And the walls...came a tumblin' down.

Dear Mr. Edison,

As my world seems to both be in figurative and literal collapse, I have been drawn to and am finding comfort in a creative interest that was sparked when I was a child—photography. I have come to believe it’s most definitely a genetic thing as my father was a photographer.

While there are few things in my life that I regret, one of them is the fact that my father and I were never able to share our collective passion for photography. Like me—or more aptly—me like him, my father was an extremely creative and talented individual. He was an excellent photographer. Some of the shots he took were amazing and were taken at a time when automated metering was merely a gleam in the eye of any erstwhile Ansel Adams. Good photography was a combination of raw talent, instinct and often having a really big set to take the risks to get the shot. As 60+ years ago, fine photography was a costly endeavor for anyone who merely did it as a hobby.

If my father were alive today, he would be amazed at what one can achieve with a good digital camera and the digital darkroom. The possibilities are truly endless.

A couple weeks ago, for whatever reason, during one of my sojourns through the interwebs I happened upon the web sites of several fellow photo-fanatics who are into time lapse photography (TLP). Being one those individuals who’s always been fascinated by the fact that photography provides the opportunity for one to capture a moment in time to be preserved for eternity. I’m evermore intrigued with the idea one can capture a series of photographs to compress time to show hours, days, weeks, months and years in a matter of seconds.

Tripp-en-dicular!

I think the reason that I’m evermore intrigued by the idea of TLP is due in great part to my spiritual path. As I’ve discussed in several of the letters I’ve written to any number of individuals here, I am an explorer of shamanistic studies and that is my chosen path of spirituality.

And within that belief system there is the very real understanding that one can travel along time on two very distinct associated axes. A horizontal axis—or in other words, the one of linear, current, progressive time that creates the reality construct that we share with others as the moment of now at any point in time. Or it is also possible to travel along the vertical axis of eternal time by which one can—in theory—gain access to the past as well as any number of possible futures.

I have yet to develop this skill, but one day soon I hope to be able to travel along both axes with ease.

Last week, having been bitten quite hard by the TLP bug, I began to gather the disparate equipment needed to effectively utilize my current DSLR cameras to take photos in the proper sequence to create the time lapse animations. The most important thing required to achieve this goal is the ability to take photographs at specific intervals, such as every 30 seconds. While both of my Canon DSLRs take stunning photos, the one thing neither of them do is allow for programming to take shots at timed intervals. To accomplish this requires a separate wired shutter release which allows for setting a delay timer.

Also, given DSLRs use a great deal of juice while in use, I purchased a battery grip and two more batteries for the newer camera. Fully loaded with fully charged batteries, I should have about four hours with each set of batteries for a total combined time of roughly eight hours of shooting time. For a whopping 32 seconds of time lapse animation. Weh-hew!

Isn’t compressing time fun? It’s just not terribly efficient.

At the end of last week, with all the requisite equipment in hand, I decided to make my first attempt at TLP. There was a lovely evening breeze on Friday that was making the Tibetan prayer flags that I have hanging on my balcony wave rather quaintly. I thought it would be kind of cool to catch their motion while the sun was going down.

So I mounted the D60 on the tripod, set the program to AV mode, attached the intervalometer and programmed it for 30 second intervals and let ‘er rip. However the one thing I didn’t take into account is that given I’d put the camera in aperture priority mode, it would increase shutter speed as the light decreased. As a result there came a point in which the shutter was open longer than 30 seconds and it threw off the frequency of the intervals. Which kind of slightly hosed the animation, however, undaunted I pulled the photos into PhotoShop and created a ten second time lapse of the flags waving without the hoped for sunset. Instead the flags kind of start to disappear by the end of the video and it’s really not a bad video for my first attempt (you can view it by clicking on the image above).

I look forward to getting out with the cameras and doing more.

Meanwhile, my friend R. came over today to assist me with some home improvement projects around the condo. I once again took a staycation this week to keep moving forward on getting the condo in shape to sell it. R. kindly took care of some electrical work that I needed to have done.

The first owner of this apartment—the head case he was no doubt—installed a sauna in part of the walk in closet. Last summer I ripped it out for the most part, however, there were a couple of things needing to be done to finish the tear out. When he (the original owner) put in the sauna he created a jacked up electrical junction with a switch that connected from the dryer electric hook up to the heating element of the sauna. R. yanked that out. Also he (the original owner) installed a canister light when he dropped the ceiling in the closet to make the sauna. R. install a new light fixture to replace the canister one and replaced another one for me as well.

I am truly grateful to have such a handy friend as he. At this point, I believe he and his partner are the only two long time friends I have left (who are speaking to me anyway, LOL). I promised him a two hour massage for his services which I hope to give him this weekend.

Well dear friend it’s time to wrap this up.

Say hello to Tesla for me.