nevada. My videos typically tell a feeling or a (political or environmental) situation rather than a story — there are no characters or dialog in any of the videos showcased here. The typical video here is a continuous movement through a landscape (desert, oilfield, or urban) accompanied by a soundtrack I’ve created from found sounds, or that’s the result of collaborations with local San Francisco Bay Area musicians. My aim is not to hit you over the head with any particular message, but (for example) to let the the strong visual ambivalence I feel about the impact of humans on the natural landscape of the Western US evoke its own story (that impact has its own undeniably strange beauty — or at least homely attractions — at times, even in the midst of destruction).

This site showcases the two dozen or so publicly-visible videos I’ve done that I most care about; these and many other videos I’ve done are also available on my main YouTube channel. The purpose of this site is to feature some of those individual videos and try to explore them in more detail than is usually possible on YouTube. Note that the earlier videos are technically fairly rough — I didn’t have much equipment or experience back then… Note also that not all videos may be available or visible in every country due to weird YouTube embedding rules.

Each video has its own video page or entry with appropriate commentary and an embedded YouTube player; each video belongs to at least one category, and each category’s videos can be found on that category’s page in the main menu or by clicking on the category name itself next to the video. There’s also “All” and “Featured” categories, which should be self-explanatory. And sometimes — like on this page — you can just click on the embedded YouTube player itself.

I’ve been enthralled by moving images since I was a kid borrowing my father’s Super 8mm movie camera (I was more interested in making movies than in still photography even as a child), but it wasn’t until the digital video era when it became feasible (and affordable) for someone like me to own their own camera that I took it up seriously. My first “real” camera was a Sony 1440i DV prosumer shoulder-mounted tape unit; I used it to make Pumpjack (one of my fave videos, and by far my most popular video on YouTube) back in 2009; it was followed mostly by DSLRs, GoPros, and (lately) my iPhone and a drone or two (I’m an FAA Part 107 certificated drone pilot), and even more lately, mirrorless cameras. I’ve done work for a non-profit or two (not showcased here), but I don’t have any desire to do corporate or strictly narrative work (and nor do I probably have the chops). I’m much more interested in video focusing on people and places — deserts, cities, forests, oilfields, freeways — and the sometimes troubled relationship between them all. My main bio (for what it’s worth) can be found on my main hamishreid.com site; my main photography site is Hamish Reid Photography.