Category: The Sweetwater Seas

Time-lapse of clouds and water

February 13, 2018
cloudsenvironmenteveningfilmGreat Lakes ProjectLake MichiganLake MichiganLighthouse Beachnature photographyRichard Mack PhotographyThe Sweetwater SeasThe Sweetwater Seastime-lapsewaterwaterwaves

 

I’ve been shooting time-lapse for awhile now and am always amazed at how cool it can be when you see the final results. Working on The Sweetwater Seas – A Documentary About the Great Lakes,  I have done a fair amount of time-lapse with moving clouds, stars and the water. The other day here in Evanston it was cloudy and very windy until about an hour before sunset when the clouds started breaking apart and moving out over Lake Michigan. I ran down to Lighthouse Beach to try a time-lapse but this time using a 1 second exposure to make the waves smoother and the clouds wispy as they moved across the sky. It was a nice result which I shall use more in the future – maybe even with longer exposures of 5-10 seconds. As those who shoot either still images or time-lapse, which after-all is just a collection of still images shot at a timed interval, shooting at sunrise / sunset can be a difficult exposure challenge as the light changes. There are cable releases now that you can tie into your cellphone, tablet or laptop which can allow you to ramp the exposures along the way but I didn’t use that this time as it is new to me. I did adjust the exposures over time by 1/3 of a stop and then in Lightroom adjusted the images even more to even out the exposures even more.

The tech specs. The camera is the Canon 5D Mark IV with the 16-24 F2.8 lens. The exposures ranged from 1 second at F19 to f11. There are 538 images. Each shot was 3 seconds apart so with a 1 second exposure there is 2 seconds between shots. It took 27 minutes to shot this 20 second time-lapse which is at 24 frames er second.

One more thing about shooting a time-lapse is the perspective it gives you. Once you have set everything up and started the camera shooting it becomes your time. Instead of constantly looking for the next image you can just sit there and quietly reflect on what nature is putting in front of you. A peaceful time for me when sitting by the Great Lakes. This was no different. I also had the place almost to myself as only a few folks came down walking there dogs or at the halfway point of a run they were doing. All stopped and gazed at the sunset as well before returning to whence they had come from. People enjoy the Great Lakes – a precious resource for us all.

 

Shooting Farms in Wisconsin

June 7, 2017
Aerial PhotographyAgriculturealgae bloomsdroneenvironmentGreat Lakes ProjectLake Michigannutrient runoffRichard Mack's BlogThe Sweetwater SeasThe Sweetwater Seas

Last week we shot for our documentary The Sweetwater Seas – North America’s Great Lakes up in Wisconsin to continue our story on the nutrient runoff affecting the Great Lakes. Greenbay has an algae bloom like Saginaw Bay’s and Lake Erie’s. In Greenbay there is almost an annual dead zone where nothing grows as a result of the algal blooms. Farmers are working with the Natural Resources Conservation Services as part of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to mitigate the nutrient runoff. We were at Brickstead Dairy, a family-owned farm in its fifth generation that is a demonstration farm for other farmers and the public to see what types of different agricultural practices might help the situation. We were there to shoot them planting into the fields that were protected by cover crops all winter, which helps preserve the soil while improving its biology so that it more readily accepts the moisture from snow and rain. I have done a lot of farm projects over the years for CaseIH and Caterpillar Tractor, but now we were shooting video and using a drone to get the aerials we wanted. Even with 15-mile-per-hour winds the Solo drone by 3DR was rock steady in the air as we shot 4K video on a beautiful day. We also put a GoPro on the planter down low to see a different angle as the planter went through the fields of cover-crop rye.

Now to assemble all these shots into the storyline for this segment of the film. Stay tuned!

Cheers,

Richard

The Sweetwater Seas in 100 Words

June 7, 2016
Great Lakes ProjectRichard Mack PhotographyThe Sweetwater SeasThe Sweetwater SeasThe Sweetwater SeasVideowater

The Sweetwater Seas in 100 Words is a quick introduction to the feature-length documentary film. In it we reveal the beauty, majesty, and challenges faced by the Great Lakes, which we will cover fully in the hour-long documentary. We plan to enter this short version in this year’s “100-Word Film Festival.”

We have released several quick and delicious film clips for our documentary The Sweetwater Seas – North America’s Great Lakes so far and plan on releasing many more this summer which will be small episodes from those who live and work on the Great Lakes as we tell their stories. Some will be about the challenges the lakes face and have faced in the past, some about historic past events on the lakes, travelling the lakes and some will be about the beauty and majesty these lakes encompass.

THE SWEETWATER SEAS is a feature documentary that integrates science and fine-art videography to explore one of North America’s wonders. The film examines the latest thinking about the environmental sustainability of the Great Lakes Watershed and seeks to engage viewers into making a difference. Although 42 million people live within the Watershed, most have never been around their own lake, much less all five. We will take them on a voyage of discovery to rival Champlain’s.

The project will reveal the natural landscape and its geological history, the watershed’s cityscapes, and its vast industrial and agricultural areas. Humans started living near these immense bodies of water tens of thousands of years ago, but it is only in the last few centuries that human activity has impacted the environment of the lakes. To engage viewers THE SWEETWATER SEAS will offer both images of great beauty in the natural world that surrounds the lakes as well as video of the tides of pollution and invasive species that threaten this magnificent resource. By using the voices of scientists, environmentalists, political leaders, engaged corporations and everyday people around the lakes, the story of these extraordinary bodies of water—their history, their importance and threats to their health—will be explored and explained.

We hope you’ll enjoy each and every segment.

Cheers,

Richard