BEHIND ICONIC: CAPTURING DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW IN GREATER ROC
- Jun 25
- 5 min read
When filming a region built on many perspectives, one lens isn’t enough.
Greater ROC isn’t just one thing. It’s more than a million perspectives all working in tandem.
Read on to learn about Pete Wayner’s and Roberto Felipe Lagares’s interpretation of spring—and how they captured it.
What was your first instinct when asked to film spring in Greater ROC?
Roberto: My first instinct to capturing spring was really the foliage and nature all around the city. After the magic of the holidays, you get that gray area and everyone’s just eager for the sun to come out and have a reason to touch grass. That was my first instinct, to capture that.
Pete: You get that first warm breeze and you’re like oh, it’s coming. The potential energy, the dam is bursting and we’re on our way, so I felt really lucky being able to capture that.
You obviously bring your own perspectives to this project, both as locals and as filmmakers. What experiences or feelings did you intentionally bring to the table?
Roberto: The feeling I wanted to capture was identical to that moment when you’re walking around a park and you’re inches from a lilac bush or some flower that catches your eye. When you’re really zoned in, right? You have tunnel vision and it’s just you and nature and you’re just taking a second to appreciate it, to really remove yourself from reality in a way.
Pete: I knew I wanted to capture Type High Letterpress, Tiny Fish Printing. These small—or in a lot of ways not so small—business that are just started in grassroots ways from people who are extremely passionate about these artforms, who are doing amazing business and doing their thing in the Greater Rochester region. That’s so emblematic of not only what we’re doing today, but what we and our forebearers have always done—and what we’re going to do tomorrow.
Everyone has their own feelings about Greater ROC. How did you set out to include multiple ways of looking at our region?
Pete: We have such an incredible diversity in videographers and photographers, people who gather images for obvious reasons in this region. We’re putting the camera in the hands of some wildly talented people who I’m very honored to be working alongside.
Roberto: I like to go off of spontaneity. I have a camera on me at all times, no matter what. Most of the time it’s multiple cameras, but it’s mainly because you will see something new even on your daily commute. You’re going to see something new and I use that to guide me.
What did you set out to capture? What surprised you that made its way into the video?
Pete: When you think about it, you have multiple shooters, multiple styles, getting whatever is interesting to them and whatever is iconic to the region. When we got into the edit suite, it came together incredibly well. That’s what was surprising, just how beautifully this all fit together with the seasonal throughline.
Roberto: We’re home to so many iconic things that mean so much more, so I used that to my advantage because these things represent and speak volumes.
“Iconic” is a big part of Greater ROC’s identity. As people who live here, what does “iconic” mean to you?
Roberto: Iconic is being a part of something that has changed the world. You don’t really get that nod of being iconic if you’re just status quo. And I think Rochester is home to a lot of iconic things, almost to the point where if you’re too close to it, you forget. But I also think that’s part of the culture here, where anyone can say anything about Rochester as long as they’re from here. But when someone outside of that circle has something to say that isn’t positive, it’s like it clicks. You go, “Wait a minute, we have stuff here, we’re good. We have a lot going for us. We’re an iconic city.”
Pete: If we all woke up tomorrow and Greater Rochester had never existed in the way that it has and does, it would be like “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It would be a much, much worse, less beautiful world. Not even it would be a worse state or country—it would be a worse world. The people and places and things that all exist here and have existed in the past have made the world better and more beautiful.
Roberto: I think it gets thrown around a lot, but we have the history to back it up.
Was there a throughline or a theme you noticed while capturing footage?
Roberto: Being iconic and that status was definitely a throughline throughout, and it definitely motivates the camera. I wanted to make sure my movements were an accurate representation of the perspective of someone who has not only grown up here, but understands what these iconic things represent.
Spring in Greater ROC has a rhythm. How would you describe it?
Roberto: It’s kind of like the build of a song. The city quite literally comes alive. There’s this life to it, which is there the whole time and it’s there through every season, but spring kicks it off and gets things moving again.
Pete: In my opinion, that rhythm is very, very, very high tempo because it happens so fast. You have a winter that sometimes feels like it lasts forever and then you have that little bit of in between where it’s rainy, it’s wet, it’s salty, it’s slushy, and it seems like in a weekend all the flowers start going crazy, and then they’re gone. All of the lilacs are out; they’re gone. The birds are out, there’s nests, it’s all happening at the same time. I really enjoy that fast, syncopated rhythm in Rochester.
What’s one thing you want people to know about this region?
Roberto: Before you even leave the Greater Rochester area, you can do so much. I think it’s worth celebrating, I think it’s worth pointing a camera at and I think it’s important that people recognize it. Sometimes it takes being put on display, but also it gives people something to be proud of and maybe reaffirm something they’ve already known, which is “I love it here.”
Pete: What I want people to know about Greater Rochester is that our best days are ahead of us. We have a wildly rich history and that is 100% worth celebrating, but I think even more worthy of celebration is that we are taking all of that momentum and every single day synthesizing it into something more beautiful, more successful, more bountiful, more free and more iconic than ever before.
Pro tip: Ask for a recommendation. You won’t be sorry.
See spring through Pete and Roberto’s eyes.