✨ Creative Output ✨
by Kevin Parry
Spinning a Camera Around a Mountain
This week's message - think big and then figure out the details.
Ten years ago, I got really into the hyperlapse technique. It's basically a timelapse, except you're introducing camera movement over sizeable distances.
I had recently moved to Portland, Oregon, and thought, "What's the largest thing I could move a camera around?" The answer was Mt Hood.
A lot of creative endeavors start like that. Think as big or outlandish as possible and then try to make it a reality. I had no idea if what I wanted to do would work, but the creative journey is attempting to get there.
Making the Video
Goal is to find a circular path around the mountain from which to photograph.
Luckily, highways surround about 1/2 of Mt Hood.
Research all hiking paths and viewpoints on the remaining 1/2.
With all that information, plan 36 evenly spaced locations with views of the mountain.
Sort those locations into manageable day trips.
Once captured, align every photograph so that the mountain maintains size in the frame.
Add some motion blur to the foreground elements so that they're less visually chaotic.
Fun Facts
Production required 4 trips to the mountain.
It took 2+ hours of hiking to get to some of the locations along the west side of the mountain.
36 locations, but 72 individual photographs. At each location I would take a photograph and then side step 10ft for a second photograph. This creates a subtle, directional movement in the foreground elements. Without it, the foreground simply flashes.
Today's pocket sized drones would make this infinitely easier as you could send it up above the trees and photograph. At the time, drones were the size of cars so I had to find locations where the mountain was visible from the ground.
Shoutout to www.nwhiker.com, who had documented all of the trails and where the mountain would be visible.
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