As I have stated in my previous blog, I did not think that we would be traveling back to Indianapolis anytime soon. So when I was told by Joy that she would like to travel there this weekend I immediately went to VisitIndy for ideas on where to travel to in the city. The canal was on our list as the number one activity to accomplish on that day and it was obvious what to visit next, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Ok, so I am just going to say it. I have viewed this monument on TV many times watching football games and such. The networks love filming this from the blimp, and for good reason. The city is beautiful, especially at night from the air with the monument as its center piece. So it was time to inspect it for myself and to see what this tower thingy that I see on TV was all about.
After the canal, we start to make our way to the monument and knowing that it was going to be a long walk, we smartly enter the JW Marriott and make our way through the sky walks. See, it was extremely hot and sunny that day, and after paddle boating for an hour we were already feeling exhausted and overheated. The idea of feeling some cool air and grabbing a cold drink was really appealing. So we enter the JW and make our way up the escalator to the second level where the restrooms were and the entry to the sky walks were, and this is where I became somewhat mad at myself. See, I had been talking into my Fujifilm Finepix camera for quite some time and I had what I felt was really good dialog and footage, which is somewhat of a rarity. It is impossible to tell what this camera is doing when using it because it has a fixed screen on the back, meaning I cannot rotate the screen around to see what the camera is seeing and doing, and there are no indicator lights on the front to tell the operator that it is recording. Hanging this camera several feet out in front of me on a selfie stick made it impossible to quickly turn the camera around to see if everything was going as intended. Well, somewhere along the line I did not press the record button correctly, so when I thought I was turning it on, I was actually turning it off and vice versa. So instead of capturing all of my dialog while I was traversing from the canal and to the sky bridge, I was capturing the times that I was just walking with the camera swinging around upside down hanging on the end of a selfie stick. I had one time, one chance to get the job done right, I failed. So sad :(
When I discovered that I did not capture any of the intended footage, and I got over my initial rage, I switched to the camcorder so I can at least see what the camera is doing due to the fact that it has an adjustable view screen. Through experience, I am discovering why the big time vloggers on YouTube are using high end DSLR cameras and GoPro's. At the time when I was buying my Canons, none of these guys were known on YouTube yet and I could not yet learn from them. Just thinking of it, my original start date on making YouTube content was 2012, maybe I could have been one of those people already. I do not really like using my camcorder because I have to hold it out so far from my face. It does have a really nice video and audio capture, but unless I have it fully extended out on the stick, my face is just comically close in the video. I cannot use the Canon Rebel T2i because of the fixed screen and I don't think that it would stay in focus as I moved around. The newer versions of this would have no problems with this kind of work, but this version is not designed for that. It is much better at taking stills and video while sitting on a tripod. But on this day, from then on, I used the camcorder and it performed flawlessly.
We made our way thru the sky bridge, convention center, more sky walks, thru the Circle Centre Mall and on out to the street. Ok Indy, this is where I am disappointing in you. I know you can do better than this. As soon as we left the mall and started walking on the sidewalk to reach our destination, we were met by the bums and beggars. The cardboard sign brigade was out in force and a few of them yelled things at us. We completely ignored them and walked quickly, and yes I was feeling a bit nervous about having all of this expensive camera gear on me at this point. It was the first time I felt uncomfortable having my gear on me and out for all to see. I'm not a completely heartless person, and for those who are truly unfortunate and downtrodden I feel for. But most of these people that we ran into are probably not homeless and if they were, they got there through the use of drugs and bad decision making. I've seen the true homeless and downtrodden, and these people were not it.
Anyway, we arrived at the monument, and it did not disappoint! Such a beautiful area and there are so many features to view on and around the monument. As you can see in the video, there are pools and fountains on two sides of it. There are also many statues depicting the various wars our soldiers and sailors have fought in. I am not going to go into detail about all of the features of the monument, you can see those in the video and if you are close by, you can inspect it for yourself as I highly recommend you do! In closing, I would have to say that this was a perfect day for exploring a city, as was the entire weekend. Thank you for reading and please SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL and follow me on blogger!
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My equipment that I currently use to make my videos.
Equipment that I recommend to start making videos for YouTube
Equipment that I want to own in the future
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