I love photography! Pretty cliché I know. There is just so much to learn and explore. So many things to try. But the main reason I love photography is this "Photography is about savoring life at 1/100th of a second." - Marc Riboud
I am a portrait and wedding photographer based in Cedar City Utah. I also love landscape photography, but every great landscape I encounter, I can't help but think how much better the shot would be if I stuck a person in it.
It is sad to realize that there aren’t very many WWII veterans around any more. I think there are only three left in this group of American Legion members. My grandfather served in WWII and he passed away more than a decade ago. It is inspiring to see these men still honoring their country. These were taken at a Memorial Day celebration in Huntington Utah on May 31, 2010.
So, I’m not particularly proud of this video simply because it is the first time-lapse I’ve ever done. I was shooting pictures at a Relay for Life event in Cedar City. As I watched people walk around the track, I thought, “this would make a cool time-lapse video.” I setup the camera on a tripod, took a few minutes to figure out the interval timer settings and let’er rip.
If technical details bore you, then read no further.
How It Was Shot
I went into the camera’s interval timer settings and set it to take one shot every second for 1,000 shots. That would translate into about 3GB of JPG Fine shots on a 4GB card. That also means it was shooting for about 16 minutes.
I was using my 18-200mm VR lens and the biggest lesson I learned was that I should have turned VR off. The camera was on a tripod, so there was no need for VR and I think having VR on is responsible for the image shifting you see in the video.
The location I setup the camera at was in the shade. I wanted some depth of field, but I also needed to keep the shutter speed fast enough to not completely blur people. That meant 1/60th @ f/5.6, ISO 200. I could have bumped the ISO up to get a faster shutter speed and in retrospect, I probably should have. The people are just not quite sharp enough at 1/60th of a second. I actually also which I would have shot in JPG normal resolution so that I could get more shots at 2 or 3 frames per second. That just means that in the same time period I would have shot 2 or 3 thousand images. That would have made a smoother time-lapse video.
Post production was done in iMovie. Nothing fancy. It lets you import photos from iPhoto, which I don’t normally use. I had to export them from Lightroom, then import them into iPhoto and then add them to the video in iMovie. By default iMovie applies a panning type action to every photo and displays each photo 2 seconds. I changed that to display each photo for 0.2 seconds and removed the panning action. I also cropped the images slightly in iMovie to conform to a 16:9 aspect ratio.
The music is a royalty free track that I bought from iStockphoto. It is really tempting to just add a song I like from my library. In fact I had a song that I thought worked really well, but I decided to be a good boy and get a royalty free song instead.
It was a fun exercise. Now I want to do more time-lapse stuff.
Cedar City held its Relay for Life event last weekend. Holding it in the month of April in Cedar City is risky when it comes to the weather. They hold it at this time so that they can involve students at SUU, which I think is pretty cool (any later and school would be out). This was my second year being involved. I work with one of the committee members and last year she asked if I would take photos for their website. I was happy to help. I had never been to one until last year, and I have to say, it is a pretty neat event. A lot of people getting together for a good cause. I was actually surprised how many people participate.
I think just about everyone can say they’ve been affected by cancer in some way. It is a pretty horrible disease. I’ve lost family and close friends and I know several survivors. Keep in mind as you look at my photos that the people wearing purple shirts are cancer survivors. What struck me this year is that cancer in no way discriminates against age.
Your pictures are very touching. Some of them made me want to cry. How neat that you get involved in this.
Parker these pictures are powerful and I got emotional looking at them. My dad is suffering from cancer right now so its pretty personal to me. I was supposed to be at the relay and had registered but my walk time was 10 to 12 last Saturday and as you know it promptly ended at 10! I was so disappointed but these pictures help to see all the support there and how may people went. Thanks for sharing!
It has been a tradition in years past for my family to go camping out on the San Rafael Swell over the Easter break. I have lots of fond memories of of hiking, exploring, four wheeling, and Easter egg hunting. The San Rafael Swell is an awesome place. It has been a while since we have actually gone, so it was really nice to get out there and spend some fun time with my family. Although the late March, early April weather is often windy, cold, and unpredictable out there, we still had fun. The kids didn’t even seem to be bothered by the weather. My boys loved every minute of it.
I am already dying to get out again. I am so looking forward to some good camping trips this spring and summer.
I love the look of tilt shift miniature photography. Even better, I love that you don’t have to actually have a $2,000 tilt shift lens to reproduce the effect. It can be done pretty effectively in Photoshop. I’m not sure how effective I was with it, but it is kind of fun. If you want to see much more awesomer (that’s right, I just said awesomer) tilt shift watch this day in the life of New York City in miniature video.
Easter egg hunting in miniature.
I’ve been inspired by photographer Johnathan Canlas to blog more personal stuff. My personal work is an important part of my photography. It has largely shaped my photographic style. My kids are one of my favorite subjects. They grow so dang fast that I try to take pictures of them on a weekly basis at least. My biggest joy in life is from being a dad. I have two boys and I love spending time with them. I also look forward to the many adventures we will have together. There will be no end to hikes, camping trips, and other adventures that we will go on. Right now they are young, so our adventures are pretty limited, but they happen none-the-less.
This winter has been an interesting one in Southern Utah. We have seen quite a bit of snow here in Cedar City. Our mountains are packed with snow. More than I have seen in the 9 years we have lived here. Most of the storms we have had haven’t dumped a lot of snow at one time, but we have had more frequent storms and many cloud covered days. More than usual. Spring around here is known for being unpredictable, so I don’t think we have seen the end of snow yet. However, we are longing for warm weather and the chance to play outside, go camping or something.
Today was another stay-inside day. The snow fell again. I get really sick of being cooped up inside the house. Cabin fever is raging within me. The snow did manage to draw us outside for a few minutes today to take these pictures.
I haven’t posted any pictures of my own kids on this blog before. Okay, so I have, but it has been a while. I figured I would keep that separate from my official photoshoots. But why? I don’t have a good reason. I take a ton of photos of my own kids so I figured once a month, I would share just a few of my favorites from that month here on this blog.
These are from January. My oldest is four. It is a fun age. He is definitely testing his boundaries and starting to look more like a little boy. He has grown almost 3 inches in the last few months. Still he is a lot of fun. It always takes some coaxing to get him to cooperate for photos. We usually come to a compromise of no more than 2 pictures that I can take at a time. I usually sneak in a few more than that:)
My youngest is almost 18 months old now. He is the cutest kid ever. We are going to have a struggle on our hands when it comes time to dump the binkies. Notice in this first shot he has two, one in the hand and one in the mouth. That is not uncommon for him. He’ll walk around like that and just keep switching every couple of minutes.
I tell people all the time that smiling pictures are over rated. I hear people say things like “oh I wish he was smiling.” Why? Don’t get me wrong. Smiling photos are great and it is always nice to capture kids when they are happy. However, the reality of life is that sometimes kids cry. It doesn’t make them any less cute though.
Now I feel obligated to show you that he does smile.
What can I say, the Rees family was great. This is the way all family photoshoots should go, especially big families. They were very relaxed and laid back. They wanted me to spend the first hour just taking candid shots of them doing their thing. The family had rented a cabin at Brian Head over Thanksgiving. It was an extended family photoshoot the way it should be done. Only one big group shot was taken.
The Rees family was different. They were very fun. They had no expectations of having everyone looking in the same direction. They also welcomed the fact that some kids would cry and get upset. They thought it was cute. They are right. As much as we would like to control how kids behave and how a photoshoot should go, kids are kids and I welcome that.
A beautiful family in a beautiful setting.
I had a chance the other day to tag along on a cattle drive. The goal was to document this cattle drive for historical purposes. The ranch that the cattle came from has been in continuous operation since about 1886. I love doing photography like this. Being there for a brief moment in time and walking away with captured memories that will last a life time is very satisfying. I already have an invitation to tag along on another cattle drive down by Lake Powell this fall. I can’t wait.
Dottie - April 28, 2010 - 9:28 am
How interesting! I loved it. Loved the feet and the blur at the last with the candles holding steady. I felt like I was there. I think it would be really neat to have if you were one of the walkers. Are you going to offer it to them?