A day at the park

Along about Christmas 2013 I received a DJI Phantom drone quadcopter as a present. It was stable, took rock solid video and was a blast to fly. I promptly crashed it and one more, but in the process became hooked on drones. Over the course of the last year and a half I have built about twenty drones of all shapes and sizes. They are very fast, agile, and very fun to fly crazy style.

The picture above shows two ghost f450 drones that are my favorites to build and fly. They are inexpensive, (around $200), fast, highly acrobatic, and very durable. The picture is from a typical day flying at the park.

My Brohemian State Fair 2013

The annual pilgrimage to the Iowa State Fair was a smashing success!

Leave a comment on this post after you look at the pictures. Enjoy!

Click HERE for pictures from 2013 East Side Night at the Iowa State Fair!

A little teaser from Mardi Gras 2012, more to come.

This is a short video that I did for Recycle Me Iowa…..

Budget = zero

Fun = Hell Ya.

Evelyn found a half-wit patsy that she could manipulate into doing the gruesome deed. However, the
insurance carrier had their own take on the event and did not pay off.

This is one out of a huge collection of Pulp Fiction Covers that a gentleman on PBASE has put together.  Take a look at his collection, some are really funny!

Signs, West End Salvage, Des Moines

Recently, Living History Farms in Des Moines hosted their 5th annual photography day. Thousands of people from all over Iowa attended an informative day of lectures and workshops in various aspects of photography.

I was asked to do a lecture on HDR photography. I have included a link to the images that I shot for and used in my lecture. The images were captured at West End Salvage and Living History Farms. At the end of the photos are several additional HDR photos that I have recently completed.

HDR contininues to be of great interest to me as a mode of photographic expression.

-Mark-

Photos from Living History Farms HDR Lecture

A little slide show from Mardi Gras 2008 to help get your party mood on……..

This is a video made  from the every 20 second stills that were taken on Dec 23, 2010.  It starts just before dawn and runs until after sunset. 

The thirteen hours of still pictures runs in about a minute.

Watch the shadows from the palm trees.

Mark

As we scouted for spots for the webcam, I took several pictures with my cell phone. These are a couple of pictures from elevated positions at Sapphire Beach.

Mid October, I installed a webcam at Sapphire Beach. I made a proposal to the board of directors and it was accepted. Technology based projects on the island can be quite daunting. Bringing the camera online proved dificult. Nonetheless it was a fun project.

This picture was captured shortly after it became operational. I am standing in the picture. Below is a link to the webcam. It automatically refreshes every twenty seconds.

Sapphire Beach Webcam Link

Hurricane Earl came within 60 miles of St Thomas on Aug 30th.  This video was shot about four hours before it was at it’s closest point.

The Iowa State Fair was fun as always.  It was rich with video opportunity.

-Mark-

My Brother Merle, Iowa State Fair 2010

The first Friday night of the Iowa State Fair is the unofficial “East Side Night”. Every year it is a great chance to get together with friends that I grew up with. Many of these fine people I only run into here. I took quite a few pictures this year. Unfortunately they spiraled into the shitter by the end of the night thanks to too many beers.

I believe strongly in natural light and I rarely use a flash when I take pictures. It makes for more work when they are done but the results are worth it.

I took a lot of pictures of my brother this year and I posted my favorite one here.

THIS IS A LINK TO THIS YEARS PICTURES!

This is the final edit of our 48hour film.  Time to move on to another project.   We shot a few scenes this weekend to help clarify a couple of plot points.   I also used some music under the creative commons license.

Obviously, the original film is the one that got turned in.  This is just the edit that I wanted to do so that I felt the project was done.

This is the one to watch.  It is coherent, moody, and complete.

Mark

This scene was cut from our original submission.  It was fun to do, but the time constraints made it impossible to include.  This is RJ as the plumber and his grandchildren as the “kids”

We are working on  a final cut that will include this scene.

Well, the 48 hour film festival is over.  I have been up for the last 40 hours straight and I am tired.    It was fantastic fun.  I assembled a wonderful team of people and am very proud of the work that we did.   I would love to make a feature film!  There are a few things I would do different, but not many.  I would mainly do the same things next year but be a little wiser. 

Our film Genre was Silent Movie so there could be no dialogue.  There could be music and sound effects.  I chose no sound effects.  (with the exception of a record screech and a video game coin sound)

Please leave a comment!

Mark

Well, after weeks of anticipation, we drew our Genre.  SILENT FILM.  It is definitely restricted by having NO DIALOGUE, it is not restricted in that it can be comedy, horror, drama etc.  We are busy putting together the most ridiculous seven minutes of film ever.

-Mark-

The prop is coins, the character is Carl or Carla Ross (A Plumber).  The required line of dialogue is “Who came up with that?”

Casting for the 48 hour film project was tonite.   These are photos that I captured.