I took a two-day trip to Assateague Island recently. For those of you that don’t know, wild horses live on the island. Once a year they are rounded up and the yearlings are auctioned off to raise money for the nature preserve there and to keep their numbers in check. As we were sightseeing around the preserve, I noticed gawkers lining up along the side of the road. I quickly took out my video camera and was lucky enough to stumble upon a roundup in progress!
I also shot some footage of vacationers on and around Assateague’s sister island, Chincoteague, as well as marsh birds and the famous lighthouse and put it all together in a short video. This video is an example of a new trend that I’ve been noticing. Vacation photo albums are being supplemented with dreamy, wordless videos set to music, like this. Some do it well…others not so well. This is my entry into the genre.
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/1645340[/vimeo]
Thanks, Mike! That part of upper Virgina has long been a favorite of mine!
i was nearby, checking out the wildlife in ocean city 😀
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRRHTGgFVI4
Mike: Those images are beautiful. I do like the lush greens mixed with the brown slow-mo'd horses. I assume that all of those sweeps were with the use of a tripod?
Thanks for sharing.
I was tempted to razz you about the motor boats and jet ski's. I was going to tell you that I cranked up my volume but I only heard smooth synth music, no loud droning at the lake!
Erich: It does seem like I romanticized the jet skis, removing their obnoxious whine but, truth be told, my camping companions were nearby while I was taping and what you would have heard had I included the natural sound would mostly be their conversations!!
You are right about the tripod. In fact, the entire weekend started out merely as an exercise in following movement with a tripod. As the weekend wore on and I had a few "happy accidents" I began to realize that I had a beautiful little capsule of our brief trip and couldn't wait to show it!
Ben! You sneaky filmmaker!! I didn't know you had it in you! I've been to Seacrets. It's a great place, worthy of a video clip or two!
Ben also has videos with baseball tricks, but he refuses to claim fame and glory by publishing them. 😀
Just when I was feeling proud of myself, I find this! Damn!
http://vimeo.com/1690892
Ah well, no matter how good you get, you can always shoot higher.
Mike: Phillip Bloom has, indeed, created an extraordinary work.
The reason I will forever be reluctant to do a nature video montage is this: David Attenborough's "Planet Earth." Scene after scene after scene. It's jaw-dropping stuff the entire way through. The music will make your ears cry too.
http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Earth-Complete-David…
I re-watched a few episodes of Planet Earth tonight and it brought to mind something that the devout often say…"God is Love."
Really? God is LOVE?? Really?? Have you SEEN the Planet Earth series?? Everything is trying to EAT everything else! Life on Earth is like one endless horror movie! God isn't love! God is Wes friggin' Craven!!
Mike: This is so synchronous! My daughters and I were watching Planet Earth tonight too. It is SUCH an incredible display of photography, science and music.
Though the set costs $60 new, you can pick it up from second-hand sellers for $20. Next time anyone who hasn't yet seen this series is thinking about paying $20 for anything, consider buying and viewing this set instead.
And yes, we saw several parents lose their children to hungry predators tonight, as well as a young elephant mauled to death by a huge pack of lions. It makes you want to cry when you see it up close. My daughters asked me who I was "for," and I had to shrug and say that ALL those animals are hungry and desperate for food, many of the predators needing to steal another animals baby to feed its own baby. It's all beyond morality, of course. It just IS. If one were to try to draw some conclusion about "God" when watching this, that conclusion, at best, could only be that "God just IS."