It was painful in real life, it’s only fitting that it be painful to watch and the second half of this video really is. You wish it was finished, over done, complete. . .welcome to my world!

Planes, airports, people, swollen feet, sore knees, bad food. . .man, it all sucks! This part of the journey was a bit of a melodrama in that we couldn’t manage to get the HVX out of customs in time for our flight. We didn’t check the tripods, since we had taken them as carry on everywhere and then were stopped at security 5 minutes before boarding and told to go back and check them in. While waiting for the guys to try and check the tripods and get them to the plane on time, our man Leandro, typing furiously on his terminal, eyes pinpoints of concentration had almost wrapped it up when. . .Darkness! The entire airport plunges into inky blackness. . .a few sparse screams of shock and fear pierce the immediate silence that follows, as well as my laugh, loud and deep, ringing out across the terminal. . .almost flirting with that fine line between true belly laughter and maniacal cackling. I was close to losing it and it felt gooooood!

Leandro’s voice, quiet and seeming to originate from a point in space hanging somewhere in front of us, says “I haven’t seen this ever in the 10 years I have worked here!”. Of course you haven’t Leandro, because Luis and I, the two cursed amigos’ haven’t come floating through this airport before with no time to spare, camera’s stuck in customs, cancelled flights and tripods that weren’t checked! No doubt Leandro won’t see it again until we are next in town!

But I digress, I doubt you’re here to hear my incessant moaning about how bad the travel was. “You’re doing an international shoot through Brazil and Mexico, so you had a bit of trouble, quit ya whining! Do you realise how lucky you are?!” Trouble is, once I get on a roll, it’s hard to stop the literary diarrhoea!

So what else is there to do when faced with all of this, but to plug in the headphones, crack out the camera and disconnect.

Shooting handheld with the 7D is cool, it’s fun and really spontaneous. I’ve missed that kind of shooting, as because of the rolling shutter I’m locked off on the tripod most of the time. And the rolling shutter sure is apparent, it’s all through this clip, I hate it. Yes, I can remove it, but to be honest. . .for this application, it’s hardly worth it. I’ve used a 5D MKII with some redrock rods attached to it and it takes out that tiny little judder that you get from a rig that’s too light. That little bit of extra weight really helps. I think I will look at getting some of these soon as it will dramatically increase the amount of ‘keepers’ when shooting handheld.

Again the IS on the 70-200 kicks butt in video mode, I love it to death. When you’re shooting handheld it really is phenomenal how much difference it makes. If you jump the camera around a bit, the IS can exacerbate the movements and you can end up with something that could make a person sick, it’s all in how you nurse it through the movement, learning the IS and how to caress it into doing what you want. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no sicko (well I am, but not when it comes to camera’s) but you really do need to be gentle with it, show it some r-e-s-p-e-c-t and it will love you! I should do a post showing the comparison in Video mode. . .I will. . .one day!

A bit of this stuff was shot at around 400 ISO, it’s still pretty clean at that point, I don’t start seeing much noise until around 800-1000 ISO. I know people carry on about how you can shoot at up to 1600, sure you can shoot at up to 1600, but man it looks pretty ugly. The noise seems to be big and chunky in the shadows, not the kind of stuff that Noise Removal software really likes. So I try to keep it below 1000 and with faster glass, that’s usually pretty achievable.

The music in this video is something I randomly found on my computer, listened to, latched onto and absolutely caned. It’s the first track off a mix CD a good friend of mine, who is an excellent DJ, put together. I found it perfect for this journey since it starts all mellow and lovely and takes you on a journey into the darker sides of minimal tech house. A soundtrack to  infuse the soul with metallic invulnerability. I don’t know the artist or the name of the track, maybe if Daniel stops by he can assist me here.

This is not a great example of videography, in fact I almost hesitated in uploading it and posting it, thinking, “No, maybe I should only be putting my best work on the site. . .” emulating the other blogging heroes that you see around the traps. . .In the end I figured, bugger it, this is what went down, sure the shots aren’t the best in the world, but they aren’t meant to be. . .this is my journey, not my masterpiece. . .If you find it as uncomfortable as I did, my work is done!

Click here to watch it on SmugMug in 1080P.

More soon. . .

This is clearly the best weather one could hope for if one were on the last day of a shoot and needed to nail some aerials. . .

Sometimes things don’t go your way, and you just have to keep laughing. I’m becoming really good at that now. It’s lucky, because today really threw us a curve ball. . .

A sunrise shoot was out of the question. Waking to solid cloud cover at 5:30am was bittersweet. I decided to head out later on and get a couple more shots around the city while Luis looked after some work in the room. The weather was average though and nothing was really popping.

Scheduled on a 7pm flight out of Brazil to Cancun (Via Sao Paulo and Texas! Ouch!) we had only to shoot the aerials at around midday when the light would be best for our requirements and we were done.

Finding out that the Helicopter we needed wasn’t available and a last minute replacement would cost close to US$2000 for the hour was a bit unfortunate. What really put a damper on things, quite literally, was the torrential rain that started belting down. The clouds looked impenetrable and it was pretty obvious we wouldn’t be shooting anything from a chopper by the time we had to leave. The weather radar confirmed this. No good! They’ll have to be shot at another time.

So off the airport we went to catch our flight. Long story short, it got delayed, we missed the connection to Texas and are now stuck in Sao Paulo for the night. Since the next flight doesn’t leave until 11pm tomorrow night, we have had to rebook the flights home so we get the time we need in Playa Del Carmen.

Despite the bummer, we’re still laughing and just hanging to get to Mexico so we can start making headway again, all these setbacks have been very frustrating.

I have to say though, the new glass is kicking ass! I have got some shots that I just would never have been able to before, not only with the extra range of the 100-400, but also the better low light capability of the 70-200. Initially the push pull zoom of the 100-400 threw me a little, but I’m getting used to it now and it’s not so bad. The Bokeh of the 70-200 is just to die for. I’ll do a breakdown on the whole lot at a later date.

I have been shooting some random travel sort of video, but I just haven’t had a moment to cut a clip. Probably tomorrow I will though, I’ll do my best.

But now, it’s time for bed. . .

More soon.

This is what we've been waiting for. . .blue skies and sunshine!

In the filtered pre-dawn light, warning lights flashed brightly on the dash. Luis turned the key in the ingition, the starter motor chugged to life, but refused to start the car. Again and again he tried, but each time the engine just emitted a tortured whirring sound before lapsing into silence. It was 6am and having joked endlessly about worst case scenarios, funnily enough, this one never came up. It’s always the way. . .

After pushing the car down random streets for 15 minutes, unable to even start it by pushing, we gave up. Ready to throw in the towel and miss the Sunrise shoot, which was looking bleak anyway, we parked it in a random car park and were grabbing stuff out of the car ready to walk back to the hotel and call it quits when I thought I might take a look under the bonnet.

Often I wonder why the hell I do this. . .I know NOTHING about cars. . .I look under the hood and it makes about as much sense to me as Norwegian television. . .bugger all! But I opened it up none the less, maybe just to see if the engine had actually been removed, in which case I would have been able to successfully diagnose the fault. I wiggled the Spark plug leads, pulled the accelerator cable and tapped a couple of things with my fingers. Luis turned it over and, Hey Presto! It started first time! We had overcome the first hurdle of the day and felt pretty damn good about it!

A sunrise shoot on the lake yielded less than I would have liked. Cloud cover ruined all but a tiny portion of the sky and the shots were not as good as they could have been. I managed to get some OK ones, but nothing that you would call great, which was diasppointing, as the location really had the potential. It started raining while we were shooting, and the shots that were working stopped doing so because you could see rain drops on the water. . .I’m sure we’ll still get a little out of it though.

We stopped by the main bridge and golf course to see what we could get, but the overcast sky was killing us. The golf course yielded little and concerns over the outcome of the shoot were starting to weigh heavily upon us.

The weather looked terrible and we had pretty much written the day off. Packing things up we headed for the project site to see what it looked like so we could get an idea of what we would be shooting when we booked the helicopter. The site looked good but we ended up having to climb a couple of sizeable mountains to get the shots we needed. Not bringing water was a bad move, jetlag was kicking in and just as things were looking quite ominous, a break in the clouds starting dominating the sky back over Brasilia and we knew that we had to get back there fast.

The sun was shining when we got back into the city and we shot like madmen, running all over town getting everything we could while the sunshine and the blue skies lasted. At last we were getting shots we needed, that we were really happy with and that ticked all the boxes. It was stinking hot and without sunscreen, we didn’t realise how cooked we were until we actually stopped to look at each other. Bright red, haggard and scattered we kept going until we couldn’t go anymore. The 7D was singing though, absolutely loving the 70-200 and just raking it in.

Finally at about 6pm, a full 12 hours after kicking off we called it quits. With more than we’d hoped for in the can, we retired back to the hotel to have a rest wait for the sunset. Unfortunately the rain rolled in and put the kybosh on any hope of a sunset shoot, so we spent the time going through the rushes and dumping the cards.

It was a successful day, very hard work, but worth every second. I’m hoping for a clear sky tomorrow morning so we can really smash a sunrise and have nice weather for the aerial shots. Fingers crossed gang. . .

That’s it from me, it’s late, I’m buggered and with a 5:30am start on the cards again, it’s time for bed. . .

More soon. . .

"When my baby, when my baby smiles at me I go to Rio. . .De Janeiro!" Sadly, this song skittled around the inside of my sleep deprived head the whole time I was at Rio airport.

“Sorry sir, it says here that your bags have been sent to Sao Paulo instead of Rio.” A Delta employee explained in halting English. Can anybody say icing on the cake?

It took me back to watching a clip that my colleague Brett cut once. He used a quote from the Dalai Llama that said something along the lines of, “And when you realise how perfect everything is. . .you will throw your head back and laugh to the sky”. I did just that. . .what else could I do?

So after managing to wrangle my way through customs with the 7D and all the lenses, which they took great interest in, telling me to make sure I took it all with me when I left (I guess as a precaution, just in case I felt like leaving my beloved camera behind for no good reason) I jumped the next flight to Brasilia and feeling totally over it and completely exhausted found a whole row of empty seats and passed the hell out. I needed it.

Luis, my client, a cheerful Spaniard with a great sense of humour, picked me up from the airport and off we went for a quick tour of downtown Brasilia before checking in. After a quick shower to reboot, we met in the lobby and broke down what we needed to achieve whilst here in Brazil. It all looked good to me, but did I mention the weather was bad? Well it is. . .overcast and crummy. . .awesome!

We went out for a bit of a location reccie and ended up shooting a bit and found some spots that will yield some really nice shots. The architecture in this place is fantastic, the city was completely planned and there are these huge wide open park areas all through the city, it’s really nice.

Finishing up at dark, we went out to for a brilliant feed at a Brazilian steakhouse, sorted tomorrow’s schedule and went back to our rooms. I couldn’t help but smash out a time lapse off the balcony. . .4 second exposures. . .150 of them @ 25fps. It works out to 6 seconds of footage and should be ample.

Trouble is, I can’t dump this card, because all the powerboards, cables and adapters are in my bag. . .that’s still in customs. . .in Sao Paulo. . .Awesome!

Anyway, hopefully they arrive tomorrow. . .

Sunrise shoot at 6am. . .if there’s a sun to shoot that is. . .I’m praying for clear skies, if you’re a friend to me, please do so too!

More soon!

The Fall Atlanta I would never have seen. . .

“Sorry sir, Australian citizens require a Visa to board this plane. You don’t have a visa.”

Simple as that, I was grounded, stuck in Atlanta, unable to to contact the client and in worlds of stress. . .the gig was up before it even started. . .

I had to get a hotel, find a Brazilian Consulate, get ugly photo’s of myself, fill out forms, stress the hell out. . .the whole nine yards. The trouble was that I hadn’t organised my own travel and the clients travel agent had overlooked this rather important factor. It was a horrible experience but let’s not dwell on it, let’s talk about the good stuff. I’ve met a lot of good people today!

A taxi driver named Jay, of Jay Express, according to his business card, who I was fortuitously paired with today as a result of my unfortunate circumstances. He had just whacked $80 on his credit card to fix his car. He couldn’t afford it and things were looking pretty bleak as he relayed the story to his wife down the phone as I got into the car. I maintain that fate had us meet this day, he was a good guy, got me where I needed to go, smiled and we got on famously. He made more than he would of today, 3 times over by driving me around town to organise a Brazilian visa. Fate. . .I got my Visa, (after spending less than 5 minutes in the Consul, I challenge anybody to best this!) and he’s no longer stressed about the money he spent on the car. . .and will probably have enough left over to take the missus out for dinner. . .Fate. . .

After finally getting the Visa, boarding pass, booked back onto the flight, through security and looking at a 8 hour wait for my flight, I thought I deserved a beer. So I sat at a bar, next to a loud english gentleman. After 5 minutes Malcolm (A bona fide geezer!) and I were having a right old time, and having both had pretty average days, took to each others company with utter abandon. I am almost glad he got on that flight to Gatwick and was whisked away from the bar, if not I might have found myself with a gargantuan hangover tomorrow. Fantastic guy and just what I needed after the last 24 hours, a bloody good laugh and some trouble to boot. Happy days! I hope he’s reading this. . .if you are Malcom, you better bring that girl of yours to the Australia zoo, I’ll be waiting with the brews!

Next up was Jennifer, a wonderful lady lucky enough to work in the Candy industry. . .free lollies. . .is there a better gig? I highly doubt it. . .Astronauts only wish they worked in the confectionery business. In fact I’m sure they started out there and had to fall back on the whole Nasa thing when they couldn’t take it. Anyway, she liked wakeboarding, hanging out at the lake, drinking in the water, having a good time with friends, travelling and most importantly the conversation starter. . .photography. . .I may have talked incessantly about how much she needs to upgrade her old Rebel SLR to the 500d/T1i and start shooting video. . .She was a good sort though. . .I hope she has fun in Argentina. . .

So anyway. . .after all the crap. . .here I am about to try and board a flight to Rio for the second time in as many days. . .I got a visa, I showed it to the guy who barred me yesterday and took great delight in rubbing his nose in my new found Visa-ness. I am cleared for take-off. . .

The real madness starts tomorrow. . . .

More soon. . .

All aboard. . .

I’m way overweight. . .and today it cost me. . .

“About 23 kilos too heavy” a smiling VirginBlue check in attendant told me. “That will be $230.”

I smiled too, broadly. It was the smile of a thousand imagined paper cuts simultaneously inflicted on this cheerful monetary assassin. What do you do though, eh? I’d crammed everything into one very large bag. Tripod, lights, Dolly, Leads, clothes pillow, teddy. . .and it was heavy. . .33.4 kilos to be exact. I had to reshuffle some things to make it 32kg and legal to fly.

Then there was the Pelican Case with the HVX in it. . .don’t even go there. . .

The lady from Delta though, well I could have kissed her. She allowed me to carry my tripod onto the plane, and didn’t charge me a cent for the excess. . .and that was for a flight all the way to Rio. That, my friends, was a beautiful thing. So beautiful in fact that it almost didn’t phase me when they didn’t want to let me leave the country because my passport is water damaged and didn’t scan. They did let me leave though. Whether or not they let me into the US though, that remains to be seen!

So now I’m 10km’s above the pacific, just past Samoa and heading for LA onto Atlanta and then to Rio. There’s still a bit of the way to go yet, but I’m on my way.

More soon. . .

*UPDATE* Sending this from LAX, waiting for the flight to Atlanta and then Rio. . .More soon. . .