Timelapsing in Thanda - A whole new ball game

For quite some time I have been looking at the incredible timelapses on various platforms ranging from BBC to National Geographic to individual photographers on the web. Mesmerizing is how I have found some of them. Then, some potential work came up that had me thinking even more seriously about it. The work never materialised (a long term timelapse of a development project) but the seed had been sown and I started experimenting with the medium. Unsuccessfully as it turned out. That was a year ago and coincided with meeting Paddy Bartram (see this post) who managed to truly excite me about the possibilities of timelapse.

Is digital film finally here?

Back in 2001 I spent many hours on the internet trawling over any details I could possibly raise to the magical (or so it seemed) Silicon Film. This was a device that promised to bring digital imaging to our old analogue cameras. In 2001 I was still a staunch (and financially reliant upon and unable to change) analogue photographer. The efilm by Silicon Film seemed like The Holy Grail to me. In some ways it still does. The basic premise was to replace the film canister with the necessary hardware for digital capture. The sensor would then be attached to this 'canister' via a thin surface that would lie over the focal plane in the same manner as celluloid film. Back in 2001 the hardware wasn't quite there however, and Silicon went bust in September of that year (read Oliver Duoong's recent blog post on the history.

Being An Assistant

 My name is Claire and I am a photographic assistant - Limephoto’s assistant to be precise.  Does that mean I am not a photographer?  Not at all!  For anyone who has aspirations of moving forward in a cutthroat industry, you might want to read on and drop the pride factor by a notch or two.

When I was growing up, being the best in your field was the aim in life.  I did the tertiary education jaunt for a while, dabbling in a few courses before I decided that I wanted more out of life than academia was providing.  Read between the lines, I was a drop out.  The terms ADD and ADHD were not everyday conversation at this point in my life, and even though I had a fairly successful school career, I had always bucked the trend.  Life was an adventure, and still is. 

Drakensberg Workshop and a note on Whether or not to go pro.

I have just returned from another I fantastic workshop in the Drakensberg with a very enthusiastic group of 8 photographers. The weather smiled on us and the moon rose late, giving ample opportunity to do some star trail photography (genius workshop leader here even managed to do one with a lens cap still on. doh) Short tip though; make sure that the position you chose isn't anywhere near a party where curious drinking revelers keep shining lights out at your little group to figure out what on earth you are up to. That and curious, high-powered torch wielding security guards can be the death of any long exposure. Light polluting others besides, the weekend produced some lovely images from some very talented photographers (sadly I was only able to see images on the back of camera lcds in the end, but the images were there nonetheless and I look forward to seeing the finished results from the photographers soon).