Bomb Cyclone brings end to photo shoot

From “The Weather Channel” website.

If you didn’t know, the mid-west is being bombarded with what the newsies are calling a “Bomb Cyclone. It is a blistering cold weather event that is over 800 miles wide. They even canceled school in the Denver area, that’s bad. Denver Schools never close.

When I lived in Denver there was a blizzard that put almost four feet of snow on the ground in three hours and it didn’t melt for a week. The Denver Schools were open the entire time. That means this must be something big.

I was out trying to discover the choicest places to shoot some time lapse videos. The camera does them nativity at a slightly lower resolution, meaning I was going for just a test shot, just to see. Soon, I will be receiving a new piece of equipment that calculates the perfect camera settings to get the ideal chance for a time-lapse.

Most time-lapse videos you see are actually hundreds of photographs compiled together. This takes forever to get right, and if wrong, they look terrible. I have produced every kind of video you can think of, except a time lapse. It takes a lot of patience and planning to get it right, and I just haven't made time for it. Now it's on my bucket list, and it's going to get done. If you haven't seen a time-lapse, here is one I found from Chris Pritchard on Vimeo. I love watching these things.

Please watch in full screen with sound on for best experience. This film is available in 4K - click the HD button and select 4K to view in 4K. ~ Whether in the city or a rural area, surrounded by nature or man-made things, there is but one constant - the sky. Regardless of our lifestyle or surroundings, the sky is always there above us to put on a show. "Skylight” is a collection of dramatic sky shows, captured from a wide variety of locations. Shooting timelapse has taught me to sit back and take in the world around me. After six years and thousands of shots captured, I’ve seen some special and memorable events in our skies. No matter how dramatic the location, the sky holds the power to make a good view great, and to mesmerize us with the wonders of the world - within our atmosphere and beyond. This collection of unique moments was captured from mountaintops to rooftops to coastline, at locations including: 
Los Angeles • Chicago • NYC • Tokyo • Singapore • Sydney • New Zealand • Big Sur • Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest • CARMA • Eastern Sierra • Death Valley • Yosemite • Vermillion Cliffs • Mojave Desert More info about the film and some of the shots is available on my blog at: http://chrispzero.com/blog/2016/02/15/skylight Follow me to see more of my work and behind the scenes images - Instagram - http://instagram.com/chrispzero | Facebook - http://facebook.com/chrispzero | Twitter - http://twitter.com/chrispzero ~ Most clips featured in this film are available for licensing. Please visit the chrispzero Footage Store at http://store.chrispzero.com or contact me for more info. A gracious and special thank you to my family and friends for their unending support and assistance. This film would not be possible without you. Thank you to the following for your help and support in making this possible - Dynamic Perception - http://dynamicperception.com eMotimo - http://emotimo.com IATS Skyspace Los Angeles - http://www.skyspace-la.com ~ All footage and images © Copyright 2016 chrispzero Inc., all rights reserved. This video may be freely shared via Vimeo's share and embed functions. Thank you for taking the time to watch and share!

These are great for City-scapes as well. Here is one of NYC by Michael Shainblum.

"Liberty - New York City Timelapse 4K" I vividly remember my first experience of New York City as a kid, before I became a photographer. The shear sense of scale, the incredible architecture and just the over all feeling I got walking around the city. That experience became one of the reasons I got into photography. Ever since then, it has been my dream to recreate that feeling into a short timelapse film. From the sensory overload of standing on a busy New York street corner. To the tranquility of standing on a skyscraper, like being on top of the world. This is a dedication to my favorite city in the world. "Liberty" Is a visual journey through New York City captured through timelapse and hyperlapse photography. The video consists of about 15,000 still photographs captured from 2016-2018. You can check out more images from the collection here: http://www.shainblumphoto.com/project/new-york/ By Michael Shainblum http://www.shainblumphoto.com/ Soundtrack: James Everingham - What Once Was https://www.jameseveringham.com/

As you can see, these videos can be mesmerizing, to say the least. But they have to be planned out. IN the NY time-lapse you actually get to see the camera move while the city literally runs at hyper-speed. Technically the second video is more of a Hyper-lapse, but a static shot for my work will have to do for now. Those take a motorized slider hooked to a computer to accomplish, and I just don’t have the 2K at the moment to afford the gear. Maybe I could rent it… hmm, that’s a thought.

That’s what I was doing tonight, scouting for a place to shoot my time lapse. I went to the University of Arkansas to find a great spot to get the stadium and all that traffic. The video I got was all made in camera and isn’t the quality that I will get when I do it for real. This is just a scout to see what it might look like. Honestly, I am not going to use that spot again, it’s just not that interesting. But that’s why you scout!

The wind was so strong it knocked my camera around and I had to call off my scouting trip. I do know that I won't be using this shot, it's just not that interesting.

Typically, shooting video in the wind isn’t that problematic, and since these were really just for reference, it really didn’t matter.

Living in Arkansas, I didn’t think the “Bomb Cyclone” would effect us down here, but it sure as hell did. Tonight the wind gusts are so strong that it almost blew over my tripod while I was shooting. My “sticks” aren’t the super expensive Manfrotto ones, but they aren’t junk either. They are light though, carbon fiber is the majority of the materials used to make the legs. That wind just toppled them right over. Good thing I was holding onto them at the time. I really don’t want to file an insurance claim for a new camera and lens.

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I did get to practice my long exposure photography though. Being that I have a new camera and I haven’t ever gotten to practice with it due to crappy weather, I thought I would share. But these also suffered from the wind. When leaving the shutter open for Thirty seconds, every little shake makes an impression. While this is the sharpest one of the bunch, it is most definitely not that great. Its composition needs a lot of work, but I proved to myself that I do understand the technicals of the camera well enough to really set up a beautiful shot in the future.

Let’s all hope that all we get is some more wind and a few days of sixty-degree weather rather than the pounding of snow and ice the north is getting.

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