Moving Photographs

What happens when a photographer walks around town on a windy and sunny day with, not a still camera, but a video camera? Photographs...that move.

On my walk yesterday I had quite a few American Beauty moments1 where something as simple as a flower dancing in the wind made me stop and admire Nature. When I filmed the first few clips, I didn't know how I would put them together, but by about the fifth one, the idea for this video was formed. In anticipation of a new power computer that will be arriving shortly, I decided to start learning After Effects, a professional video editing program from Adobe. After watching a few tutorials I have to say that I'm hooked, and looking forward to editing future videos in ways that iMovie hasn't a chance. All I've learned how to do so far is make titles track objects in the movie. The effect is pretty nice, I think you'll agree.

The clip with the yellow flowers was the last one I filmed, and I never saw the bumble bee until I got back home and got the video off the camera. What superb luck!

On this video more than others, I highly recommend watching in HD on YouTube or Vimeo.

Feel free to leave a comment as to which clip you liked best. I have a hard time deciding, myself.

1"And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever." My brain will forever follow that thought with Family Guy's mockery of having God step out from behind a cloud and say, "It's just a freakin' plastic bag blowing in the wind! Do you have any idea how complicated your circulatory system is!?"