Isolation Blog - Webcam News

It is surprising. Even though we are now such experts in photography that we broadcast scores of pictures to scores of places all the time, we still haven't worked out the elemental theoretical rudimentary requisites of taking a picture.

One such axiological and bottom-line practice for photography might be this - - hold the lens level to the subject of your photograph - - that is to say, at approximately the same height. With web cameras there is an added incentive to this which is that virtually everybody looks like a serial killer when filmed close up from 45 degrees below. The only appropriate call for such an angle in video would be if I or someone else were to be hosting a seminar to celebrate the opening of a new chin.

To wit, long distance experts have for years now appeared on broadcast television - - as we all do now  - - filmed from below. No one has ever, to my knowledge, worked this out other than myself. Everyone looks terrible. But not me.

Which makes me more than ready for this isolation than just about anybody. As you can infer from this image, my laptop is on a pile of books, raising the camera to roughly my eye level, affording a decent representation of me, even if it does start to look indecent what my hand might be doing. But I have had those books there for years, and my hand is working the mouse to take the picture, and all of it is paying off.  I am ready - - ready to Zoom and Skype. Because I am at the same height as my camera, I look trustworthy, confident and even sane. I look like somebody whose book you could definitely buy, and not be disappointed. You are not looking up my nose, and not even into my chin.

I urge you all to do the same, and try not look like a triple-chinned serial killer, by raising your laptops to the same height as your eyes during future online meetings.

One more thing is this. It is something that I know from long experience, and I am sorry to be telling you it. But when you see webcam footage of Boris Johnston, Matt Hancock and any of the rest of them on the news, I am sorry to tell you that I know from long experience and study of these types of people and their habits - - that they are NOT wearing trousers. They love doing it and they cannot help themselves.

But believe it. That is one reason why their webcams are always pointing at the roof, right up their noses and as I have been saying - - into the many folds of their chinny-chin chins.

Chin up everybody!

Peter Burnett