Just wanted to share a quick shot I took this morning at sunrise from the Palmer Events Center. I've been chasing a cloudless sunrise for a few mornings now with no luck; at least the cloudy sunrises have a few nice moments!
Austin Nights
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.
A Midnight Fog
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.
"Super" Moonset
I managed to stop by campus tonight just in time to catch the Moon setting behind the UT tower.
This is the tail end of what the media has been calling the "black supermoon," but really "supermoon" just means the moon is at the perigee (minimum altitude) of its slightly eccentric orbit when a full or a new moon occurs.
The Green Flash
Usually when photographers talk about the green flash, they mean something entirely different from this:
If you happen to be looking, there's about a 30-40 second window where the rooftop lighting of the Frost Bank Tower is just warming up. This makes the roof panels glow green until their color balance gradually stabilizes and they turn white. I always thought it was cool, and it's one of those things I would never have noticed had I not been a timelapse shooter.
Shooting through the Rain
During one of the rainy weeks in December I made a few attempts at shooting some footage despite the weather. Because of the extra glow in the atmosphere, the lighting, especially as the sun sets, can be an interesting change from a normal cloudless sunset.
This shot is the last frame of a hyperlapse I was shooting:
I particularly like this moment because of the gradient of colors in the sky. The sun had previously set to the left, and the receding scattered blue was moving across the sky, mixing with the orange light from the sodium vapor street lamps that began to dominate the atmospheric glow.
Seconds later I had to abort because my light and pleasant drizzle had turned into a torrential downpour, the likes of which I'd never been caught out in before. My improvised oven-bag-and-tape rain gear would just not do, so I hurriedly packed it all in and made the long 1 mile walk back to where I parked. I definitely discovered the limits of my "water repellant" outer shell and wound up soaked to the bone. This was the first serious rain test of my rucksack, which I'm happy to report did quite well! Aside from the rain that got in during loading, everything inside was dry despite the outer shell being completely soaked.
Fun fact: I recently learned the technical difference between rain and drizzle -- take a look at a puddle; if the water droplets hit with enough energy to create a splash, it's rain. If it just creates a ripple and gets absorbed without ejecting any water, it's drizzle.
-AT
A Bridge through the Clouds
The Quadrantids meteor shower was a total bust here in Austin; the radiant point was below the horizon during the predicted peak and a light cirrus layer to the north and a full moon made sure I wouldn't see any stragglers.
However, the silver lining is that my planned shooting site up at Lake Travis gave me an early warning to a layer of lake/river fog flowing through the Colorado River valley from the north and I was able to make it to the 360/Pennybacker Bridge just in time to capture it.
Happy New Year, Austin!
We got cheated out of our big annual New Year's Eve fireworks in Austin due to perceived weather issues, but citizens on the east side certainly didn't let that stop them. As the clock struck midnight a low constant rumble flowed over the Austin landscape, an endless barrage of fireworks shooting up along the entire horizon to the east.
Although the big Butler Park fireworks show was cancelled, it's ostensibly being rescheduled for some other date in the next month or two. Hopefully there will be some better photo opportunities then!
Sunset on the Boardwalk
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 Lighthouse
Just a super short piece I shot Saturday night during the first UT game of the season vs. UNT.
My seat was well beyond what you would call the nose-bleeds, but I still knew the outcome thanks to our wonderful tower lighting tradition!