When I visited the Smoky Mountains the first time, I knew I was going back there again. Last time i was there for fall season and I wanted to be there during spring. What other time better than the Memorial Day weekend.
Voila! Road trip… Because, I knew I won’t able to reach there by air with the amount of gear I was carrying.
My main objective was to shoot this time-lapse but my only concern was the time frame. I only had 4 days to scout and shoot. With the previous experience I had with this place, I used Google maps to figure out the GPS co-ordinates of the spots I had in mind and I was on my way to scout spots. I looked for different patterns in water flow while scouting for locations and later went back and setup the shot.
Anyone who shoots Time-lapse will probably agree with me. This is where Murphy’s Law works perfectly without a glitch. I can state several instances of these experiences I had through this trip.
On the second day, I had my time-lapse setup on an isolated creek with a pretty pattern of water falling over the rock. The whole 40 minutes time-lapse sequence was about to be complete in another 15 more minutes, that’s when a family of 4 stopped near me to enjoy the scenery and the little girl in the family was playing with her brother and bumped into my dolly and not much to say here. She was too cute to get mad at. And I did end-up shooting the whole thing again (It’s the one that starts at 00:25 in the video). 🙂
Here comes the best part on my trip’s third day, I hiked 4 miles with all my gear and reached a gorgeous waterfall named Ramseys cascades. Setup my Pocket Dolly for the time-lapse to kick-in, well only to realize the red indicator light wasn’t ON. Hmmm… It took me a minute to realize the fuse was blown in the adapter which connects the 12v battery to the motion controller. Aah…ha… I do prepare for situations like this and that’s why I carry spare fuses in my backup bag. And guess where it is…? Is in my car 4miles away…. Grrr…
Well, again… having experiences like these is a part of having fun with photography.
For the shots at 01:31 and 01:41, I had to wade in hip deep water with my dolly and camera gear to capture those pretty patterns.
Overall, it was a great trip and I didn’t have the heart the leave the place but I had to.
Gear Used: Canon T2i, Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 16-35mm f2.8 II, Kessler Pocket Dolly with Basic controller. Software Used: Adobe After Effects CS6, Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, Adobe Bridge CS6
1700 Miles driving, 20+ miles hiking and 14000 RAW images later, Here is the video..
Thanks for stopping by… 🙂
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