DSDN 144 Project 2: Photo Choices from Second Shoot

So as to create the effect of flow through a physical space over time that I really wanted to achieve, I blended each sequence on Photoshop. While creating the composite images, I decided it would be really really awesome to investigate the flow of people through a space that you can't see. So, using a combination of blending techniques, I tried to generate this effect. What I created in many instances was quite astonishing. By getting Photoshop to analyse the differences in each frame, I was able to build up a picture of the change over the frames.

The difference between the frames is shown as an accumulation of colour and light. Since the only changes in the frames were really the people moving, these people show up as mysterious flows of light. The buildings around them, being static, show up significantly darker since the amount of change is next to nothing.

However, I also encountered a lot of problems with this technique. Since the technique analyses change across each single pixel, any slight difference in location of the camera makes a difference in the way the background is presented. While I did use a tripod, purely pressing the shutter button made the camera move fractionally and the background shows up, after processing the blending, as a very faint outline. Now, for some images, like the one above, this looks awesome, and really gives structure to the 3-D world the camera takes a picture of. However, for some of the other sequences, the movement was such a problem that the background shows up change-wise as bright as the moving people. The simple resolution to this problem is to simply use a remote release, which isn't a problem since I have a remote control.

I think for my next shoot, I'll experiment with purely capturing the motion over time, as well as with a small movement to capture the edges of the buildings framing the area. 

Another thing I found really interesting is that despite the diffused light from the cloud cover at the time, the shadows also register as change at the time. Very intriguing.

The continuity of the images is great too. The effect achieved isn't specific to conditions. The actual organisation of the frames makes a huge difference too, since the motion is displayed differently with different displays of "difference".

Interested to see the results from the soon-to-come third shoot...