VoiceOfEmerika

As I mentioned in my previous post I had an idea for a long blend while in Joshua Tree. The idea was to highlight the wind in the scene. If things had gone as planned, you’d be looking at something with hard, solid rocks and other bits, contrasted with soft and fuzzy plants.

Instead… as you can see for yourself, everything is hard and crisp.

This is a blend of a hundred frames each five seconds apart. I’m left to mull the results and the difference from my expected outcome. Which reminds me of a great talk I just listened to:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought
Monday, February 4, 02008

http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/ (I hesitate to deep link directly to the audio–you can find it.)

There is really quite a lot to think about in this talk. Hints as to my inability to predict the outcome of this photo abound.

So, why did this photo fail? I believe the fact that the plants tend to a center position is the answer. Well, that and the huge number of images I blended. I am going to try this again blending just a few frames. The fact I used so many images seems to just have reinforced the strength of the norm and washed out the movement.

Karen and I went to Joshua Tree last weekend. We were just looking for a nice hike, but the flowers were blooming like crazy and it was nicer than we had imagined. I didn’t find anything I wanted to use for a time-lapse, but I did find some scenes I wanted to do a long blend on. The first one is still waiting to be processed. The second one was a disaster. It’s documented visually below.

I am sure you guessed that the tripod fell over. And yes, that’s me with the look of horror you just can’t make out. Arrggg! My camera has a telescoping lens and it’s bent and stuck now. (No, I’m not going to show you a picture.) It’s off to the repair shop for this little one.

And what did I learn? Wind is not to be ignored. Until now, I gave very little consideration to placing the tripod. If it stood, I figured close enough. Not anymore. Yes, all very obvious in retrospect. More so, because the wind was the entire point of the picture. I had planned to contrast the solidness of the landscape with the movement of the plants in the wind.