No, not the kind using a gun. Rather, the kind behind the lens.

Riding aboard the USS Tortuga has been an exercise in filming in all types of conditions, which change from moment to moment.Surrounded by nothing but the sky and the ocean in all directions, we have been grappling with intense light. We can only film until about 9 a.m.before the contrast between the light and the dark U.S. Navy uniforms become too great to capture any detail. It’s not necessarily easier indoors: the Bridge, the room where the ship’s navigation takes place, is surrounded by small windows on all sides.

Then there are the people we’ve met. Following Noelle Tschudy, who works as a seaman, makes me thankful for the person who invented auto iris. Her job takes her from the sun drenched deck where she spends countless hours sweeping, through the dark corridors into the belly of the ship, to the hallways with fluorescent lights, and back outside to a mixture of natural and artificial lighting. To film in the engine room, which feels like a sauna, we brought our equipment an hour before the scheduled shoot to monitor if the camera would acclimate to the heat and humidity.

The structure of the ship adds to the challenge. The stairs connecting the 12 levels of the ship are steep, with most of the steps only measuring about half the length of my foot. And sometimes, they’re slippery. The hallways are only wide enough to allow two people to pass each other, and separated by hatches, designed to isolate sections of the ship in case of flooding or other emergencies.

And lastly, there is the dilemma of not being able to do justice to the scale and the beauty of this environment. Much of the equipment, including the ship itself, is enormous and awe inspiring in person, but the lens we have reduces them to an object fitting into the viewfinder. I also question how we can film the sky—with its sunrises, sunsets, and stars—and the ocean, and capture how majestic the scenery is.

I love being in the field.

Emily Taguchi, Aboard the USS Tortuga

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