Time Encapsulated: December 2012

An Event of Significance

Statement of Intent

28/09/12

For the event of significance, I have an idea of what I would like to do, it just depends if I can actually carry it out.

I most definitely would like to make a time lapse, as I think this is a great way of recording something eventful. As I was on my way home, I saw a building being pulled down and immediately I wanted to do that as a time lapse, but unfortunately the building was already almost fully down.

I looked on the internet to see if I could find out where a building was being demolished, within travelling distance, but nothing!! I will just have to keep working on it.

12/10/12

Today we learned how to make a time lapse in lightroom, by taking multiple images (the amount of images will depend on the length of video you want to make) the length of time it will take to make a time lapse will depend on the time between each shot, for example; if you were doing a time lapse in a busy town hopping centre, you would take images every 2 secs, but if you were shooting a time lapse of a flower growing, you may only need to shoot every 15 mins. Therefore you must work out how many images you need for the length of time lapse required, and then you can determine how long it is going to take you to shoot the images.
e.g. shooting at every 10 secs for an hour = 14.4 secs of footage.

There is a software which can be downloaded directly into your camera on the flash card for canon, called 'Magic Lantern' this enables you to shoot time lapse straight from the camera, by setting the amount of images and how many secs/mins between each shot. There is however a possibility of damaging your camera, and for this reason I have not downloaded the software.
Note; If you are shooting a time lapse of a landscape, set the camera at f22 every 10 secs to reduce flicker in your final video.

14/10/12

I went up to castle hill to try making a time lapse today, I didn't have a remote timer for the shoot, so used my phone and timer app to calculate the spaces between shots. It was freezing and very windy, which was cause for camera shake, but for this experiment that wasn't going to be an issue, but something to remember for future shoots. I used my tripod and shot every 5 secs, for what seemed to be forever, I was so impatient to get home and put it all together I can't remember how long I was actually there for.
The finished time lapse was extremely short but effective and inspiration to do more, better.
Here is the result of my very first time lapse, the start of something big...

27/10/12

I received an email today, asking for photographers to volunteer at Wakefield Cathedral, they have a project on going called 366 Days, and for 366 days they are asking for a different photographer to attend and take photographs in the Cathedral, and/or in the knave which is at present in the process of being renovated. I was interested in attending because of the renovation work so I booked myself an appointment, and requested permission to go in the nave, contractors are working in there and they must approve a visit before anyone is allowed to go in, full PPE must be worn also; i.e. hard hat, high vis jacket, steel toe cap shoes/boots, which I have (apart from the hard hat, but one is provided on site).

8/12/12

Today I attended Wakefield Cathedral as the assigned photographer of the day on a project run by the Cathedral, which involves individual photographers volunteering to go and take shots of the Cathedral daily for 366 days while they have work carried out on their nave, to celebrate it's 125th birthday and give amateur photographers an opportunity to get involved.

My visit was much more interesting than I had anticipated, and gave me the idea of making a time lapse of the scaffolding being removed, and so I emailed Harriet, who deals with the photographers arrangements etc, and put my idea for a time-lapse to her , suggesting they could have it on the website. Unfortunately I received an email reply saying that it would not be possible to do this as most of the scaffolding had already come down.

15/12/12

With this in mind I decided to book another visit anyway, and to my surprise there was actually still some scaffolding up in the nave but it was in the process of being taken down, so I had a good look round for the best possition to set my camera up on the tripod, I attached my time-lapse remote control at intervals of 5 seconds apart due to the speed that the contractors were working. At one point the contractors had stopped working in the area I was covering, so I moved my camera to where they now were, this happened a few times, which means that my time-lapse is not concentrating on just one spot, it moves around to show different views. Below is a link to my second attempt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK-0XuwdAZE

I sent a copy of my time-lapse to Harriet, the lady who organised the bookings for the 366 Days project at the Cathedral, and the next day I received an email from her telling me that she had posted it on both their website and Facebook page. She said that the Dean of Wakefield Cathedral responded to my time-lapse, saying that it was " splendid".

I was pleased with the result although improvements could of been made in the making, such as avoiding the different zoom adjustments that caused a jump in the video. I also wish I could have been present all of the days when the scaffold was being taken down. It would of been much more exciting to have been able to capture the whole nave being exposed for the first time as the scaffold was removed.
I wanted the video to run for longer than it did, therefore I requested another visit, to shoot more time-lapse as the last of the scaffold came down, unfortunately, by the time I could attend, it was too late and the scaffold was gone. : (
However the contractors were still on site and preparing to install the underfloor heating system, so I shot them working still in the nave and hope to be able to add this onto my first time-lapse which will extend the running time. I also intend to put some music with the video please click on the link below to view the time-lapse on you tube.

On my return visit to the cathedral I shot some more images to add on to my first time-lapse, here is a test run of them put together as a time-lapse.

http://youtu.be/cwHTBVtdLzQ