Capturing the moment

Americans spell "chili" with one "l". British spelling uses two. That's pretty absolute. It's easier to be absolute when working with written letters. With sign language, it's much harder.

It took me a while to realize that many of the pictures I'd taken were mug shots. There was no expression and no indication that "hungry" was a feeling or "I'm sorry" was something expressed sincerely. This required lots of retakes and some convincing.

I've taught communication in Japan and many Japanese insist that "We Japanese don't use our hands much when we speak. Not like Westerners." This is of course said while their hands are emphasizing their points. In the same way, the deaf students were at first insisting that they don't use their faces to communicate.

The challenge then was to capture the moment. One student simply admitted that it was too hard. He said that he could be expressive with video, but it would be too hard to freeze the moment. I understand the difficulty. Maybe it's easy for Myrle Streep, but not easy for most of us.

Regardless, we have to try.