A few weeks ago we celebrated our son's 5th birthday. Friends and family came out to help us make a special day for our oldest.

Since this is the first post on this site something you need to know about me is that I love to shoot and edit video. You can see some of the videos I've produced on my Vimeo account - a mix of personal/family stuff and also some work for clients.

So when it comes time to record a family event for posterity, I'm the one who:

• Grabs the video camera and makes sure it's charged up the night before
• Makes sure we have a empty tape ready in case an hour isn't enough recording time (Yikes!)
• Plans out my shooting angles, lighting and audio issues for the celebration area the morning of the event.

Ok. That last one isn't true - at least not for personal video shoots.

But this time we had some other family in town, including my brother in law who also enjoys shooting video. And so I asked him if he could record the event for me and I'd just use my Nikon DSLR to take pictures.

The World Didn't Explode

Handing over control of something like recording my son's birthday party to someone else isn't something I typically like to do. It often has very little to do with the other person is actually capable or not - which in this case, my brother-in-law certainly was - but more to do with me wanting to make sure everything is the way I want it.

But as you can see from the video above, a two things happened:

• All important events were recorded. And anything that got missed isn't going to be so important 10 years from now.
• I was able to relax and enjoy the day with my son and friends/family that were there. I still snapped a few pictures and helped my wife with getting things out, games organized, etc. but I was able to enjoy the moments instead of worrying about recording them.

So for the next party or family event where normally you'd be the one to have your face stuck behind the camera - see if you can't outsource it to someone else. Obviously you'll want to make sure they'll do a good enough job so you have something watchable at the end - but being able to relax and enjoy the moment rather than worrying about a camera's settings the whole time is more than worth it.