Chers lecteurs,

Il est grand temps que je vous propose un nouveau TIMELAPSE d’exception, tant par son travail iconographique que typographique, (auquel je suis sensible), sans oublier la musique choisie avec soin, et qui approche sans surprise le million de spectateurs en quelques jours.

Tout le monde en parle, dont des médias américains aussi prestigieux que the Washington Post, USA Today, VH1, Newsweek, Gizmodo, io9, Universe Today, France24, The Atlantic…

Le voici :

Ce TIMELAPSE vous est proposé par JOE CAPRA, qui habite Los Angeles.

Je l’ai découvert comme tout le monde sur le web, et réalisais à la 3e lecture — avec une certaine fierté je dois l’avouer — que Joe est un de mes lecteurs !

Il a en effet préparé son voyage photographique en lisant mon ROADTRIP, et en achetant mon eROADBOOK en janvier 2011, 6 mois avant son départ.

Je lui ai envoyé un email de félicitations pour son travail, et en profitais pour avoir un précieux feedback sur mon eROADBOOK, afin de savoir s’il avait été utile à son expédition ?

Voici sa réponse :

“Hello Michael ! Yes I did use your eROADBOOK during my trip and it was a HUGE help ! You did a great job and I am glad I had it with my on my trip and to use for planning the trip. It was my main book to use for planning the trip. The images you included were very helpful, and your photography is amazing! It was good to be able to relate an image with the names of the locations.

The eROADBOOK was exactly the type of information I was looking for to plan and use on my trip! I spent along time though trying to convert it to English because I don’t speak French. I highly recommend your eROADBOOK to any travelers to Iceland.”

Toujours curieux des expériences de chacun, j’en profitais pour lui proposer une petite interview, Joe s’y est prêté de bonne grâce, la voici donc, en exclusivité :

JOE CAPRA / SCIENTIFANTASTIC /
INTERVIEW  

How old are you Joe ?

I am 33 years old.

Where do you live ? 

I was born and raised in Santa Barbara California. I lived there until I left for college at the University of Southern California (USC) which is in Los Angeles California. Since moving to LA for college I have never left. I still currently live in Los Angeles.

How long do you practice photography ?

I have been into photography and film ever since I was young. I had a few simple cameras when I was younger, but I got my first real SLR camera (Canon Rebel XT) in 2005 and that’s when I started getting more serious about photography. Since then I have had many cameras, lenses, and gear. I mainly do photography as a hobby, but hope one day to make it my fulltime job.

What decided you to go in Iceland ? Was it your first trip to the north ?

The main inspiration for my trip to Iceland was watching Michael Reichmann’s (from luminous-landscape.com) video journal on his trip to Iceland. It looked and sounded like the perfect photographic location, especially for landscapes which is what I primarily shoot. I love to be away from people and crowds when I shoot and Iceland seemed to offer me amazing landscapes with hardly any people around.

Also the fact that it would be light out 24 hours a day giving me hours of golden light. Iceland seems like the most ideal location for me and it did not disappoint.

Why going there in june ? Because of the light ? and why alone ?

I went in June (June 17-July 3 2011) because it is a little early for the tourist season, which meant there would be less people and crowds at some of the popular locations. I also went in June because of the midnight sun and the 6 or so hours of golden light that it offered me for photography. I went alone because I was planning on shooting pretty much 24 hours a day, hiking in the middle of the night, sleeping in the car (tiens, ça me rappelle quelque-chose… NDA), and just eating whenever I had free time.

I don’t think anyone I know would want to go on a vacation like that.

I am the type of person who does not want to go on vacation and just walk around cities or just lay on the beach all day long. I like to get out and see and experience the countries I visit. Going alone also allowed me to go where I wanted, when I wanted, and stay at locations as long as I wanted without having to worry about the needs of another person with me. It allowed me to take my time and get the shots that I was able to get. Photography, especially Timelapse Photography is not for everyone and is very demanding both physically and mentally.

Why planning a timelapse instead of still photographs ?

I actually planned on doing still photography, timelapse, and shoot video while I was there, but my main focus was timelapse and still photography. I would shoot still photographs and video in between timelapse shots. I came back with 38,000 images total from Iceland. I wanted to process and get the timelapse video completed before I went through all of my still images from the trip.

So now that the timelapse video is complete I will be focusing on my still images and some of the video I shot while I was there. So stay tuned for some still image galleries and maybe a short full motion video.

I wonder Joe… how do you manage the workflow & the post-production process for a timelapse ?
I mean : Do you adjust colors, contrast etc. for several photos at the same time ? Do you use Lightroom before importing them in After Effect ?

My workflow was a little different for this video because I was using LRTimelapse (lrtimelapse.com). LRTimelapse allows you to adjust raw processing settings over a period of time. I would open the timelapse image sequence in Lightroom and process only a few of the images in the timelapse sequence. For most images I did the usual processing required for raw files such as exposure, contrast, and saturation.

Then I open the image sequence in LRTimelapse and allow it to make the raw adjustments for the rest of the images. When LRTimelapse was finished I would import the image sequence into Adobe After Effects to combine them into a movie file and edit the video. I used the Warp Stabilizer in After Effects to remove any camera shake and movement from the wind. Overall it worked out pretty well, but there are a few things in my workflow I could improve on for the next video. It took me a lot longer then I expected.

How was the weather ?

The weather was both good and bad during my trip. When I first arrived I had perfect weather. It was warm (maybe 60 degrees fahrenheit), the sun was shining bright, and there was not a cloud in the sky. Although this was great weather, it was bad for photography and especially timelapse. Clouds in the sky show movement during a timelapse, and without any clouds or other moving objects the timelapse shots I could do were very limited. You can see a few shots in my video where not much is happening other then the camera moving. As I moved to the West Fjords the weather started getting better photographically. More clouds appeared in the sky and the sunsets and sunrises gave me very good colors in the clouds. The Northern part of the country is where the weather started getting bad, but never really bad.

At first the weather was pretty good in the North, a good mix of sun and clouds. After a day or two it started becoming overcast with clouds covering most of this sky. This was kind of a disappointment as the sunset and sunrise was not that great because of the clouds. I did manage to get some decent shots though during periods where there were breaks in the clouds. The eastern part of the country was very similar to the North. Then as I moved to the South the sun started coming out again and offered a good mix of sun and clouds. At the end of my trip it started to rain and I was not able to shoot much at all during that period.

Overall the weather was very good and offered great shooting conditions. I found the saying “If you don’t like the weather in Iceland then wait 5 minutes” (Ce fameux adage ne se vérifie malheureusement pas toujours ! NDA) to be true because the weather conditions changed so often. Wind was the biggest issue with weather on my trip. There were many locations where it was just too windy to shoot timelapse or stills. The wind is really bad especially for timelapse.

Any special  (good or bad) memories about the trip ?

The entire trip was one amazing memory ! Nothing bad happened luckily. One thing that really stands out is the story behind the vertical shot of the Lupin flower field at the 1:00 minute mark in the video. This was a day that had been cloudy, windy, and a little rainy all day. It was about half way through my trip and I had decided to stay in a hotel. I think I checked into the hotel at around midnight, took a shower, and then started transferring images off my camera and onto external hard drives. It was about 2 am in the morning and I was still transferring files to my hard drive when I decided to look out the window. I pulled the curtains back to look outside and I was completely blown away by what I saw.

Somehow the clouds cleared out a little bit and the most amazing and colorful sunset I have seen was happening right in front of me inside my hotel room. So I grabbed all my gear and jumped into the car to try to find a location to shoot at. I drove maybe 15 minutes down the road and I came upon this amazing field of Lupin flowers on the banks of Lagarflot Lake. So I setup a couple timelapse shots in the Lupid field. This sunset was one of the most amazing I have ever seen, and I had almost missed it by staying in a hotel for the night.

Any idea of your Next trip ?

I have not thought to much about my next trip, but a friend just came back from Patagonia and some of his images were amazing. So I may research Patagonia more. I would also love to go back to Iceland during the winter time.

Thanks again for offering such a great eROADBOOK, it really really helped me out.

Joe.

» La page Vimeo de Joe se trouve ici : http://vimeo.com/30581015

NEW ! Buy THE ICELANDIC eROADBOOK FRENCH and ENGLISH VERSION on this page :

https://international-photographer.com/en/maps-guides/

Le TIMELAPSE,vous connaissez tous.

On pose son camescope sur un trépied, on appuie sur • Rec, on attends une heure et on se le repasse en accéléré.

Mais attention, pour faire un TIMELAPSE  de cette qualité (voir la vidéo ci-dessous), il vous faudra :

- un 5D mark 2
- un 14mm 2.8
- un 24mm 1.4
- un 135mm 2.0
- un 70-200mm 2.8 IS

Ah oui, puis j’allais oublier : un énorme talent, et un an de travail.

Mais le résultat est là, signé du collègue photographe canadien Dominic Boudreault.

Mode d’emploi : Posez votre souris, enfoncez-vous dans votre fauteuil, cliquez sur plein écran, et montez le son.

Votre rythme cardiaque va s’accélérer ou ralentir, c’est selon.

C’est ici :

PS : Les lieux où le photographe à posé son trépied sont :
— Montreal, Quebec, Canada
— Quebec city, Quebec, Canada
— Toronto, Ontario, Canada
— Manhattan, New York, USA
— Chicago, Illinois, USA

PS 2 : Une partie du secret : ce n’est pas une vidéo qui est shootée, mais des photographies qui sont assemblées image par image.

PS 3 : Un conseil : attendez que la vidéo soit totalement chargée avant de la visionner, cela évitera de la voir par saccades.