Nature Video Challenge: DAY SEVEN!

Today is the last day of January’s Nature Video Challenge! For today’s video, I left the assignment completely open to whatever happened to come across your (or my) path throughout the day.  In my own case, the delivery of a package of delicious tea provided the spark needed for my seventh nature video! Using a very long piece of paper that had been used to protect the wonderful contents of my package, I decided to explore this material and its source.

Here is the resulting video:

I hope you have all enjoyed this challenge as much as I have! Having never explored video art before, I found it to be a wonderfully unique way of exploring the subtle changes in the environment. There are so many beautiful changes that occur on a daily basis–and I find that unless I deliberately force myself to become more actively aware of the natural world, these subtleties go unnoticed. Through time lapse videos, these changes can be explored within a matter of minutes (though the actual footage takes numerous hours/days/months). If you’re interested in checking out some awesome time lapse videos, check these out!

If any of you decided to try video art yourselves, I’d love to see your work!

‘Til later…happy explorations!

Nature Video Challenge: DAY FOUR!

Today’s windy weather made for dramatic changes in the sky–changes that were literally BEGGING to be filmed. On my way to the gym I watched handfuls of clouds as they quickly blew across the bright blue sky…wishing I was watching the drama unfold through the lens of my camera! After I finished my workout, I headed out with my camera, hoping the sky had saved some of its drama for my nature challenge. As is usually the case when you’re actually LOOKING for something, the sky did not deliver…In fact, it seemed as though most of the giant, active clouds had disappeared entirely. After several minutes of filming, I ventured inside…temporarily defeated.

After about an hour of toying around with my first sky video attempts, I decided to head outside again to see if I could find SOMETHING exciting going on. This video is the result of my second filming attempts:

Pfew! Challenge Indeed!

For tomorrow’s challenge, I will study the lines and structure of an object in nature. For this video, I will focus on the lines and borders that make up the natural object chosen to be the subject of my video. 

‘Til tomorrow…happy explorations!

Nature Video Challenge: DAY TWO!

Today’s challenge turned out to be much hard than I had thought. Unfortunately my first attempt at stop animation was a little shakier than I had wanted, due to a lack of a tripod (or some sort of makeshift camera stand). Here is the result of my attempts to bring back life into my subject:

After fighting with this video for more time than I care to admit on this post, I decided to return outside to play around with another idea. Below is the result of my second video of the day (though I must warn you—I definitely strayed from the suggested challenge for the day!):

Please note: No live plants were harmed in the making of these videos

Enjoy!

Tomorrow’s suggestion: Explore the colors and shapes around you! (I’ll leave this suggestion open for creative interpretation!)

Till tomorrow…happy explorations!

Environmental Video Artist: Annette Arlander

Continuing on with my explorations of video as a medium through which the environment might be explored, I introduce you to Annette Arlander, a video performance artist from Finland. In reference to her work as an artist, Arlander writes,

“My art practice is focused on performing landscape by means of video or recorded voice. I prefer to show my works as projections, two or three channel video installations or spatial arrangements where the passing of time depicted in the works is presented as cyclical loops…Although my works can be understood as autobiographical diary notes, linked to minimal aesthetics of early video artists, or connected to purist documentary approaches, personally I see them as attempts at combining the methods of performance art, environmental art and video art, as sketches of human being’s relationship to the environment and as notes on the continuous changes in the landscape.”

Here’s an example of one of her works from a twelve year project that began in 2002. You can read more about Annette Arlander and view more of her videos here.

Year of the Ox

‘Til later, happy explorations!!