Vista House: Timelapse from Oregon's Columbia River Gorge
Written and Photographed by Daniel Gomez
Artist
Spending the last 7 years in Oregon with a camera is a dream for those with a sense of adventure. When I moved to this mostly gloriously green state I had no idea what to do with a camera other than to take it along and document all the beautiful places I began to find. Over the last year I have really become enamored with timelapse photography and have begun to incorporate it into my regular shooting routine. Watching timelapse films by Michael Shainblum has been one of my biggest influences as his films are captivating with their varying degrees of motion and silky smooth quality. Since delving into timelapse, I’ve consumed as many lessons on proper settings as possible and have gone out in the field and failed over and over until I got exactly what I envisioned.
About the shot
The Columbia River Gorge is one of the crown jewels of Oregon state and being only 15 minutes from my house for 4 of the last 7 years, it was an obvious choice for me to go shoot. Vista House is one of the most iconic places in the Gorge as it’s a beautiful building that stands 600+ feet above the river. I had always known that twice a year the sun rises out of one of the peaks on the Washington side of the river and the sun's rays bathe Vista House in glorious backlighting. Finally, this year the weather cooperated for the shot and I had incredible conditions that morning! It was one of those sunrises that just kept getting better and better, starting out with cool blues and vibrant pink clouds that slowly transitioned to the gold tones seen in the timelapse.
This shot cemented my rule about shooting timelapses: arrive early and stay late! For this timelapse I arrived 1 hour before sunrise and stayed 1 hour after. The benefit of shooting a long duration of time is that it will allow you options. Whether that be to create multiple shorter timelapses or one lengthy timelapse, this will help you identify your favorite period of time that showcased the most intriguing footage. Another tip is to never interrupt your timelapse unless you absolutely have to. Every time you miss a frame or the interval changes there will be a possibility that the timelapse will appear to be “choppy” during that period of interruption.
For gear, I used my Nikon D850 with a battery grip (to prevent missing a shot), a Tamron 70-200 F2.8 G2 lens, and the TVC-24L Really Right stuff Tripod. A sturdy tripod is key to making a great timelapse and this one is just light enough to carry with me, goes to a height of 6’6”, and is incredibly sturdy. Alternatively, if your tripod is not incredibly sturdy with a heavy telephoto lens, using an additional sandbag on the tripod can help give you some stability. I used a focal length of 135mm to isolate Vista House and compress the sun and kept a constant aperture of F7.1.
I shot this timelapse entirely in Manual mode, also known as “The Holy Grail Method”, and only changed shutter speed and ISO. There are many pros and cons to shooting in aperture priority but I like to have full control of settings and decide when to adjust as the light changes and the camera's light meter reflects this change. The other reason I shoot in Manual mode is to be able to use the holy grail feature within LRTimelapse, which is where I post process my timelapse along with Adobe Lightroom. The holy grail feature allows me to manipulate the natural change of light in my timelapse and can help smooth out the transitions between different camera settings. In Lightroom, I perform basic camera RAW adjustments and try to keep those adjustments to a minimum. Often, highly adjusted settings can introduce flicker so I keep them minimal. I added the finishing touches in Adobe After Effects where I added my logo and text and exported in full resolution.
One of the best parts of having all the files from shooting a timelapse is all the still images you end up with. In addition to creating a timelapse, I often utilize those files for still images and find creative ways to use them. I used a single image for the shot of the sun cresting over the mountain peak and blended 60 seconds worth of images into the photo before the sun rose.
More of my work
More of my work can be found on my website, Instagram, and Youtube! Thank you all for reading this and I hope you enjoy :)
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