Category: waves

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.

 

Yesterday’s Sunrise

November 8, 2007
Great Lakes ProjectLighthouse BeachseeingSunrisewaves

lighthousebeachsunrise-20071107-0003.jpg

Yesterday morning I headed down to Lighthouse Beach at 5:30am to catch the Moon, Venus and Mercury lined up in the early morning sky. I had wanted to go down on Monday morning when a bit earlier in the morning you had three planets, the moon and then the Space Shuttle and Space Station, just after they separated going overhead through all four in the night sky. But Monday was cloudy. So I waited for a break in the clouds. At my house, about 5280 feet from the beach, maybe a few more, there were no clouds overhead. Yet down at the lake, the clouds hung low over the sky. I ended up seeing Venus brightly overhead in between the clouds, but never saw the sliver of moon or Mercury. And as I wrote in the last entry, sometimes you head out to photograph one thing and end up with some very fun surprises. This was the case on this morning.

I am very familiar with this beach, as I have been coming here since I was a kid. Back then it was for swimming or playing, now for the photographs. It is a small beach – only a couple of hundred yards long, and with small dunes behind them in one area. As I shot I thought about how many people might not “see” the images you can find here. They would see a nice scene and walk the beach and then leave. Yet, I see in each wave a new dimension. A new form though the lens. And when I was done with the sky and cloud images, having figured at some point I had more than enough to edit, I began looking at some of the details which the big waves left behind.

lighthousebeachsunrise-20071107-0214.jpg

As the clouds made interesting patterns in the sky, they broke just at the horizon just enough to let shafts of light come down from above. The lake was rough with waves which provided a great foreground to the clouds overhead, or is it the other way around? The waves being the main image and the clouds being a fine background. My thought process went from shooting the planets and moon to the waves and sky. Wide open shots, to close in shots.
lighthousebeachsunrise-20071107-0311.jpg
When you start looking at the details there is an infinite number of images to be found. At some point you think – “When do I stop?” For me it was about 2 hours after I started. I need to get home for some of the contractors working on the house. Back to reality of working, although this was being at work for me as some of these images may make it into one of my next books, a set of images on the Great Lakes. It is always an enjoyable time when I am out shooting. Whether at the local beach or in a National Park or overseas. Making images comes easily for most photographers. It is what we do.

lighthousebeachsunrise-20071107-0340.jpg

To see more from the take you can follow this link http://www.mackphoto.com/blog/LighthouseBeach/index.html

And remember, you can subscribe to the blog by using the links below, and leave comments or questions as well. Hope to hear from you!

Thanks,
Richard