Time Lapse of Lac La Belle

After seeing the endless possibilities I had for this second drift walk, I was really excited to try something new. At first, I planned on having still images placed into a slide show, and have each slowly dissolve into the next. However, I wasn’t too sure how this would look combined with normal paced sound. So, I decided to do my first attempt at time lapse photography.

Going into this I really didn’t know how many photos it would take to create a decent length movie. After looking into it some more, I learned I would need at least 1000 photos to make it over a minute. I was a little surprised and discouraged at the same time after finding this out. Mainly, because I had to do all of this in the next 3 hours. I gave myself just enough time for my walk, and was more then happy with what I captured. It was on my drive home when I realized the hard part was still to come. I thought to myself, “how am I going to edit the 1000+ photographs that I just took?”

I was not too happy for the next couple weeks as I figured I would need to individually edit 150 photos a night in order to get the video done on time. It took me three hours a night for four nights to complete the first sequence of images. This included adjusting levels, contrast, altering the image to black and white while adding a hint of red, and adding soft light. I was exhausted, and decided there had to be another way to finish the remaining photos. I’ve used Photoshop for a few years, and never knew you could process multiple files at once. I ran into this by accident, and was in disbelief. It was a lifesaver, because I was able to change levels, fix contrast, color, and sharpen my photos all at once. However, I was a little disappointed with these options for the remaining photos. Mainly, because I wanted the second sequence of images to look similar to what you see in the beginning of the video.

My idea for this video was for it to represent the condition of our economy. At first, you see images that are dark while hearing rain with distant thunder storms. I was hoping to have the second sequence of images to be slightly less dark, and have the rain slowing coming to a stop. (But, I was not unable to process multiple files this way so I decided against it.) Then, the last scene would include the peaceful sounds along with the sunset to symbolize hope for our economy’s improvement.

Overall, I think the sounds still go along nicely with the images; and I’m overall satisfied with what I created.