Colombia - 2012

On my second holiday to this stunning country I decided to do the fatal thing and take my camera along with me. I thought about shooting a timelapse shot or two… I ended up filming on average 2 shots per day over the course of 4 weeks and it really became a working holiday!

I was a little nervous to begin with. I had been there before, but didn’t take my DSLR along with me. Now Colombia is vastly safer than it was 20-30 years ago – however its still a little risky if you don’t know where to go. Also, the very nature of timelapse means your stuck in one place for an hour or two and it could be a nice target for opportunists! Luckily I had my father in law and new camera assistant Moises - He even took a small baseball bat along with him on an evening in Bogota! In the end we weren’t troubled at all and I’m so glad I managed to capture so many great images.

Quite a bit of this film was shot in Bogota, and in the Quindio region, including Armenia. We also travelled to Melgar, Manizales and Pereira.

I was limited in what I could take kit wise due to travelling with a baby. So I took a very lightweight tripod, a Canon7D and my trusty 17-55mm f2.8 lens. Had a few problems with camera shake in post, but actually the small tripod held up OK!

This time round I shot a fair amount of HDR timelapse – and had days of processing with Photomatix. On balance I think it was really worth it. So many of the scenes had extreme exposure contrast and I really wanted to preserve detail in the sky and in the landscape itself. It was cut using FCP, and graded with Magic Bullet Looks. All of the tilt shift effects are done in post using Magic Bullet.

Please do go ahead and visit this country if you get the chance!

Ed Beck
MB Films