Monthly Archives: August 2013

Trump Tower Construction Time Lapse

Every once in a while, I think about something that I was working on before I started blogging and wonder whether it would make a good post or not.  Where we live in Chicago, we are very close to the Trump International Hotel and Tower.  When we first moved here, it was the Chicago Sun-Times building.  They demolished that and built the tower on the same site.

During the construction, I took a lot of pictures, first of the demolition and then the new construction.  Building the tower would have made a good blog on its own if I had been blogging then.  However, can’t turn back time!  One thing I tried to do was take pictures from the same position on a regular basis to maybe make a time lapse.  These pictures have languished for a long time.  However, since Photoshop is now a lot more useful for making video, I brought all of the files in as layers to make a video.  Since the position moved each time I took a picture despite my best efforts, Photoshop allowed me to align the layers and get tings (almost) back in register.  Then some transitions and some music and we have a video.  Hope you like it.

Airlines That No Longer Exist

wpid7084-QB5Y7068.jpgA while back I put together a few shots of Northwest Airlines planes when it occurred to me that I had shots of an airline now departed.  For some reason, this topic popped back into my head again and I started wondering what other airlines I have shots of that no longer operate (at least under the name they had at the time).  I thought about a bunch of airlines that have disappeared but it turned out that I did not have shots of many of them.

wpid7088-QB5Y9809.jpgHowever, there were a few that I came across as I went through the files.  I got interrupted in the process and was not able to search through all of the possibilities but I did get a few from days gone by – some from quite a while back.  Here are some examples.  (Some might find the Continental planes barely gone but they are United these days.)

Powerboats

wpid7491-AU0E8232.jpgMy friend Joel is always a good source of interesting things to do. He recently came up with a great day out. Michigan City in Indiana plays host to an offshore power-boating race. The offshore boats are substantial boats that are capable of operating well out in the water. In this case, though, the course was set close in to shore so it was easy for spectators to watch.

wpid7499-AU0E9075.jpgOffshore powerboats are pretty impressive beasts. They are big boats and come in a variety of designs. The most obvious distinction is whether they are a monohull or a catamaran. That seemed to make a big difference on this course which had two straights with a pretty tight turn at each end. The cats seemed to be far better suited to making the turn than the monohulls and that advantage was not to be overcome in the races.

wpid7481-AU0E7495.jpgThe boats have two crew on board. For those that are not familiar with this type of power boating, one is the driver and the other is the throttle man. Driving seems pretty self explanatory but the throttle job is a lot more nuanced than you might guess. These boats have very big engines and deliver a huge amount of power to the props. If they were racing on a smooth surface, all might be okay and you could set your power and go. However, the water is not smooth and so the boat tends to jump around a lot. The trim of the boat can be set by flaps on the back but, every time the boat gets airborne (and they get airborne quite a lot), the props can come out of the water.

wpid7479-C59F3626.jpgThis is when the throttle man earns his cash.  A powerful engine that suddenly goes from pushing against a propeller in water to pushing against air is liable to accelerate very rapidly.  In days gone by, the outcome of this was a cooked engine.  Apparently, the limiters on the engines now work pretty well but it is still an art to maintaining the power when in the water but pulling it back as the props come clear of the surface.  There is a lot of cycling on the throttles during a race.

wpid7493-AU0E8298.jpgThe part that the crew like the least is, conversely, the part that the spectator likes the most.  As I go through images, the ones that look the most dynamic are the ones when the boat is out of the water.  Look at a shot of a powerboat low in the water and it is hard to appreciate that it is really moving.  See it in mid air as it launches off a wave with the props spinning in nothing much and you know that it isn’t hanging around.  Being in the air is bad for the crew for more than one reason.  With no prop in the water, there is no thrust.  Admittedly, the air resistance is less than they get in water but, when up on the step and with the prop doing its work, they are best able to move on.  Of course, the thump that is the return to the water is not comfortable, even with the shock absorbing seats they have, and it slows them down a bit too.

wpid7483-AU0E7696.jpgIt would be remiss of me to not mention that there were some aviation themed opportunities at the races too.  A helicopter was filming the races and a couple of planes were flying by during breaks in the racing.  However, they will get their own posts another day.  Thanks for the suggestion and the company Joel and it was good to meet Chris as well, an ex-pat Welshman with an aerospace background!  We Brits get everywhere!

Other SeaTac Stuff

wpid6819-AU0E2513.jpgThe SeaTac shooting had a number of specific things that I have already covered.  However, since it is an airport that serves a lot of destinations and carriers, it has a bunch of other things worth seeing.  Long haul operators include Delta (serving a lot of routes that were once Northwest), British Airways and Icelandair.  I have always seen the Icelandair aircraft on the ground when traveling through SeaTac but they seem to have a schedule that means one arrives at around the same time the previous day’s arrival departs.  Not a very efficient use of the airframe but I guess it works for them.

wpid6817-AU0E2328.jpgThe domestic carriers were also there with Alaska making up the majority of the movements – at least in the time windows I had.wpid6821-AU0E2787.jpg

 

Filming helicopter

wpid6825-AU0E2910.jpgSomething I haven’t seen for a while is any filming activity around the city.  We have two big movies being shot in Chicago this summer but I don’t think I have seen anything of them at work yet (unless this is it).  When the filming is underway, you often get a helicopter shooting film from the air.  A turret on the nose holds the camera and the mount is operated by someone inside the helicopter while the pilot positions for the shots that are required.

wpid6823-AU0E2834.jpgI heard a Eurocopter Astar (Squirrel for non-US readers) flying around (not unusual since the local TV stations use them predominantly) but noticed it was a different aircraft with a more prominent mount.  I have seen this Astar doing filming work in the past but not for a while.  The sun was getting low but I decided to try and grab some shots as it came around.

wpid6827-AU0E2935.jpgOf course, just as I did this, it made a couple more passes and then left.  However, it did return later.  By now the light was getting very low.  I suspect the shots he was getting of the city looked great but it was getting tricky to get anything good of him.  However, it is always fun to try.

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Web video sizing

I have been getting more and more interested in video work in the last couple of years.  Shooting video at the same time as stills is a regular feature of any shoot I am now on.  I am even getting better at planning my shot requirements for the video in order to have some hope of putting together a relatively coherent piece later.  The recent ISAP symposium had some good information on that.  However, that is not the point of today’s piece.  Instead, I am thinking about video size.

I have a YouTube channel on which I upload my content.  As s shameless plus, if you want to check it out, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/EdgcumbePhoto and you can see the videos I have previously uploaded.  Subscribe if you want and it will let you know about all of the exciting new videos I upload!  Okay, we return from that commercial break and resume normal programming.  I shoot everything in HD and edit the footage for 1080p output.  This can result in some quite large files.  YouTube allows you to upload full 1080p so that is what I have been doing.

Unfortunately, our current internet connection is not helpful here.  While we have pretty decent download speeds, the upload speeds are very slow.  DSL was not designed for upload and consequently, the upload speeds have not kept pace with the download speeds and the needs of users generating more and more content.  A recent video I made was about eight minutes long.  The 1080p version of this was nearly 2Gb.  Uploading this took over a day!!!

Now, when I watch videos on YouTube, what resolution do I watch them at?  I certainly like HD footage but I only ever use 720p.  This is a combination of avoiding bandwidth issues as well as the size of my monitors.  There really is no need to be any larger.  I wonder whether this is normal.  I started looking at what is available on other videos I was watching and quite a few only go to 720p.  I thought a quick experiment was in order.  The eight minute video I mentioned before can easily be regenerated at 720p so I did that.  The file size came out to just over 300Mb.  That is a pretty dramatic reduction in file size and upload time.

I think I have been wasting time and bandwidth creating files too large for anyone to need.  I am going to stick with 720p for a while and see how things work out.  We might have access to a different net connection before too long and I might check out upload speeds then but, for now, this seems to be a far more sensible approach.

Horizon schemes

wpid6793-AU0E0898.jpgSeattle is a busy airport with plenty of operators coming through.  However, the home airline is Alaska and their regional affiliate is Horizon.  Consequently, both of them are very busy.  Horizon operates a fleet of Bombardier Q400s.  They used to have some CRJs too but these have been moved to another operator and now they are dedicated to the turboprops.

wpid6795-AU0E1793.jpgThey do seem to have really gone to town in applying special liveries to some of their aircraft.  These are focused on a lot of the local colleges and universities.  They do paint up a lot of planes in school colors!  While I was there, I got a surprising number of them passing by.  Here are a few samples of the different schemes they have (along with one normal one just to show that they aren’t all specials).

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Olympia Capitol building

wpid6875-AU0E1523.jpgI was in Olympia WA recently for some meetings.  The meetings were near the state capitol and with some time free at lunchtime, I wandered over to have a look around.  The building is quite similar in form to a number of capitol buildings with a domed structure topping the main building.  It was very nicely decorated with it being impressive without be too grandiose.  I met one of the building guides as I came in and she kindly showed me around including letting me into one of the function rooms that is normally locked.

wpid6901-AU0E1649.jpgGeorge Washington appears throughout the building in various places as you might expect for a state named after him.  Neither chamber was sitting while I was there so I could go to the visitors galleries for both and walk around without restrictions.  We even got to go into the Governor’s office to see the room in which he holds meetings with visitors.  (We didn’t go into the office he occupies as I think he was in there at the time!)  The grounds around the capitol were very nice too and it was a great day so not a bad way to spend a lunch break.