It’s often difficult to know what gear to take on a trip. The "Just In Case" fear kicks in and you take too much. At least that’s what happens to me. As I think about our upcoming trip, those thoughts fill my head. And, in addition, on this trip more than any previous trip, I know I want to capture a bunch of video as well as stills!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a 360 degree picture worth? A million? More? I think so. Imagine an image that not only shows you one famous monument but let’s you move the image to see a second one across the street from the first!

First it was to be a 52-Week Project and then back to a daily photo project that picked up with 304 days left in the year. Now that “304-Day Project” seems to have died a slow death. March 22nd, Day 20 of the “new” project, was the last day I posted a daily image.  About six months ago. And that time coincides with my revised interest in learning more about storytelling, especially storytelling with videos.

The basic concept of mobile journalism or video journalism is that journalists today can pretty much work as a one-man-band simply by using a modern smartphone with an excellent camera - iPhones seem to dominate because of the quality of the camera and all the varied accessories available for them.

I have let my blogging slide. In the past four months my creative attention has been on working with video and my dedication to writing blog posts wained. I’m now trying to find a balance. Though even how I now consume content myself has tipped the scales on the side of video, I know that’s not true for everyone. So I plan to make a renewed effort at keeping up my blog.

This is my second short video for the new Video Stories series on my YouTube channel. I did this one (1:41 minutes) for two reasons: to document a simple, everyday routine and to practice creating a video with lots of cuts to close-ups of what you see happening in the wide shot. I succeeded with my first objective and definitely with my second as well! I shot all the footage using FilmicPro on my iPhone 7 Plus with the iPhone mounted on the MeFoto Backpacker Air.

I was very excited last week to launch another - my fourth - series on my YouTube channel. Bill’s Video Stories was born to motivate me to take seriously the learning of how to record and produce engaging, short videos. So, this is quite different from my other series, though, in my opinion, it fits nicely with them. Each series has a very different purpose, but each one is really about teaching and learning. And experimenting.

While researching help on producing short, storytelling videos recently, I stumbled onto a new world of video production. Mobile Journalism, also called "MoJo," has, apparently become a bit of a revolution in recent years. Though certainly helped along quite a bit by the improvements in smartphones' video recording capabilities, particularly those found in the newest iPhone 7 Plus, the concept is not new. Not according to Michael Rosenblum anyway.