Life on a Farm Intro

So this is the introduction piece I handed in for the most recent assessment.

I'm not entirely sure what I think of it any more as it turned out a lot more commercial than I had envisioned... I'm hoping that the final piece for my hand-in in May will have gone in a different direction... So yes, enough waffle. Let me know what you think;

 

C'est fini!

So here it is ladies and gentlemen, the first preview of the video...



I've still got some time to change some little bits here and there, but it's pretty much there. Let me know what you think!

Bluebells

So after a long wait the bluebells in Cornwall are out in all their glory. I went down to Enys Gardens, home to the largest area of open parkland bluebells in the country. I primarily did some filming and a couple of timelapses, but here are some macro shots that I couldn't resist taking.

If you can make it down there, by this weekend you should see them fully opened. http://www.enys.co.uk/index.html

Cataloguing

I have now packed away the studio I've been using over the last 4 weeks, and so begins the mammoth task of sorting through the photos. I have over 30,000 images to go through, sort and reorder. By the end of this I'll have some idea of what I have, and what else I need to capture. I want to move onto outdoor timelapses of landscape scenes.

Here is the raw footage of the grape hyacinth growth... it didn't grow as I had expected but I have plenty to work with.

Update on the frogs - they survived their car journey across the country, are doing well and are growing their back legs!

Progress

So this last week has been one of successes, failures and lessons learnt.

The frogspawn was a great success and are rapidly turning into pretty huge tadpoles. Here's a rough cut of the timelapse of the frogspawn hatching into tadpoles;

The snowdrop timelapse failed due the snowdrop dying, probably due to the warmth of the room, and the timelapse of the roots, although they had a very promising start, have ceased growing.

I have however  moved on and have new setups. I've decided to capture the flowering of these plants, as growth right from the bulb is just too prone to mistakes. Here are the primrose, snow bell (snowdrop hybrid) and grape hyacynth stills;

All images ©Lydia Harris 2012

Timelapse Blooper

So here's the result of the first night trial run... it may take those with a few years of photographic training to see what went wrong.

I have now invested in a large reel of tape...

Trial Run

So today saw the planting up of the snowdrops and the setting up an overnight trial run, mainly to work out interval times and also to see if the flash batteries will last for that long!

I'm struggling with my lighting at the moment. The room where I am has no natural light which is a blessing as I have complete control over the lighting, but not such good news for the plants. My zoology housemate managed to procure a uv lightbulb from her biology lecturer, however it is from an age where 160watt light fittings were available thus I spent the afternoon fruitlessly wandering round various electical suppliers trying not to look like a grow-your-own weed smoking student. I'm still searching, so if anyone has any electrical wisdom they could pass on I would be very grateful!

Timelapse Backgrounds

I've been out shooting backgrounds for my timelapses to be shot against today. Here are the final ones that'll be printed tomorrow...

Hope the out of focus-ness doesn't mess with your eyes too much!

All images ©Lydia Harris 2012

Seasonal Change Timelapses

So new semester kicks off with a new project. I am looking at seasonal change from winter to spring and as part of this I'm going to be doing studio timelaspses of growth. I will be shooting all your archetypal spring plants; bluebells, snowdrops, primroses, lily of the valley, cyclamen, as well as looking a root growth, and hopefully frogspawn.

Here is the full kit I'm going to use (apologies for the ugly carpert!). So for the next 4 weeks I'm going to have 3 setups running at any one time so as to get as much footage as I can.

I'll be posting new updates and works in progress as the term goes on!

Clouds

I'm pretty excited to announce that my certificate and badge arrived in the post to officially welcome me as member 28,415 of The Cloud Appreciation Society. Here is a timelapse I made whilst I was appreciating clouds... enjoy!