bikes and things

So much good space footage and imagery seems to be going around at the moment. This one via @MathewWilson is fantastic.

Eruptive events on the sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun’s atmosphere, the corona.

On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. A moderately powerful solar flare exploded on the sun’s lower right hand limb, sending out light and radiation. Next came a CME, which shot off to the right out into space. And then, the sun treated viewers to one of its dazzling magnetic displays — a phenomenon known as coronal rain.

Over the course of the next day, hot plasma in the corona cooled and condensed along strong magnetic fields in the region. Magnetic fields, themselves, are invisible, but the charged plasma is forced to move along the lines, showing up brightly in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 304 Angstroms, which highlights material at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. This plasma acts as a tracer, helping scientists watch the dance of magnetic fields on the sun, outlining the fields as it slowly falls back to the solar surface.

Best with the sound set to OFF!

Full Moon Silhouettes is a real time video of the moon rising over the Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand. People had gathered up there this night to get the best view possible of the moon rising. I captured the video from 2.1km away on the other side of the city.

At 20 mins long it might be a bit much for work but save this for later as it’s well worth watching. If you have an Apple TV or any other way of viewing this large then I highly recommend it. I found it incredibly moving.

On the 40th anniversary of the famous ‘Blue Marble’ photograph taken of Earth from space, Planetary Collective presents a short film documenting astronauts’ life-changing stories of seeing the Earth from the outside – a perspective-altering experience often described as the Overview Effect.

The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about architectural video recently and looking at different examples. Some good, some bad, some interesting but none match the quality of this little video from one of the Architects at Studio MK27. The idea being that it’s shot from the point of view of the very grumpy looking cat which seems to own every part of the house.

Unfortunately the video can’t be embedded here due to restrictions on Vimeo but well worth heading over to Dezeen to watch it in full.

Via Fraher Architects.

Strange but fascinating and pretty funny too. The changing perspective is particularly odd.

Just riding along and then…

In this short film I examine the ever closer relationship between man, machine and the Earth from whence they both came.

Just look at the light in this video. Shafts of light over the Brighton seascape rolling by. So beautiful.

Such an impressive clip and equally impressive riding. The speed they hit those jumps at really is scary. The jump at 1 min 50 secs is completely nuts.

Via Andy Waterman.

Strangely captivating.

Via PetaPixel

…or video as some people might call it.

A conversation yesterday with Jim reminded me of this video by Tim Crocker which still completely blows me away with it’s quality, composition and the new ideas that are shown in it – it’s two years old and still seems fresh.

A lot of video of Architecture seems to be fairly poorly produced with utlra wide shots, lots of third point of perspective and wonky buildings, too many pans, dolly shots, focus pulls etc – all of which distract from the narrative surrounding the Architecture in my opinion. Essentially there seems to be a lack of subtlety which most successful Architectural photography creates. In this video a series of frames are created which would be powerful architectural shots alone, but then the frames come alive with movement from the people and the play of light on the buildings and trees in the frame. The Architecture then seems to form the backdrop to the life contained within, having created a pleasant public space for this activity to take place.

It appears that Pedro Kok is also fairly handy with Architectural video – tip of the hat to Dave Morris for the link.