Southern Autumn

[LumenLux]

It has taken me some time to get to comment on your nice presentation. I think the first time I watched it I was half asleep. (Not put to sleep by your Southern Autumn, but from working late on my Sunset Peak.) Your show is however, pleasantly relaxing. The second time I watched the show it was very effective but I had to watch it a 3rd time to see what really happened. Your special effects are so smooth, the viewer may not realize they are even there. Your evolving colors are perfectly done. Now can you tell me if the starting/ending tree was photographed from exactly same camera position with and without leaves? Or did you help Mother Nature with some of your own magic?

I was perhaps a little unprepared for your quiet, subtle opening. I thought at first the show did not have the "hook" that grabbed me right from the start of some of your earlier presentations. But after seeing the whole show I began to see the poetic symmetry of your production. Of course you have some great photography to work from!

Thanks for the show.

[ADB]

Hi Lumenlux

Thanks for your comments on the show, yes it was a much more sedate affair for me but I thought it suited the whole Autumn theme I guess from the point of view of the leaves it is quite a sad time however I just love that time of year.

The ending and starting shots were sequences taken of exactly the same scene from the exact same spot about 2-3 months apart. In both cases I have actually marked the ground (a quick heel kick into the ground - you would be surprised at how hard it is to find it again sometimes ) and I just go back to that exact mark and line my camera up on a fixed object and take the photo. Obviously you can't expect to get it lined up perfectly so I just import the images into Photoshop and align them using the "Difference" blend mode then aligning with the "Free Transform" function. I learnt that once you line up one detail in both images you can drag the centre circle target to that detail which then makes any rotation move around that point making it very easy to align the total image.

I may have mentioned this before but I have about 5 sites I started taking shots at about 7months ago from the exact same position with the intention of being able to a show showing the scenes transform through a variety of seasons, weather and lighting conditions. We have had a very mild winter so I am missing all my snow on the trees shots so it might not be until next year now that I can complete it. I have one sequence taken of a mountain range outside my window and the changes I have captured so far have been incredible especially when they are faded from one to another in PTE, one minute a stunning erie sunset on brown rock the next a stark snowy covered mountain in brillant white, the next a moody cloudy shot with an airline flying through the middle! I have about 20-50 images from each site so far.

Regards

Andrew