While putting together my most recent film, I spent some time re-shooting and processing old and new footage to see how the skyline has grown over the past 3-4 years. Here are some comparison gif files (use the slider to compare):
Take a fast paced timelapse tour of Austin, the fastest growing city in the United States. Filmed in 2016 and 2017, "SCENERY - Austin" is an independently funded and solo-produced timelapse and hyperlapse project exploring the growing skyline of the flourishing capital of the Lone Star State.
"SCENERY - Austin" is a compilation of highlights from 200+ hours of shooting and 600+ hours of post-production. All motion control was performed manually with hyperlapse techniques (for long-run scenes) or by leveraging my own custom designed and manufactured digital motion control systems (for the short-run scenes).
Music is courtesy of Le Nonsense (soundcloud.com/lenonsensebeats).
I'm excited to share Odyssey, a collection of some of my favorite timelapse and hyperlapse scenes I've captured over the past year in Austin, Texas.
The music is courtesy of Home (soundcloud.com/home-2001), a talented producer and composer out of Florida.
Here are a few photos from the past two months that I haven't shared yet; I very easily get swallowed up in big projects and start to neglect all my social media stuff, which I've been really bad about this summer.
One of my favorite shots in July came when I captured the moon transiting the capitol dome. The clouds were perfect and I managed to get just the image composition I was looking for.
The Moon transiting the Texas State Capitol dome
Earlier this week I was doing some traffic shots in south Austin, from which I noticed the UT tower's lighting was going on and off and had a bizarre non-tungsten color balance.
Evening Mopac traffic
When I got closer I saw that they'd brought in a special lighting system and were running through various test programs on their equipment. I realized this must be preparation for the 2015 Gone to Texas ceremony scheduled for the following night. Gone to Texas is a UT ceremony to welcome incoming freshman to the university and is so named because legend has it families that pulled up roots to move to Texas before it became a republic would write "GTT" on the door of their vacated homes, short for "Gone to Texas."
University staff ran through every color of the rainbow in varying combinations on different sections of the building and were even projecting animations and video onto the south facade of the tower. I have more photos from that night posted on my Instagram page.
Gone to Texas Class of 2019 UT tower lighting test
It's been just about a year since I released Riding the Light, and, despite shooting a ton of footage in that time, I hadn't gotten around to releasing another short film. I finally set aside some time this month to put together my latest film, Austin Nights, which I'm both excited and proud to present to you now.
The music is courtesy of yng vapor, a most excellent electronic producer and composer out of Baltimore.
Take a voyage from nightfall to daybreak across Austin, Texas.
In a city with over 300 sunny days per year, a pervasive fog shrouding the entire region is quite rare. Such conditions descended upon Austin in the early hours of March 4th, 2015.
Conditions were calm and visibility varied from 200-500 yards depending on local ground moisture.
The Long Center produces a faint glow in the midnight fog.
On a clear night Lou Neff Point in Zilker Park offers one of the best views of the Austin skyline. Move the slider below to compare foggy conditions against a clear night.
The Great Lawn in Zilker Park, still moist from a light evening drizzle, produced a dense and static ground fog.
The Zilker Park Great Lawn shrouded in fog at 3AM.
A giant Zilker Park tree against a backdrop of fog at 3AM.
I finally made my way down to the "new" boardwalk by the river and it was awesome. I sat around for a bit and snapped some sunset photos that I combined into a single transition:
The grass is green, the flowers are in bloom, and the clouds are neatly distributed across the sky. Fluffy, yet well defined. Not all spring days look like this, but in my mind, they should.
This shot was taken last Friday at the Texas State Capitol.
After getting a few requests that compelled me to work out some technical issues, I finally got around to adding a Shop page where I can sell prints of some of the still photos I've posted. Taking me back to my days restoring my often-missed Datsun 240Z, I had a case of "while I'm at it" syndrome -- one thing led to another and I wound up spending all night overhauling the entire site interface!
I think I've worked out all the major bugs, but there are likely to be a one or two that will slip through the cracks. If you have any issues with the Shop page, please let me know via the Contact form on the About page.
In the meantime, here's a photo I shot two months ago of the Texas State Capitol on a night of below freezing temperatures. I realized I'd posted this to Reddit at the time, but forgot to write a blog entry about it. The fog emanates from the massive HVAC system that heats and cools all the above- and underground facilities of the capitol complex. Usually it's invisible, but the low temperature that night caused the humid air to immediately condense into fog.
A print of this photo is available for purchase on the Shop page.
I'm excited and proud to present my new film, Riding the Light, a flying winter journey around downtown Austin. Shot during the winter of 2013-2014, Riding the Light is my third solo hyperlapse cityscape project, building on the techniques I honed in Sleepwalking Austin and Spectral Austin. It is the product of many late nights and early mornings shooting, many numb extremities in the coldest conditions Austin has to offer, and a very great many long hours in front of a computer screen. I hope that you enjoy watching this film as much as I enjoyed creating it -- if you do, I encourage you to share it, especially with any friends who are inbound for SXSW over the coming weeks!
Music courtesy of Draper -- Do It Right from Sonder EP, an excellent release I highly recommend in its entirety.
