384 - Glass Beach
Alright, alright, alright- I admit it. I cheated with Photoshop today. But who cares, anyway? Today's shoot was at Glass Beach in California.
In order to get to Glass Beach, I'm pretty sure we had to drive down the windiest road on the globe. It's called Highway 1, and if you're coming from the north, it's the only way to Fort Braggs (the city of Glass Beach.)
Needless to say, by the time we arrived, I was about to throw up everywhere. Luckily, we parked right on the beach and had a couple hours to study until sunset. Today's project was a DEEP dive in the flick Watchtower of Turkey. I mentioned this video the other day in my Shore Acres shoot, which was the day I decided to focus more on videography. I'm obsessed with this video.
Long story short, I re-watched it about 20 times in super slow motion to study FRAME BY FRAME what was happening. I picked up some solid tips, mainly that it involves a lot of match cuts, time remapping, and quick cuts. Essentially if I wanted to replicate that, I'd need to take hundreds and hundreds of shots, then match them by similarities/eye flow in the edit. AKA lots and lots and LOTS of time.
When the sunset finally started to emerge, we went out to shoot and the first thing I noticed was how many birds were on the beach. I shot everything in 120fps and practiced movement shots that could be used as transitions. Before I knew it, the sun was LITERALLY setting.
Fuck....... Learning videography while trying to do photography is hard. Goddamn. OK- time to focus. I need a SINGLE FRAME. Believe it or not, capturing movement in things is very different than capturing movement in a single frame. Completely different skill sets.
I changed my perspective and decided to shoot the sunset right in front of me over the water. It was my best bet. I noticed the birds kept darting in front of the sun, and I realized that if I captured a bird right in front of it, it'd be a miracle shot.
Well... It's much harder than it looks. Despite shooting at 1/2000s, I missed the timing by milliseconds several times. Finally the sun actually set and I didn't have the shot. Fuck.
Aannnnndddd that's where Photoshop comes in. I just clipped one shot of the bird and one shot of the sunset together and boom. Check this out:
“80’s Wormhole”
Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm 2.8 GM
ISO 640 ~ 161mm ~ f/2.8 ~ 1/2000s
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
It's got an 80s vintage vibe to it. I had to Select and Mask the bird out to get it cut to precision, then when I pasted it over the other shot, I added some slight motion blur to blend it with the hazy sunset in the backdrop. Can't even tell it's a composite.
Bon-appetite, that's today's shoot folks.
Now I gotta mess around with the video clips I took and see what happens. No promises on a release date for anything, I'm simply experimenting right now with editing and filming. I gotta get the technique DOWN before I get serious.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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