Well, in my previous post I was talking about doing a self-challenge as I used to do before and head to work with one camera and one lens (did that already with 50mm lens) and this time to be using 20mm lens. Anyway, for some technical reasons, I had to delay this for a while until I finish some experiments at home. Why? Because I'm using the intervalometer in shooting some time-lapse at home, and I do need the intervalometer to shoot long exposures as I'm planning, at work, if possible. So, I'm waiting!
Mentioning time-lapse, there is one big deal which occupied me for a while and I was not able to post about it in the previous post because I was simply busy processing the images and the video. Let's see…
Frozen
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| Refreshen Source In this shot I've used a continuous light source focused on the glass and the ice cubes in a dark room and with a considerably long exposure. |
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| The set where the shooting took place, with 3 speedlites at work. |
The main problem though was to make the ice block and how to make it interesting! After thinking thoroughly, and after noticing some candy tins which were prepared specially for some occasion I'm not aware of. Anyway, my brother helped me remove the golden paint on the tin, but still some work was left since the tin had some design. Not willing to paint it all over again, I've used balloons to cover the tin and make it all red (after felling it with marbles). Then, I've prepared a cylindrical canister open from two sides and filled it with water with the tin inside (hence the marbles to sink it down). I did face some problems here but let's not delve into these details, as they were about to drive me nuts!
The shoot in action.
Before the actual shooting takes place, I did practice on a glass in the same position where the ice block would be. I got the 3 speedlites to work perfectly as I need, despite the cumbersome settings or light modifiers I'm using here. I used 2 speedlites on the side, and one speedlite with a snoot to cast some light in the background even though, initially, I didn't want to do that in the first place, but then I thought it would be a good idea to separate the ice block from the pitched darkness of the background; However, in all 3 speedlites, I tried to use the minimum power to give just a hint about the boundaries and not illuminate everything (and this is also useful to save power more because I was not sure how long this process will be), and thus all speedlites were on powers less than 1/8 of the maximum.
Frosted Love
Time-lapse
Time-lapse
It took me around 5 hours (or maybe a bit more) for the ice to melt down to considerable and acceptable amount (but not completely!). The hardest part was to remove that ice spot on the surface of the heart which seems to be there for hours and I was afraid that it won't melt down at all. I did melt it down a little but not completely (using a kitchen torch).
I had my lesson now for working with ice. It is probably the most unstable thing on planet Earth! You will notice how the ice block in the time-lapse moves around; Unfortunately, something I couldn't prevent or avoid. The white powder scattered around the block is actually salt which I used to stabilize the block in one place, but even with that, the block would rotate around itself as it was melting. You might have also noticed some purple spot in the lower right corner (and there are two of them if you checked the photo of the set above). These were clay (play-doh) pieces which I used to raise the acrylic board just a little to balance the block, but even with that, the block kept on moving left and right and I realized I would need salt here. For this reason, it was such an exhaustive work for 5 hours or so, even though I thought I would rest a bit while the process takes its own pace; I was completely wrong! I had to run often to the set to check its process and to adjust the block manually in between the shots. I'm happy though that the lighting from the speedlites kept consistency and there is almost no change in the light level in the video.
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| Defrosting Love |
Finally, I didn't forget my major aim for this whole "little" project here, which is an image (and not a time-lapse video). With such a huge amount of images (more than 580 shots), I was a bit puzzled at what I'm aiming for, or more precisely, what images do I need to mimic the thawing of the ice (the time-lapse was in reverse so it was like if the heart is frosting not defrosting). Thus, I've set my mind to pick one image with 100 shots apart in between (approximately). The resulting image, Defrosting Love, was formed by blending the images using Lighten mode mostly but later needed some work with layer masks to hide some unneeded artifacts. The hurdle though was with the red tones as their saturation and lighting were a bit troublesome to tone down and keeping a natural level. Anyway, seems (just seems) I got it right.
Now, I still need to add some keywords to the image and get it ready to be uploaded to stock websites. Though I finished this little project a while ago, but I was really busy with other things around which kept me (or rather made me forget) about uploading this image. As for the time-lapse, I'm still reluctant to upload to stock websites (some of them accept footage) as it doesn't seem quite perfect, but I'm keeping my options open for the time being. I'm typing these words as I'm working on another project which hopefully I'll be posting about soon when it's over, and also I need to get ready for another idea which is cooking at the back of my head! I'm having a rain of ideas, and probably I should thank winter for it!
Finale
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| AC-E6N AC Adapter for some Canon cameras, including Canon EOS 7D. |
This was a quick journey through a little project which I've done lately, and somehow it got me keen on trying more time-lapses, if possible. It also sparked my interest in getting one of those AC adapters for the camera and thus I wouldn't have to change the batteries often during the time-lapse shooting; It's quite critical to keep the camera untouched as much as possible. I asked about it around and the shop owner said it might be available in 3 weeks or so and I didn't really find it in listings of other shops around. I'm not going to order that with international shipping as well, as it's not really worth all that money for this item alone (I don't have anything else to order along with it). So, I guess all I can do for now is wait!
Many ideas are running through my mind right now, and just to name few: Reviving the Scopa project which I've stopped months ago, and maybe, just maybe, I might try to go out at night like I used to do before and shoot something (crossing fingers to not encounter any annoyances). This is beside challenging myself with the one-camera one-lens challenge.
Because of all of this "indulgence" with ideas, I really had little time to connect with myself and write a poem. I'm breaking my own promise to myself of writing at least one poem a month. I didn't compose any poem in December, and now January is on its beginnings, yet I'm not sure if I will write anything.
Despite this enthusiasm and this mind running with ideas, I'm on the contrary to all of that, tired. So tired. Of everything. Overthinking is taking its toll on me and I'm fighting back with whatever power left in me. This aside, I've noticed how much I'm getting frustrated and angry and simply irritated by simple things. They say this usually happens when a person keeps so much inside without venting or dealing with these feelings; All that would show later as a burst of anger against the silliest of things. This is what is happening to me really.
Deep inside me, there is a perplexing mix of feelings of love and hate, eagerness and despise, but the greatest of all of these feelings, is the fear from tomorrow...
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