It’s Been A While

It’s been a while since my last post so I thought I would bring you up to speed on what’s been happening.

The biggest news since my last post is that I was hired as the Director of Photography for a film that will be playing at the new visitor center being built at Good Earth at Blood Run state park in South Dakota.

Good Earth at Blood Run is split between South Dakota and Iowa. It was very important to several Native American nations over the centuries. It’s considered sacred ground still today.

When Fourth Wall Films contacted me about shooting this, they said that it would be shot in 4k. So, that meant a camera upgrade for me since my trusty PX270 only shoots HD.

I tossed around several possibilities but one thing I have been wanting to do for a long time is low light time-lapse sequences like Milky Way and aurora time-lapses. There’s only one realistic way of doing that and that is using a DSLR.

Since I still had some of my Nikon lenses, when Nikon announced the D500 with 4k video I went ahead and pre-ordered one. It was just what the doctor ordered. I not only shot some really nice footage for the Good Earth project, I even used it to shoot a friends wedding.

Of course as soon as I could I took it out and started shooting night time-lapses, landscapes lit by moonlight as well as Milky Way time-lapse sequences which brings up the next thing I’ve been up to…

Night Time-lapse Workshop

I’ll be doing a separate blog post on this to go into more detail and why a workshop is something you should look into no matter what your skill level is.

My schedule allowed me to take a three night workshop in the Badlands of South Dakota with Randy Halverson of Dakotalapse. With Randy’s help and guidance I was able to really perfect my night sky time-lapse work.

Wildscreen

One of the things I’ve commented on quite often is the fact that I never meet other nature and wildlife filmmakers. Recent trips to the Badlands, didn’t meet any. Yellowstone, nope. A fair amount of people taking pictures but not a filmmaker to be found.

So I’m excited to be flying over to Bristol, England to attend the 2016 Wildscreen Nature and Wildlife Film Festival. I’m meeting a few friends from the international film challenge I’ve participated in for several years.

While I don’t have a film in the festival, just seeing the best films the industry has to offer as well as networking with other nature and wildlife filmmakers will be amazing!

Getting Down to Business

Finally, the year as has been past years has been crazy busy with non-filmmaking tasks. I’m excited that it looks like things are finally slowing down where I can get back to focusing on my work again. So much so that I’m looking into buying a trailer next Spring so that I can camp closer to the action. More on all that later.

I’m excited to get back to work on my projects and hopefully things will stay at a simmer so I don’t have to put them on the back burner again anytime soon.

Look for new posts right here on additional reasons why I chose to get a DSLR camera. my workshop experience, Wildscreen and much, much more!