World Rivers Day

Today is World River Day a time to remember how we depend on fresh water for life itself. For me there is nothing like sitting by water, especially a river or stream of various sizes and watching the water consistently roll by and hearing the sound of the water’s movement. Every river runs into a pond, lake and ultimately the oceans around the world. We must keep our waters clean and keep protecting them as we move forward. Many programs around the world are working to clean up our rivers from government programs to volunteer programs which you, yes, you can get involved with. Do a search for local river organizations working with the rivers in your area and get involved. In the meantime, enjoy some of the rivers I have photographed over my career.

The rivers included:

Missouri River, United States

Little River, United States

Columbia River, United States

East Fork Bitterroot River, United States

Middle Prong Little River, United States

Chicago River, United States

Dordogne River, France

Seine River, France

Rio Manso, Argentina

Arno River, Italy

Thames River, England

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January Sunrise Lake Michigan

Went down to the lake for sunrise thinking at 2 degrees we might have a lot of misty smoke over the water. Not to be. So I changed plans and did some b-roll for our documentary, yes still working on it, The Sweetwater Seas. Sometimes what you go for isn't there in nature and you must change your perspective and reap the rewards of being in the right place at the right time because of your planning and serendipity! Enjoy!

Wait a Day...

If you know the Great Lakes, and many say any place, the weather can change on a moment’s notice. On February 13-14 this year here in Chicago we had a snowstorm that dropped 20” from the sky. Along with that we had winds coming out of the north and right down Lake Michigan which blew the ice into shore. I went down to the shoreline of Lake Michigan on the 17th to see the conditions of the lake, expecting ice up against the shoreline, yet it had already moved out about 2 miles offshore. Still we had the ice built up high along the shore and the open water behind it so I made both some still and video shots of the lake. The next day I went back to the same spots and because the winds had shifted yet again the ice had moved back into the shoreline right up to the pack ice. An interesting perspective on the changes which come within 24 hours along the Great Lakes. And below are a few of the still images made for the book on the Great Lakes.

Enjoy,

Richard

Grosse Point Lightstation

This short video is from a shoot we did early morning last week to fill in some footage for a section of The Sweetwater Seas - North America’s Great Lakes documentary. In this section we will talk about traveling around the Great Lakes, and as this footage captures, some of the lighthouses along the Great Lakes.

It was a cold morning after an unusual snowstorm on Halloween. The cold - around 25 degrees - and the early morning light made views of the top of the lighthouse very interesting with the frost on the glass. We also shot from the ground of the lighthouse and the waves. The sand was frozen already so our footsteps barely registered in the sand. The waves we beautiful in the morning light and we shot some slow motion clips of the waves as they rolled in.

Enjoy,

Richard Mack

Chicago Skyline Time-lapse

I did my first real test of the of the “holy grail” of time-lapse where you go from daylight to night-time (or the reverse). I used the Timelapse+ VIEW intervalometer and software plugin for Lightroom CC to handle the exposure changes. I did this from the Montrose Harbor area looking down to Chicago, an iconic view of this beautiful city. We started the exposures at 6:40pm and finished 2 hours and 44 minutes later at 9:24pm. This gave us just under a minute of video from the 1,408 images shot. For those interested it was shot with the Canon Mark 5d IV with the 24-105 lens set at F/11. The ISO started at 100 and ended at ISO 8000. The shutter speed started at 1/80 of a second and ended with an exposure of 4.0 seconds. A total of 14.5 stops! Timelapse+ VIEW was setup to change the shutter speed first and then the ISO. Timelapse+ VIEW Intervalometer will automate night to day time-lapse using a light sensor and advanced algorithms. This system worked really well and once you take it into Lightroom in post processing the plugin finds the keyframes which you can use to do the initial processing in Lightroom Development window to make any exposure / color corrections you require. The software then makes these corrections for the entire selection in subtle increments so you have a finished piece with smooth transitions for a beautiful time-lapse.

Now one thing I know I will try next time is starting with at least a 1 second exposure to make the water smoother throughout the time-lapse. I would also go longer into the nighttime view to give a little more room in editing to be able to use a longer nighttime scene.

This Timelapse+ VIEW intervalometer and what we will be able to do with it will be a great addition to The Sweetwater Seas – North America’s Great Lakes documentary! It will be in the equipment bags for every shoot from now on! Can’t wait to get outside along  the Great Lakes and do some day to night with the Milky Way winding its way across the screen, and maybe even back to daylight.

Enjoy,

Richard

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