LightintheWoods

As I surfed the web today, I found this beautiful timelapse, tiltshifted video of life in Sydney, Australia. It truly warmed me up on this Saskatchewan winter day.

The North Wind Blew South from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

What I love even more about this is the story of Keith and his new fame. He is creating new art in a way that hasn’t been done before and it is spreading to wide audiences around the world. This is a story of an amateur who has perfected his craft to become a professional who is being requested for art shows and exhibitions around the world.

I tweeted the link to Keith’s Vimeo Channel and soon my acquaintance, Neil, replied with links to two of his favorite tiltshift artists Olivo Barbieri and Toni Hafkenschied.  This inspired me to learn more.

Tiltshifting was new to me. I needed to learn more. I found info on composing tiltshifting on wikipedia and realized it needed special equipment or edditing software. Upon further searching I found tiltshift maker, a program that automatically tiltshifts pictures. Below is a slide show of some pictures from my European vacation this past summer that I experimented tiltshifting with.  Do you have a favorite?

I like this style because it adds a different perspective. I get the feeling that some of these images could be minature models or toys. As in life situations, value can be gained by looking at things in a different way.

Neil, tiltshifted some of his photo’s and commented that he wanted to try this project with his students. Without this web based program, timeshifting would be difficult for his students to do. Hopefully he and the class give it a shot.

After publishing this post on Geocaching in the Saskatchewan Outdoor & Environmental Association’s Fall Newsletter, Envisage, I was contacted by a middle years teacher who wanted more information.  Together, Paul & I exchanged email with the hope to bring teachers together for a Saturday morning workshop.  Our winter weather turned frigid and the workshop hasn’t materialized yet.  In preparation for this meetup, and for future reference I gathered resources on geocaching and compiled them on the wiki, GeoCachewithKyle.

Frustrated with the weather and having a hankering to try winter geocaching, I decided to spend time in the forests, and on the trails, of Duck Mountain Provincial Park with my brother.  Searching for caches in the winter certainly proved difficult and I had a few key learnings from the experience that I need to share.  I hadn’t adequately prepared the information from www.geocaching.com. I did write down the coordinates correctly and the name of the cache but in most instances I neglected to write down the clues or specific details. Next time I will put more time into this front end of this process.  I was naive to think we wouldn’t need the Google Map printout, which would have been handy at times.  Having only previously cached in non-wooded areas I was unable to foresee the affects the trees would have on the GPS reading; had I been thinking, I would have packed a compass to back up my conscious and negate the fear that we may be walking in circles.  Had I better prepared the trip we would of had a much higher success rate than 1 out of 4 caches. With all this being said, it was certainly fun to skidoo the trails, high step through thick snow, tramp across frozen marshes and enjoy the sounds of the forest.

I made a short clip of our experiences that day.

Give it a watch.

This video also highlights a few more things folks should consider about geocaching.  Both safety and ‘leave no trace’ principles are a concern at different intervals of the experience. At one point I slip and fall, and other point shows us nearly mow over a young sampling.  Reflecting on the experience brings these issues to light. These two principles must be at the forefront of planning such an outdoor excursion.