San Francisco Area Time Lapse - Draft - No Transitions or Music from Stephen Lefkovits on Vimeo.
Sunset behind the Golden Gate Bridge, snow on Mount Diablo, morning at Stinson Beach, the clearing of a storm from the Berkeley Hills, heavy fog in San Francisco Bay and the night stars in Tilden Park all seen in time lapse in this rough cut assembled with no transitions or music. Edited version to follow.
On the evening of September 15, 2009 Marcus and I made a quick run to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay for a good vantage point from which to try out a little time-lapse photography. Using an intervalometer, we fired about 140 frames in 2.5 minutes.
The sun, the orange glow and the Golden Gate Bridge all cooperated famously for this one. The frames were stacked in Photoshow Producer and the timeline was compressed down to 8 seconds. There’s a little jump in the middle where I stopped the sequence to change from JPEG to RAW. It was an unnecessary move. Next time I’ll just shoot JPEG images the whole way through.
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On four occasions I’ve had the opportunity to photograph Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park.¬† The first was canceled due to punishing hail and in the second my images were terrible.¬† The third time wasn’t the charm either.
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On my August 2009 trip, I finally realized that while the name is Rocky Mountain National Park, its scenic power derives in part from the awe-inspiring theater in the sky created by the weather conditions along the Continental Divide.¬† (“Rocky Mountain Skies” park?)¬† As a car-borne photographer, the mountains are difficult to “get close to” and harder still to photograph distinctively.¬† Mountains get lost among the many peaks.¬† I am challenged to answer satisfactorily the “so-what” question of nature photography.¬† Silhouette or side-lit, good photos of mountains as obelisks elude me.
The rapidly changing skies bring noteworthiness within reach.¬† Clouds shaped like jack o’lanterns, heat lightning at nightfall.¬† Cirrus eclipse of the full moon followed by the crack of lightning.¬† A waning moon high in the sky at sunrise.¬† And of course, the daily 4PM thunderstorm that drops rain somewhere – but not always on us.¬† Which brings the rainbow.¬† And on it goes.
This short video (2:24) contains a few handfuls of the best images from my trips.¬† Please let me know how it strikes you, and how it can be improved.¬† I’m very interested in finding compelling ways to present images online and any insights are much appreciated.¬† Any ideas about how to uniquely present images online to an already saturated viewership are much appreciated.
Musical accompaniment is licensed under the Creative Commons from Arnaud Conde’s album Velvorn: The Bladed Druid.