Major Project - Geelong: it's about time!
This is some of the preliminary work for a projection for Geelong After Dark, held on May 8th, in Geelong CBD. The final four pieces are on this page (though You Tube videos are much poorer quality than the originals). The theme for this year's Geelong After Dark is light.
Geelong City - afternoon timelapse
Finally, I have my Satechi Wireless Digital Timer Remote Control, which allows me to take timelapse photos. This is the first timelapse taken with my Canon 60D DSLR, at 30 second intervals over arou1nd 15 minutes. There are 36 frames.
The theme for this project is Light (the theme of Geelong After Dark). Every day, the view of Geelong varies from minute to minute with the changing light. My secondary theme is Time.
I have long wanted to try timelapse photography. I have a fascination with night photography - when the sun sets there is a special quality which makes the night mysterious. The mundane by day takes on a glamour and, especially when Corio Bay is still, reflections enhance the multicoloured lights.
Corio Bay history
Since before European settlement, people have used the bay. I researched images of boats and ships that have visited the bay.
I plan to superimpose them onto the timelapse of a day on Corio Bay.
This is very labour intensive - it may be possible to automate the process to some degree.
The base image here is a canoeist fishing between the dolphins which marked the old slipway for small ships at Rippleside. Although heritage listed, these will be removed when the shipyard site becomes the Balmoral Quay development and marina.
Image source: The overlay image is taken from a rock art painting in the Kimberleys which is dated from 20,000 to 30,000 years old. http://www.donsmaps.com/aboriginals.html
Canoe trees, from which bark canoes have been cut, are seen throughout old growth forests throughout Australia. While we have no existing samples, it is probable that bark canoes were used for fishing in Corio Bay for many hundreds of years before European settlement.
Geelong City afternoon timelapse with historic steamboat
The historic image was cut from it's background and loaded frame by frame into the animation.
Image source: https://www.geelongaustralia.com.au/heritage/gallery/item/8cebf98119cf3ec.aspx
SS Edina 1910 - this ship was a regular visitor - moving around Port Philip Bay from Melbourne to Geelong, Portarlington, Queenscliff, Portsea and Sorrento.
Sunset over Geelong
This very short clip is sunset over Geelong.
It was shot over 2:46 hours at 1 frame every 30 seconds.
I am very unhappy with the quality of the You Tube upload - the original is much better.
Ships in Corio Bay
Dawn on Corio Bay
This is a gif.
Photos taken at 15 second intervals.
Geelong City colour change
This gif is composed of an original photograph, two manipulated images (using the invert tool and colour changes in Photoshop) and transitions made by adding glitches to the images (the code is disrupted). For this I used a simple Glitch creator . Because creating a gif for web discards much of the image information, the base images are of poor quality.
I'll try an alternativie version using Windows Movie Maker. (This version, see You tube clip below, became part of the final project for Geelong After Dark on Friday May 8th.
Geelong Cityscape colour change
This animation was about changing one image of Geelong city, using Photoshop.
The photo was edited into 6 colourways. The sky was selected and colours altered, then the rest of the photo had various changes.
The animation also includes transition slides between the basic stages of colour change.
Some are more successful aesthetically than others.
Grain Pier time lapse
This film is made from around 2500 frames taken over a day 30 second intervals.
Canoe Trial
This is a frame by frame adding of an indigenous canoe.
The canoe image has been altered using Photoshop.
Geelong City Timelapse with historic vessels
This forms part of the final projects (along with Corio Bay colour change projects).
The images were taken at 30 second intervals from 5:30pm on 30th April 2015 to around 12:30PM on May 1st.
The historic vessels were added in Photoshop, using the Actions tool to speed up the process. Nevertheless, this is a most labour intensive process - working frame by frame. Historic vessels were internet images - cut from their backgrounds and modified in Photoshop.
The You Tube movie is much poorer quality than the original animation (made with Windows Movie Maker).
Spot the rubber ducky.
Corio Bay time lapse
This sequence is made from around 2500 still images shot at 30 second intervals.
Technical details:
Camera: Canon 60D SLR
Lens: Canon EFS 10-22mm (wide angle)
Shutter: Satechi wireless time lapse shutter.
Settings - set manually and varied for low and high light situations (shutter priority).
Overlay ships: added frame by frame in Photoshop. (Images from the internet, or my own photographs).
Movie: made in Windows Movie Maker - 10 fps.
quality is poor compared with the original film.
Major Project: The Big Picture: Final Presentation
The Corio Bay Time Lapse was looped with the Geelong City Timelapse with Historic Vessels video, and shown as a projection in the window of The Project Space at Deakin University's Waterfront campus as part of Geelong After Dark on May 8th.
The second part of the Major work was the two Geelong City Colour Change projects (shown above) which were looped for projection along with projects from other students on three internal walls of The Project Space during the event. The whole project was part of an ongoing project curated by Merinda Kelly and Cameron Bishop titled New Wilderness. This references the current state of the urban world - and the rapid changes that are happening to Geelong specifically. The Geelong After Dark Website blurb for the project states:
Inspired by the New Wilderness Project, first piloted by artists, writers, teachers and academics from Geelong in 2013, this installation has provided students with a platform to experiment and respond creatively to change in their community. Geelong is a community under radical transformation in its economic foundations and demographics. Participating students have been encouraged to investigate concepts and ‘big questions’ of relevance to these changing material, spatial and social relations. Responses have a localised focus which may travel across time and place, speaking also to global possibility.
The videos themselves became interactive as spectators either purposefully or inadvertantly added silhouettes to the video (in some cases making hand images).
Tents of New Wilderness
Light was further explored by three small tents being set up in the gallery space, lit from within by LED lights. Children and adults were encouraged to enter the tents and explore lights, colours and shadows using various coloured LED torches and light sticks.
Occupy has the slogan 'we are the 99%' - critiquing the growing inequity between rich (the 1% who own more than half the world's wealth) and poor in the wholly capitalised world since the fall of communism in Russia, and the liberalisation of economic policy in China.
Time Lapse video of setting up the exhibition (The Project Space, Deakin University, Waterfront Campus) - May 7th, 2015.
This sign was in the window welcoming people to the exhibition.
This animated Gif was presented by Alaysha, one of the other students. Made with Adobe Illustrator, it references many Geelong places.
Natalie is referencing Geelong's Mayor, Daryn Lyons, who decided parking should be free on weekends in Geelong CBD.
One of the 3 LED lit tents for GAD participants to experiment with light.
Spectators outside and inside the Project Space watching the timelapse of Corio Bay and Geelong City with added historical shipping.
Eben Greaves sound activated light sculpture "Particle" shared the Project Gallery. It was another opportunity for spectators to take an active part in the art works.
Meg Shrimpton's animation "Disco Dancer" with backing sound looked amazing when projected on the brick wall of the old industrial wool store which forms Deakin's Waterfront Campus. The music also activated Eben Greaves "Particle".
This is another of my works for Geelong After Dark, on display at Etch Gallery in Moorabool Street. Artists were invited to produce a work using LED lights.