Magic Light
Magic Moment ...
Right place ...
Right place ...
Right time ...
Right light ...
Right equipment ...
Completely cute subject.
I love having a brother who has a passion for photography that half the time exceeds my own.
Recently Mike picked up a 1 meter light reflector and this Easter weekend we had the chance to play around with it.
To be honest the power of the new photo-gizmo with mid-afternoon spring sunshine was considerably more intense than either of us expected. As with any new piece of tech however we both understood that working out the details and sweating the small stuff is just part of the all too familiar learning curve.
The reflector has two sides. One that's very reflective and is perfect for cloudy days or diffuse studio lighting. The other side is diffuse and works great for high sun outdoor shots and high powered studio lighting sessions.
Above is a photo of my perpetually cute niece Elise with brother Mike holding the mega-beam-of-fill-light and me working the camera. A moment in time that caught the magic and showed me once again that photography is not so much an expression of technology as it is painting with light.
It was also a moment that reminded me of an early scene in the still cool 1998 movie The Fifth Element.
Early on in the movie, several hundred years before the period where the core of the story unfolds, an archaeologist is working inside an Egyptian tomb uncovering the primary plot arc of the soon to unfold kick-ass story. As he dusts away thousands of years of grime from the history of "The Fifth Element" the local boy providing him with reflected light for his work inside the tomb nods off half asleep. "Azeeze!!! More Light!!!" the archaelogis belows.
Coincident with this moment in the movie and his demand for more fill-light is the landing of an inter-stellar space craft outside the tomb. As the demand for better reflected light leaves the mouth of the 1930's archaeologist the spacecraft powers up it's exterior lights and illuminates the interior of the tomb. All of which is in preparation for the next scene that captures the entrance of a half dozen "superior beings".
"Ahhh, thank you Azeeze. Much better." responds the archaeologist.
It's a great flic.
Thanks Elise and Mike. :)
Posts
2 comments:
Hi there Douglas
I found you via the DivX site (searching for timelapse) and just love your timelapse stuff. I'm a photoblogger myself and am thinking of trying out timelapse. I have a Canon EOS 30D and would like to know about the equipment you use (hardware/software).
I've been thinking about / looking into the possibility of immigrating to Vancouver, so seeing your stuff was really nice. Vancouver is no secret with me :)
If you have time and wouldn't mind giving me a few technical pointers, I'd be happy.
Yours truly
Rico Bergholdt Hansen
Odense, Denmark.
www.pixelviking.com
www.bergholdt.com
rico@bergholdt.com
Hi Rico and thanks for the feedback. Vancouver in particular and BC in general is a great area of Canada for outdoor photography. No shortage of material 365 days a year.
For the timelapse I'm currently using a Sony DCR-HC90 Handycam. I've had this unit for almost two years now and the main reason I bought it was for it's silky smooth timelapse ability. You have a good bit of flexibility when it comes to what sort of time intervals to shoot at which is very useful. Certain subjects (flowers blooming) need a long interval between frames to shrink a big amount of time into a small period (8 hours into 1 minute for example). While other subjects (fast moving clouds, sunsets) need a much shorter interval.
Much of what I do is at 1 or 2 seconds per frame which translates to 1 hour of real-time being compressed into 1 or 2 minutes of video time. A highly recommended camera.
The software I use is the Movie Maker utility included with Windows (XP and Vista) and so far, since my needs are very simple, it's worked out great. It's quite easy to work with and once you get the hang of it you can do some pretty professional looking videos. Timelapse is very simple when it comes to post produciton (one or two key scenes) so I don't really need much sophistication. Not yet anyway. :)
Thanks again for the comments. I plan on producing two or three new timelapse videos over the next few months so stay tuned.
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