- Creator
- Equipment
- Location
Each monsoon season here in Arizona (mid June to mid July) I spend many of my off-hours chasing storms and wild weather.
Three months, 4500 miles and almost 50,000 frames captured between 2 cameras. Several stops by police (for trespassing), border patrol (wondering why I was skulking near the Mexican border in the dark at 1am) and the DEA (thinking I was involved in a drug deal that went awry). It was a fun season!
This year I was much more purposeful while chasing and shooting, considering what I was capturing. Trying to be more creative both out in the field and later in post-processing on the computer. I was also a lot more careful in post-processing while cleaning up the myriad bugs and birds that LOVE to flit about in front of the camera (don’t even get me started on that issue…)
I spent quite a bit of time searching for the right music. I had captured a few fairly dramatic time-lapse sequences and early on in the season I knew I wanted something dramatic and arresting. The moment I first heard this piece by Richard Canavan (richardcanavan.com) I knew I had found it: I had to license it for my film! His track was in the back of my mind for the next few months as I was shooting. It’s as essential to this film as the visual drama is.
I’m really proud of this short film – it turned out better than I had hoped for. Yeah, I’m really happy with it!
Thank you to other Arizona photographers and weather geeks that constantly inspire me. AZChasers, Mike Olbinski, Greg McCown, Brian Snyder and many more. You guys rock!
Great thanks to my wife Jean who puts up with this crazy need I have to chase weather. She puts up with a lot. She had to wipe away a tear or two when she first saw this short film. I can’t get enough of that girl…
For the curious, I shoot with two Canon 6D camera bodies, Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, Rokinon 35mm f/1.8, and a Canon 24-105m f/4.0. Occasionally I’ll use a few other lenses, but not so often. The two Rokinon lenses are by far my favorite due to their pin-sharp focus and because they’re manual focus lenses without an automatic aperture. It makes ALL the difference when shooting time-lapse photography. My post-processing is done in Adobe Lightroom CC on Mac OS. Alongside Lightroom I use the amazing LRTimelapse by Gunther Wegner. I didn’t use it before 2015, and I lost a lot of sequences as a result. It has completely changed my workflow. I pull everything together in Adobe Premier Pro – another amazing and fun tool.
* Note that all video is available for licensing in resolutions up to 4K.
Many sequences are available in longer durations.
davo@davolaninga.com
