Jack McCausland
Jack McCausland
Photography, Graphic Design, Media
DECAY
Proposal
In this task, I have look into the word decay, and thought of many creative, different ways to view this word, and make it into a time-lapse.
As decay is something which happens over a long period of time, it has proven difficult to capture such things within a couple of months. I started to look towards things which has the same meaning as decay, the same essence, and principle. I shortly thought of ice cubes, melting. As this is something which doesn’t take long at all, I knew it would be a great thing to photograph, and also could have a lot of fun reversing the event of the ice cube melting, vice versa. Alongside this, I will also be including rottings of fruit, plants and vedgatables.
The equipment I will be using, is very similar to the last lot. The cameras I will be mounting on a tripod, are both the Nikon D5100 and D7200. I will be using both cameras at the same time, as this will give me both angles of the object melting - in this case - which gives interest to the film, opposed to it being a still, boring clip for 3 minutes.
As I am planning on doing this during day light hours, I thought that I might need a reflector. This would enable me to get an all even frame - exposure wise - and make sure the subjects aren’t high contrast in direct sunlight. Like the last time-lapse, I will be using both a 90 mm 2.8 Macro to get really close up, abstract shots of the event, and a wider, 24 - 70 2.8 to capture the whole cube, opposed to smaller details, from the macro lens. Although these both have apertures of f/2.8, I will probably not be using that aperture for this, as the ice cube might move around a lot as it’s melting, which will then mean it will jump in and out of focus, due to the shallow depths of field given the f/2.8 aperture. To prevent this from happening, and having a sharp focus through out, I will go with something along the lines of f/7.
I will be using a hot frying pan to place my ice cubes on, as this will speed up the process, so it will melt quicker, otherwise I wouldn’t know how often to take a photograph. Having it in the hot pan, and it melting quicker, I knew I could just put the camera in continuous mode, and photograph constantly until it has melted.
I will need a bright area to position this to provide a bright light, which would shine directly onto the ice cube, to give it more of a melty, wet look.
When it comes to editing, I only plan on importing them all into Premier Pro - as an image sequence - and then maybe placing a couple of adjustments over the whole project if needs be.
As I was breifly researching decay, it really look my image, as how I could capture a timelaps of something alive, slowly dying, and decaying. I was looking around and thinking, what I could film, and what would decay in a couple of days (maximum). These are some thoughts I gathered from pictures and other timelapses on the internet:
Rotting fruit
dying flower
melting candle
ants eating 'something'
This photograph that he took is a great exmaple of decay, and how normal objects, can turn completely, into something unrocognisable, only in a matter of time.
As a starting point in my research I put together a mind map consisting of all of the key words and sketches I'll include in my timelapes.
This allowed me to see how my timelapes might evolve in terms of objects, camera angles and other such infomation.
While thinking and looking into decay, I came across Mathew Merrett. Mathew photographs things which have decayed, mostely urban decay, which involves adandoned buildings, or decayed objects which can be found in an enviroment like this.
Although I won't be looking at capturing a timelaps of rotting buildings - as this would take an age - I like the way that he photographs things in such a way which is dark, and moody, enhancing the fact of it being abandoned, left, and in the process of decaying.
Oppsed to my other timelapse, where it's bright the majority of the time, in this timelapse I'm going to go for more of a dark, moody look, instead of it being positively bright.