Summer in Springtime

Seattle has been experiencing some exceptional summertime weather even though we’re only a month into Spring. In my experience, Aprils in Seattle have often been rainy, wet, and relatively cold. Every few years, for a period of a few days, we find ourselves as the recipients of an anomaly in the “usual” weather patterns or something out of the ordinary. (To be completely candid, that’s true of many months out of the year in Seattle). Nevertheless, after months of chilly temperatures thus far in 2021, these warm days are most welcomed, especially when these marvelous conditions coincide with the weekend!

Since I embarked on my mission to dedicate as much time as possible to timelapse photography, the weekend of April 17th and 18th was nothing less than idyllic in terms of weather. It really has felt as though summer has made a surprise cameo in spring’s timetable with little contention from the city’s residents. (How often does that happen?)

As a result of Mother Nature’s good graces on the Puget Sound region, please enjoy a timelapse video that I executed on April 18th at Gas Works Park in Seattle. The recording commenced at 7.10pm and concluded at 9.12pm local time. What you’ll view is all the activity that transpired during that time period within the span of 70 seconds.

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While executing some timelapse photography at the park with Alpharetta (my Sony a6000 camera exclusively for timelapses), I was also doing my regular, default long exposure work with Ananda (my heavy duty Sony a99 camera for cityscapes, night-time photography, events, and all my specialties). With Ananda, I was able to capture an impromptu moment of six friends sitting together while facing the skyline above Lake Union during the blue hour. Because they were talking and moving frequently, I had to make sure the exposures were short to evade capturing too much motion. Below, you will see the capture of the serendipitous moment. I have titled the image “The Seattle Six”. Since I was so enamored by both the original color version and the converted monochrome version, I have decided to share both here. You can decide which version you prefer!

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Lastly, enjoy a candid image that was originally the very last frame of the timelapse video. Because the recording started during broad daylight and ended at night, the exposures that Alpharetta captured inevitably became longer and longer, as is customary with long exposures in night photography. A daytime exposure can be captured in a fraction of a second, but at night, the duration of an exposure elongates significantly. If I was going to wait for all the exposures of each frame of the timelapse to finish, I could have been at my location with Alpharetta for another hour easily, which was unnecessary. Alas, in the middle of what was the last image of the timelapse (a long exposure image which is faded out in the video), I removed Alpharetta from the tripod. Because this was a physical removal, the motion and light trails were captured as part of the exposure! I’m including it because it came out fairly artistically. Also, I rarely share these kinds of images, of which I have accumulated several over the years. Enjoy!

(Off-tangent note: It just occurred to me that I have given none of my tripods personal names as I’ve done with each of my Sony cameras. I need to remedy this as all of them have outlasted some of my cameras in the last 14 years. Plus, it’s just the right thing to do).

Thanks for reading this article. If you enjoyed the timelapse video here, please visit my official website @ www.tia-international-photography.com for an indelible, visual experience.