Strangers and Roads.
To begin to document the start of my trip, I’ll start at the very end…on a pier, beside a booth, talking with a man, in Santa Monica. Route 66 stretches from Santa Monica to Chicago…it’s had a few different ending points that defaulted to Santa Monica since everyone who had driven from as far away as Chicago kept on driving through to the coastal warmth of Southern California anyway!
While my trip started out as one big joyride, I quickly realized that it took on a kind of epic symbolism that I didn’t understand before heading out. The beautiful thing about traveling in any form is that often this is the case. One little trip to somewhere new and unexplored quickly turns into a discovery of things in our very own selves!
I was thinking about this as I finished my drive at the Pier in Santa Monica. I walked past a kiosk with Route 66 memorabilia and stopped. The only souvenirs I’d picked up on the entire trip were all the pictures and videos I took along the way, and since those were long gone thanks to the Pirates d’ Taos, I felt nostalgic to bring home something. A Route 66 T-shirt, or a pin, or a snowglobe, or even a shot glass (which matches well with the default name of the Tour d’ Awesome: Tour d’ Drunk).
I picked out my items and talked to the guy working the kiosk. I told him about my trip then asked if he’d been on the Route. He indicated that one of the prerequisites of working there was to drive at least part of 66 so he could talk to the custormers about it. I asked if he’d ever wanted to drive it before doing so, and he started telling me a little about his life.
Incidentally, something I love about talking with strangers is that if I am not in a hurry and in a mind to listen, I end up with a treasure of an experience. This was no different!
Here is A., and here is his part of a story:
He grew up in Egypt. He liked it alright, but was always bothered by the sameness of it. As in, everyone was expected to do the same things. Eat the same food, wear the same clothes, think the same thoughts, say the same words. He described growing up like going the wrong way on a one way street…everyone noticing, pointing, getting angry….and how he always felt he stood out by wanting to be different. He took his first trip to America when he was 19. He was supposed to stay with family friends, but when an emergency came up he ended up spending his time alone walking around New York City. “The thing about being here” he said, “is that everyone is driving their own way down the road. You can do anything here! Think what you want, eat what you want, be who you want. You can decide that. It’s so different in Egypt!” 3 years ago he got a work visa and flew to Los Angeles. Not knowing anyone didn’t make any difference at all. He then had odd jobs here and there, one of them working at the Route 66 kiosk. This led to him taking a trip on 66 and “discovering a real kind of America you don’t see in big cities”.
I asked him what his family thought of his adventures and individuality, and he paused for a while.
Then he started talking again. “I always listen to my family, my friends, my parents. Especially my mom. She wants me to be happy, and has a lot of advice for how I can be the happiest and do my best…” he hesitated, not wanting to sound critical but also wanting to speak his truth. “The thing is, though, they all only know THEIR way to be happy. Their advice is from THEIR experiences and is how to get what THEY want. The problem is, I’m not them, and they haven’t been or seen the things I have. They don’t know what advice is best for me, only I know that.”
And then he said something that resonated with me so completely I shivered, even in the 90 degree heatwave.
“It’s like driving on the Route. If that road is my life, then I’ve got to drive it. My friends, my family, my mom are all in Egypt. What do they know of a road in America? A road that’s not even a road anymore, actually. A road that isn’t even marked for most of the way. Have they been on the road? Can they help me take the right turns? Not really. In this way, their advice isn’t helpful. Their support and love is wonderful to get me along my path, but they have no advice that will help me stay on the path. For that, I have to make my decisions. I have to do what is right for me. Because they just can’t know this if they aren’t or have never been where I want to go.”
And aaaaaaaaaaah, that’s just it, isn’t it? That’s become my parenting philosophy, that’s a large reason why I love unschooling so much, and it’s been a huge part of my self discovery the past 2 years.
Everyone has their own road to follow in this life. And as much as I’d love to help lead and direct other people down their roads, I fall way short of really understanding what their best route is. Until recently, I didn’t even know what MY best route was! As a mom and a friend, the best I can do is offer support, love, encouragement, my own advice…and then sit back and watch them travel along. I hope I can help my kids find their inner strength, confidence, path. I don’t want my kids depending on other people to tell them what their route is. Even me. I might take them to the desert when really they’d be so much happier at the ocean. I know so many people who listen and follow other people’s advice and then end up at 30-something in a job they don’t like living in a house they don’t want with a lifestyle they didn’t actively choose. It’s not pretty.
I enjoyed the conversation with A. It mirrored perfectly what my own experience with Route 66 developed into…a visual allegory of pathways and choices and individuality and wandering and being lost and just life in general.
read moreHit the Road, Jack.
“…all the golden land’s ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait, lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see…”
Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 2, Ch. 6
I wish I could have met Jack Kerouac! Maybe even taken a little road trip with him…how sweet would that be?! This was taken somewhere in Utah, along the I-70. That interstate goes through some gorgeous country!
read morePhotobooth Friday::Everything’s Just Dandy(lion)!
The kids and I were out at the park when I got back from the retreat, and we came across a huuuuuge field of dandelions. If there’s something that makes my heart skip a beat as much as an ice cream sundae right in front of me, it’s a giant field of dandelions glowing in the sun. So Sassy and I made lots of wishes while blowing the seeds every which way (you’re welcome, neighbors…)
As often happens in the middle of doing something mundane, a vision popped in my head. I saw myself with a dandelion on my head with the seeds being blown away like thoughts taking flight. So I took a picture of a dandelion and filed it away.
And THEN, the kids and I were at the Huntington Beach Dog Park (so amazingly cool!) and I had a few moments to take the shots that would complete my vision. I only had my 50mm lens, which is gorgeous to shoot with but kind of a macro-ish lens, and I knew that I wanted a bigger area in the shot so I could crop the picture into a square. This was a perfect time to try the Brenizer Method which is what the man Brenzier calls “Bokeh Panorama”. Basically, it allows you to widen a shot to get a look that maintains the gorgeousness of the 50mm lens, but in a wider angle as if you were using a wide angle lens.
So, the original shot had me centered, but I wanted more sand, surf, and sky. (slight panic…I knew I was going to be cropping my head out so wasn’t worried about what I looked like…until now…)
So, here’s the genius of this method. I instructed Naturalist to take the picture with me centered. This got the focal point set on me. Then she switched it into manual focus so for the rest of the shots, the point isn’t refocused or changed. Then she took a series of 9 more pictures, starting at the top left of me, but up to include more of the sky. She kept a portion of me in the picture as reference, because I then took all the shots and merged them into one. So 3 across the sky, 3 more across the middle area to get more beach, and then 3 more across the bottom to get more sand.
When I got them into Elements, I merged them as such:
First I cropped a giant square around me. See how tiny the 50mm lens picture is, compared with how much detail I wanted in the picture?
Then I started merging, first sand:
Then beach:
Then sky:
until I had a rough draft of the shot, with more background filled in:
The shot of my body that I wanted to use was set as the background layer, and I erased my other bodies that were layered on top, so that was the only thing that was left in the center. Then came the task of cleaning up the shot so no ‘seams’ showed from where the pictures met up. This meant a combination of erasing, cloning, and spot brush healing. And THEN came the photoshop magic….adding in the shots of the scarf blowing, taking off my head (is it wrong that I absolutely love doing this part the most?!), and adding the dandelion in. This was all thanks to my favorite quick selection tool and magnetic lasso.
Once those details were added, I then flattened the layers so it was all one shot, and then I worked with the curves and exposure levels to get the image not quite so blown out (one of the drawbacks to shooting in the middle of the day on a bright beach…). I also added in some textures. And voila! My vision, pretty much how I pictured it. All told, it took maybe 3 hours, including time spent making snacks and sandwiches for hungry kids.
This made me think of all the seeds we plant in our hearts. Some will turn in to flowers, some in to weeds. Some will blossom and be beautiful, others bloom and spread seeds of negativity everywhere. Still others may never find fertile soil and take root at all.
Photoshop Friday::Quick Selection Tool and Magnetic Lasso Are Our Friends.
Q: Why are you so obsessed with photoshop lately?
A: How else am I going to attach legs on to a heart pillow and make it dance?!
Because I have my camera around my neck pretty much always, the kids have been involved in the photographic journey that I’m on. And right now, that includes the post processing in photoshop. This has led to an unexpected collaboration between all of us. For example, while in IKEA to get even more organizational gear, Sassy found a heart pillow with arms.
“Hey Mama! Can you cut my legs off and attach them to this pillow and then make it dance in a picture?” she asked, startling the woman beside her who apparently took it literally.
So we got the pillow and today made her vision a reality.
First, we put Pink’s “Raise Your Glass” on so we’d have some dancing music. Then, Naturalist got out my box of socks and we picked our favorites to put on. Then I set up the camera and we danced with the pillow, one at a time.
First I took a blank picture, which I’ll build my final picture on. If you want to try a trick shot, this initial ‘blank’ shot is the most important thing to get:
Next, I took a bunch of pictures of us dancing and moving and then picked out the best:
All that dancing really tires a gal out!
So, I let everyone take 5 while I imported everything in to photoshop to work some magic with the quick selection tool and magnetic lasso. The shot I want to get (dancing hearts with legs attached) simply involves cutting out the heart with our legs and leaving everything else behind. So I used the quick selection tool to trace all the things I wanted and dragged them on to the blank canvas picture. The quick selection tool looks like a little wand that you drag around parts of your photo. And actually, I created a duplicate layer of the blank canvas picture, so I layered it on that. That way, if I make a mistake (very likely!) I’m not affecting the original picture.
You can see where the harsh edges are, and where I need to take away more from the cut out pictures so it blends better with the background. This is where the magnetic lasso comes in to save the day! I can use the lasso to highlight and select an area that I want gone, and then use the eraser tool to erase it away. The great thing about this is the eraser will not erase anything outside of the blinking line the magnetic lasso creates…keeping the edges clean and intact while I erase everything around it. This cleans up the image considerably!
Next is my favorite part…adjusting the color/tones/brightness/contrast, and then adding a little texture on top! This picture was really dark, so I brightened it up, put in some more contrast, and adjusted the color curves a bit.
I showed the final picture to my dad, who paused for a minute and then said, “Well, it’s disturbing.” He hesitated a little more before adding, “but it’s art!”
Sassy approved of it, she said it’s just like what she was thinking in her head. I don’t know what is awesomer, the quick selection tool/magnetic lasso, or the fact that Sassy has dancing pillows with human legs attached running around in her head.
Here are some tutorials I used to help me learn more about the tools I used:
Quick Selection Tool:
Magnetic Lasso Tool:
Photoshop Friday::heavy balloons and weightless me.
It’s true, I’m totally obsessed with Photoshop. And not even the actual photoshop…Adobe and I are in frustrating phone conversations back and forth over whether I do or do not qualify for the ‘student and teacher’ discount so I can get a code to use the software for $199 rather than $900+. I’m confident my unschooling charms will win them over in the long run, but there’s not much more mind numbing than going up the chain of command to find someone reasonable. So, I’m actually using Adobe Elements 6 with the goal of upgrading to photoshop soon!
Photoshop is this fun little program that lets anyone manipulate pictures however they want. It’s responsible for keeping the beauty and fashion industry au courant due to the airbrushing/shrinking/lengthening you can do with it. My skills with it are basic, I’m teaching myself as I go, and so I’m no good at the parts that would make me taller or smoother. I use it mostly to tell a story that I’m thinking in my head.
Like, yesterday, while out exploring my new hood here in Orange I came across a dollar store selling mylar balloons filled with helium. So I bought 6 red hearts for the kids and me and Frito. And one left over. Because I cannot count. Anyway. The balloons were floating in my room, and I started thinking, it would be fun to make the balloons fall and me float. And so that’s what I set out to do. Here’s a little behind the scenes look at how to go about doing this.
First, I break the scene down. There’s the room. The balloons. Me. I wanted to literally change places with the balloons, so they were on the ‘ground’ and I was on the ‘ceiling’. To do this, I need to layer a few different pictures on top of each other. I anchor the camera in one place–never to move it before I’m done upon pain of death–set the focus and then lock it so it can’t refocus until I’m done.
Then I take the pictures. One of the room (this will be a blank canvas that I layer the other pictures on):
Some of the balloons floating around in different places. I’m in the shot, but it doesn’t matter because I just copy and paste the balloons I want, so I’ll never be seen:
Then, I take pictures of me in the position I want to be in. You notice I’ve taken off my pants so my long shirt is now either a tunic or short dress. I find legs to be really expressive and would rather see them than pants. Everyone has their thing. Brooke Shaden loves expressive backs. So, anyhow, I ditch my pants and I take a few shots so I can pick and choose from the best:
This shot is deceptively simple (I thought) because all it entails (I thought) was putting the balloons and me in one shot and then rotating it around so the balloons are on the bottom and I’m on the top. So I did that, got it rotated, cloned out the sliver of doorway that was distracting, added in some drop shadows, blended some elements together, played around with the color curves…
href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/childplay/5416119865/” title=”IMG_9495 by childplay {Tiffani}, on Flickr”>
And Golfer walked by and said, “It’s totally obvious you’re on the floor, Mom. Why didn’t you put yourself on the ceiling?” And then I said, “Dammit!” No, I didn’t. I just thought it. Because he was right. So I started all over again, this time putting me on the ceiling and the balloons on the floor. I have to do this in steps, mostly because I hobble together different arms and legs and torso’s so here I am without arms…but on the ceiling/floor!
then the balloons/shadows:
then I flipped it, and did all the cloning/fine tuning/adding textures (stopping to turn the two floating balloons upside down per request from Naturalist, who thought they looked cooler looking like they were floating down):
And then finally, finally! After tweaking the color curves some more, I have my final shot…looking pretty much like how I was thinking of it in my head:
7 Days in the Life, week 1.
I started a 365 days photo project on Jan. 1st called “A Year of Living Positively“. Basically, I take one picture every day of 2011 that focuses on something positive that I’ve seen or done. I tried doing it last year, and managed to get 114 pictures into it before the lack of internet and transitional living got the best of me. I’m still bothered that I stopped doing it, because not only is it a great thing to focus on every day, it’s also a great snapshot diary of tiny glimpses of the year that might easily be forgotten. Plus, this year has been so crazy, I miss having it documented in photos.
Hopefully I can get through the entire year this time, because it’s promising to be as crazy, if not crazier. But hopefully with internet this time!
This week I’ve positively loved jumping in Venice Beach, being in the great big city of Los Angeles, playing and hiking with the kids, and doing stuff around the house. Not that I positively love cleaning, but it’s much easier to clean 950 square feet rather than 5000! And it feels nice to have everything organized…at least for the next 5 minutes, after which the kids will manage to rip through like the tornados they are and unorganize everything.
Here’s to finding a little bit of positive in every day!
Rain, Rain, Go Away!
OK, I realize this is going to sound crazy or like I have the biggest ego in the world. But I can’t help thinking it.
The fact is, So. Cal. has gotten a record amount of rainfall this past year. Especially this past month. It rained for a week straight a couple weeks ago! Everyone’s talking about how crazy it is!
Back in Colorado, they are having a huge snowfall problem. As in, the snow isn’t falling. It’s going down as the least snowfalliest year in a long long time.
So I start thinking.
When I was in Colorado, the snow fell according to plan, and the rain didn’t fall in California.
Now I’m in California. The rain is falling here, the snow is not falling in Colorado.
I don’t think it has anything to do with global warming. Or, rather, maybe it does. And maybe global warming is tied to me. Maybe I am the physical embodiment of global warming! I mean, there is an obvious causality there, right? California + Me = massive rain. Colorado – Me = no snow. And now that I think about it, when I visited Kauai one year, it rained every day. You might say it always rains every day in Hawaii, but I think this rain was bigger and heavier than normal.
So perhaps cities that need rainfall can hire me out. Fly me first class to wherever they need some accumulation…put me up in a four star hotel…wine and dine me…generally make me really comfortable and well fed. And then wait for my global warming powers to bring precipitation their way. It might be a long wait; but as long as the hotel has a fantastic pool and hot tub, and the restaurants cater to my every beck and call, then I don’t think I’d have a problem with it. And then once I establish my rainmaking abilities here in the States, I can go global with it. And jack up my prices, obviously, because there’s only one of me and so many places in the world that would need me! And then Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey can suck it, I’d be the richest person in the country. Not that money buys happiness, of course. But it does buy a lot of shoes and tons of banana chocolate creme brulee. And that counts for something!
I’m just sayin’, it seems like I’m a part of the only logical conclusion to why it’s been so freaking rainy here in LA this winter!
My girlfriend, Jenn, came out to help me play in the rain and take tons of photographs around West Hollywood! She’s an amazing and inspiring photographer that I met on flickr back when I still lived in Colorado, so it’s been so fun to live close to her now and go on photo dates together! She was nice enough to join my in my bench monday shot for today.
Share TweetPrague, INXS, and Dreary Winter Weather.
What brings back memories for you? Is it certain smells? Taste? Images? Sounds?
For me, it’s all of the above. And while I have a horrible working memory and can quickly forget things before .34 seconds have elapsed, if I can smell/taste/look/hear something tied to the memory then I can remember it with freakish detail. I mean freakish as in almost photographically. What everyone was wearing, the typeface of the passage of text and where words were on the page, who was holding what in their hands, etc. If I knew how to control what memories were tied to what triggers, I would train myself to have a photographic memory all the time and then hire myself out to the FBI or CIA or something and become a super spy. That would be cool! At the very least, I would never again forget appointments or where I put things or what someone just said to me. Unfortunately, I can’t control it at all, and am just as liable to have forgotten everything than remember it all.
For some reason this week has been full of memory triggers of the time we lived in Budapest. For starters, I’ve been listening to a lot of INXS. Their album “Kick” blew my 15 year old mind back in the day, and I literally wore that tape out. It broke in the middle due to excessive play in my awesome walkman. The 80′s were good in a lot of ways…the music, the clothes, but most of all…for me at least…the hair. The big, curly, frizzy hair. Mine does that naturally, as did Michael Hutchins’ hair apparently. So everytime I saw him in his videos I knew I could rock his look and be seriously cool. Jennifer Aniston and her flat iron ruined it for me half a decade later…damn her! But for a while, life was good for me and my puffy hair.
I love the video for “Never Tear Us Apart” not only for his hair and wardrobe, but also because it was filmed in Prague. I watched it over and over and vowed one day I would go there and twirl around on the Charles Bridge like the girl in the video. And I would look longingly at the horizon, and walk in slow motion, and generally replay all the scenes from the video out in my real life. Because ’87 was before internet, I actually had to go to a library and work with the dewey decimal system to find books about Prague to check out so I could learn about it. ’87 was also before the fall of the Iron Curtain, so Prague was still in what was called Czechoslovakia, and I was worried that I’d never be able to visit since it was under Communist rule.
So, yadda yadda yadda, 13 years later I DID go to Prague, in what had turned in to the Czech Republic. And I DID walk on Charles Bridge. Both the bridge and the city were even more beautiful and magical than I’d even imagined.
However, I DID NOT twirl on the bridge. I also DID NOT recreate the video. Instead I was busy trying to find bananas and wafers to keep Golfer, who was 1 at the time, happy. I was trying to find a replacement stroller for him since the charming cobblestones pummeled his old one into oblivion. I was also trying to find cool things for Naturalist to see, who was 4 and not in to a tour of Prague based on INXS videos. Actually, that trip kind of sucked in an ‘everything go wrong’ kind of way that sometimes happens when traveling with small kids. Looking back, the trip taught me a lot about maintaining a certain amount of militant optimism…both on trips and in life.
In any case, cold and overcast Prague in the winter was amazing. I’ll have to go back one day and experience it again. Not only to see the things I missed the first time around, but also for the twirling. Oh yes, there will be slow motion walking on the bridge!
In honor of Prague, and INXS, and dreary winter weather, I created a photo that reminds me of all three….taken on a cold and awesomely dreary day in Malibu, when a very perceptive bird realized he could make my picture so much better if he took to flight right as I clicked my shutter. Which then made me think of one of the best lines of any INXS song. Et voila! It all came together to form one little picture that makes me remember so much.
The picture before, straight out of camera (sooc), and then after I adjusted the contrast, brightness, and color curve in Lightroom as well as added some textures in Elements:
Remember what your wings are for!
Share Tweetrain, rain!
At the beginning of last week, it was in the mid to high 80′s here in Los Angeles. Starting 3 days ago, the temperature plummeted and the rain came blowing in on dark clouds and a brisk wind. And it’s still blowing. Very rainy. Dark and cold. In short….perfectly perfect for sleeping with the windows open and wrapping up in lots of blankets. The forecast is for heavier storms to blow in tomorrow and Tuesday, finally ending Wednesday.
Whoever wrote the song “It Never Rains In Southern California” has apparently never lived here in the winter. It rains, and it gets down a toe chilling 50 degrees! Which I realize is nothing compared to the arctic 30 degrees I’d be experiencing in Colorado so I feel silly when I put on my heavy coat and wrap my wool scarf around my neck a million times. But it’s all relative. Going from 50 to 30 degrees is a big switch, and so is going from 80 to 50! I promise! That’s why I had to go out and buy a scarf. And some gloves. And long socks. And 2 coats! Granted, I’m not in danger of frostbite, but it’s starting to feel like I’m in danger of frostbite the longer I’m spoiled by warm So Cal weather.
This cold and dreary snap provided a great atmospheric photo opportunity so I went to my favorite place around here…Point Dume in Malibu. To get there I drive north, up the Pacific Coast Highway for about 20 miles, stop at Point Dume state park, then clamber over big rocks to get to the cove. It was rainy and isolated and perfect…aside from the heavy rain, but that was perfect too and the reason why I was there. Rainy day beaches are magical. I ended up drenched with sand stuck all over my clothes, but sometimes you just have to suffer for the picture. And I took so many!
I’m still looking through them, but this one I loved automatically. Empty beach, fog, crashing waves on rocks, suspended raindrops, a cliff, and a random umbrella. I tweaked with the processing a bit in Lightroom and then added a texture layer in Elements to make it look like it’s on a canvas.
this is the before:
“Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.” –Billie Holiday
I love how photography takes me outside of myself on days like yesterday. I get so focused on what’s around me that it’s almost a form of meditation…the only things that exist are what I focus on through the camera lens…sand, birds, waves, barnacles, rocks, rain. It’s part of why I’m so addicted to my camera. Whenever I get stressed or out of focus, I just pick it up and bring myself back to the present and the things around me.
It’s still pouring out there. It’s been literally non stop for the past 3 days and nights, so I’m prepared to have another fantastic night’s sleep by an open window and under a soft down blanket.
Share TweetTimelapse Tutorial!
I’ve been making lots of timelapse videos lately, and they are so delightful to me I wish I could invite them over to dinner and feed them yummy food capped off with a great dessert and a little kiss on the cheek. That’s what I want to do with anything and anyone I find as fantastic and fun as these timelapses!
Making them is so easy! And here’s what I love about them. Since I take a billion pictures with my digital SLR (Canon Rebel at the moment), I have a billion(-2) pictures that end up going to waste. Either they’re out of focus, or not quite right, or not really interesting. Since I’ve only been shooting with it for a short time (2 years, but it’s really only been a year since I figured out how it was different from my point and shoot…) I’m still learning, and the best way to learn is to shoot like my life will end unless I manage to click the camera shutter once every 35 seconds. That’s probably really annoying to the people around me, now that I think about it. But seriously, I take pictures like the camera is surgically attached to one eye and my hand.
You may find the same with your picture taking exploits. I always felt so bad erasing the bad eggs even though I’d never make prints or hang them on my wall.
And then, one day I was scrolling through a batch in Lightroom
and realized that if you look at them fast enough, together they tell a story of the day that you can’t get with just one picture. And it made me feel happy that I could use all the pictures for one project and not feel guilty for getting rid of the practically useless ones afterwards.
The timelapses that I end up with are pretty unruly and out of control…kind of like us, so I don’t mind. Because I don’t use a tripod to keep the camera steady, the videos end up with a ‘jumpy’ look to them. This is also kind of like us, so I don’t mind that either. This is a tutorial for a starter level timelapse…something to do with all your pictures that makes a fun snippet of your day.
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You need:
A camera
A large memory card to hold all the countless pictures you take.
Something to take pictures of (preferably a fun outing somewhere with people you enjoy!)
A sense of flair. You can purposely go out of focus for a few shots, zoom in and out, and kind of go crazy with it!
A Mac computer (seriously. Why use anything but an Apple?! For all you non apple peeps out there…I’m sorry. You’re SOL.***not really, I found a tutorial for you, I’ll link to it at the bottom!)
iphoto
imovie
Lightroom
or Elements
. This isn’t necessary, but I do like to adjust my pictures in lightroom before uploading them to imovie, and iphoto doesn’t cut the mustard.
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*Now go out and take pictures! To get the full effect, make sure to keep them all horizontal, it doesn’t look good to switch between vertical and horizontal when it’s going by so fast in the timelapse.
*Once you take them, upload them to Lightroom or Elements and fiddle around with the editing to get them just the right tone/color/contrast.
If you don’t want to do this, then skip right to…
*upload the pics to iphoto. This step ensures that imovie can quickly and easily snatch them up. In fact…
*upload the pics to imovie!
*imovie is linked directly to itunes and iphoto (see why Apple rocks?!) so the next steps are just once click adjustments. Click the iphoto folder your pictures are in and drag it to the space in imovie for pics. imovie annoyingly wants to give the pictures a ‘ken burns’ effect of panning on each pic, so stop it by highlighting all the pictures you have, clicking on the first picture, then clicking on the little wheel that comes up and go to ‘cropping, ken burns, & rotation’. Then click ‘fit’ over on the picture.
*now adjust the speed that each picture is shown. Movies are at a frame rate of 24 pictures every second, but that’s way to fast and jumpy for these handheld timelapses, so I make each picture show for .25 of a second. Knowing that, you can figure out how long your final timelapse will be by doing a little math. 4 pictures equals one second for me. I adjust the speed by clicking that same little wheel and then clicking on clip adjustments, and then I change the duration and make sure to apply it to all stills.
*now add music. Because imovie is hooked up to itunes, you can just click on the little music symbol tab and up pops all your sweet sweet tunes. drag the song that you want over and drop it on your photos. The green music bar also has a little wheel, so when you click on the wheel you can trim the music clip, adjust it, and adjust the audio.
*there’s also a button over by the photo and music tabs that let’s you add in text and special effects like fading in and out. Go ahead and play around with it!
I put together a couple new timelapse videos just for this post. The first one is a timelapse of an overlook off of Mulholland Drive. Frankly, I’m a little embarrassed by it…everything went wrong and the beautiful timelapse I envisioned in my head just never happened. I went to take sunset pictures, but missed the sunset due to wrestling kids who it was like trying to herd cats to get into the car.
I forgot my tripod.
I don’t have a speedlite, and it was getting dark quickly.
None of my kids was interesting in standing still for a gorgeous headshot with the LA skyline behind them.
The night was an epic photographic fail.
But, even an epic photographic fail can lead to a quirky timelapse, so I’m not sweating it. Actually, I am sweating it, and I will be until I go back up to the outlook with a tripod and at the right time with 3 kids I’ve rented who will sit and smile nicely and generally cooperate with my plans!
My second photographic fail turned timelapseis only 45 pictures long, due to a dead battery without a back up. Ah, fate, you deal me such hammer blows sometimes!!!
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Let me know if this has helped guide and inspire to make your own timelapses. Just start where you are, dig into your backlog and pick a segment of time that you shot pictures from…a day at the park, a walk in the woods, anything. Then BAM! use that Mac to it’s full purpose! Then show me what you’ve got!
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*while at the Mulholland Drive overlook, I met a dude who was there at the right time, with tripods and his Canon 5D Mark II. Turns out he does timelapses, too. But really, really nice ones. Not jumpy and spastic and out of control at all! You can check out some really amazing work over on his vimeo page.
*To see some other amazing timelapses that will make you cry from their beauty, check out Tom Lowe’s vimeo page. I’ve never met him, but follow him on flickr and am always blown away by what he captures through his lens!
***non Apple peeps..first…why?! Second, link through for a timelapse tutorial for you. Link through here for a free MovieMaker software to help edit your still pictures into a timelapse video! Yay!
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