When it comes to photography and my creative work in general, I’m always trying to think outside the box of how I can do things in new and creative ways, especially things that haven’t been done before.

A few years back, I successfully shot a short film of underwater motion control time-lapse, and since then I’ve thought of taking it a few steps further and try to capture an under/over water astro timelapse. My first attempt about a year ago was a huge fail, and since then I’ve been getting out when I can, scouting for suitable locations around my home in Wellington, New Zealand, and trying different gear and techniques to capture what I had in mind.

Earlier this month, I finally nailed it - still not technically perfect and I have a few more things to work out, but it was the best result to date. It was meant to also be a day to night under/over water astro time-lapse, but I had technical issues with the set-up, and missed my day time start by 40 minutes. Still I’m absolutely wrapped in the way it turned out, so I thought I’d put a clip together to show the actual time-lapse I shot, along with some behind the scenes footage.

The time-lapse was shot using a Syrp Genie One motion control unit for the camera motion, a Nikon D850 and Sigma Art 14mm lens housed in an AquaTech underwater housing. The planning of the position and timing of the Milky Way rising was planned with PhotoPills

Tags:   timelapse underwater astrophotography nightscape

© All Rights Reserved

'City Lights To Dark Skies' is my contribution to this years International Dark Sky Week, which runs from the 20 - 26 April 2014. I spend a lot of time photographing the night sky and have seen many of the negative effects that light pollution can have. So I thought one of the best ways to educate people about light pollution would be to show them the difference between a light polluted city sky and a dark sky with little or no light pollution. I used time-lapse photography to demonstrate this, and spent many hours in different lighting conditions capturing the footage.

The footage was shot around the Wellington and Wairarapa region on the North Island of New Zealand. We are very lucky here, as the light pollution around Wellington itself is no where near as bad as it is in larger cities such as New York, London or Sydney. Wellington is surrounded by hills, so a lot of the light pollution is contained within, and you can travel just 20 minutes out of the city center to find skies dark enough to view the Milky Way with the naked eye. I also traveled to locations with varying degrees of dark skies. From locations with moderate light pollution to the darkest of skies miles from anywhere in the Wairarapa - it was an interesting exercise to see what is visible in the night sky as you go from place to place.

During my time as an astrophotographer, I have spoken to many people from around the world who have been interested in my photographs and videos. I was truly shocked when some of them said to me that they have never seen the Milky Way with their own eyes before. I did some further research into this and found that more than one fifth of the world population, two thirds of the US population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way! This is a real shame, and the knock on effects of light pollution can be a lot more serious than just not being able to see the stars at night.

Finally, I urge you to go check out the International Dark Sky Association. You can access their website at darksky.org and also the International Dark Sky Week webpage at darksky.org/resources/109-international-dark-sky-week Here they have a lot of information on the effects of light pollution, and what can be done in your community to combat it. And during International Dark Sky Week, do yourself a favor and head out of the cities for some star gazing. It can be a truly humbling experience, especially if you haven't done it before. It's certainly a release for me from every day life...after all, life without dark skies - you don't know what you are missing...

theartofnight.com/2014/04/city-lights-to-dark-skies-inter...

The music, Nocturne 1985, by Rhian Sheehan was used with permission. You can check out Rhian's latest album, "Stories from Elsewhere" and more of his amazing music here: rhiansheehan.com

Want to know more? Follow me here:

theartofnight.com
facebook.com/markgphoto
plus.google.com/+MarkGee
500px.com/markg

Tags:   IDSW2014 Mark Gee markg.com.au Astrophotography time lapse light pollution International Dark Sky Week 2014 Wellington New Zealand Wairarapa theartofnight.com

© All Rights Reserved

Onshore, icy cold southerlies & a water temperature of 9 degrees celsius certainly adds to the challenge of kitesurfing at Lyall Bay.

The Lyall Sessions was a bit of an experiment using the video mode of a consumer grade still camera set up on a rig attached to the kite-surfing kite. The result, while not broadcast quality, was quite nice considering what it was shot with. I spent a lot of time trying to give it a film like look through color grading the footage.

The rig I used to attach the camera to the kite is from camrig.com. The camera was a Pentax Optio W30 which is part of the waterproof range of the Optio digital cameras. I shot the entire film with this camera, including the time laspe shots.

Tags:   kitesurfing kiteboarding surfing surf lyall wellington cabrinha kite surfboard markg camrig wild winds

© All Rights Reserved