As photographers, we’ve all been in this situation. Go to any new [big] city, or even a new part of a city that you’ve been to, and the photography is like magic. There’s so much to shoot. Even if it’s just all the normal touristy shots, you’re shooting them. It’s your shot of the Eiffel Tower. It’s your shot of Times Square. It’s your shot of xyz monument in xyz city.
I’ve been to Paris more than a few times, so it’s a challenge, photography-wise to figure out what to shoot. Do I get another shot of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night? Another shot of Sacré Couer on a bluebird day? Often times I have to really hold back, take a deep breath and remind myself that I already have this exact shot sitting at home, and I should try to seek out a new angle or way to shoot the same thing…or just move on to another area that I’ve never been to before.
Before heading over for this trip, I grabbed a couple new 16 gig CF cards. This was mostly because we were taking short trips out to Brussels and Amsterdam and I wanted to be prepared if, for some reason, I was going to take thousands of pictures (when in Paris, I usually offload my CF cards each day). The notion of taking a series of time lapses through the trip hadn’t occurred to me until the first few days in Paris. Initially, my thought was, “wouldn’t it be great if I could go sit at a cafe, discretely set up my tripod and have my camera fire off one shot every 5 seconds to catch Parisian life go by…while I drank lots of wine?”. I never got to do exactly that, but over the course of a week and half, I took 12 separate time lapses that are all edited into the video below. View it in HD at 720p, or, if you have the time wait the 1080p to load in, you should, the clarity is stunning.
Curious about the gear I used to make this time lapse? Check back tomorrow where I’ll talk about it in depth.
UPDATE: The gear post is live! Check it out!