From July 4th until September 28th, I drove from El Paso to Alaska and back. I Shot the experience from the moment I woke up until I went to sleep.
The Trip
I finished school on July 2nd and left El Paso two days later. This was a week ahead of schedule and fittingly my own Independence Day. I had a loose plan of hitting up a good chunk of the country on my way to Alaska and no clear plan on how to get back. Because of this, the trip lasted five weeks longer than I had intended. Like every trip I have taken, I was terrified and doubted even going through with everything. I'm glad I did as this was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
Not only did I do this trip for the experience, I did this to hone my camera skills a little more. once I arrived back home and started going through photos, there was a definite positive curve of quality present as the trip went on. That's what happens when you shoot from the time you wake up until you go to sleep for three months.
I was incredibly fortunate to meet incredible people and visit friends I hadn't seen in years. As I roamed the country, sleeping in my car and adjusting to have very few set plans, I discovered exactly how beautiful this land is. The national parks are gorgeous, each city has it's own story, and people are chill.
Moments
2:41 - Phase Five
(pictures/Parks)
The Video
One of the critiques that I usually receive about my videos are that they are too fast. In response, this is the fastest video I have put together. While I had been using fast moving cuts of still photos for a while, I've never used them to this degree. The project file for this video was so large (~19,000 items) that Premiere Pro crashed non stop.
I originally wanted to shoot a completely different type of video but realized I wasn't quite where I needed to be to execute effectively.
The idea for this video came to me while driving from Nashville to St Louis. The basic concept here is that after we travel, we don't necessarily retain a vivid memory of everything that happened. We tend to forget the dull moments and have only flashes of memories from the things that we did. This video is my representation of a memory of a trip. The beginning is quick while I'm soaking everything in and eventually slows once I get into the groove of realizing what's around me.
