Category: Video

A Sandhill Crane Sunrise

3/23/2021

I left home at midnight to drive to Nebraska to photograph Sandhill Cranes at sunrise. Arriving at the Platte River near Alda, Nebraska just before sunrise I quickly set up my camera and tripod just in time to get a few photos of Sandhill Cranes in silhouette and a video of this sunrise as the Cranes flew up from their roost on the river. I've been to see the Sandhill Crane spring migration in Nebraska many times, but I am still amazed by this awesome spectacle every time is experience it. You can see more on previous posts.
[Click images to see larger and view the video below.]

Click below to view the short video.

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A Stormy Day in North Iowa - Video

7/11/2020

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Some summers the corn behind our property is too high for me to see the horizon. This year there are soy beans planted so I have no problem taking photos and videos of clouds and storms approaching or passing. The forecast today was for scattered storms, some severe, throughout the day so I set up the time-lapse cameras to capture the action. There are several clips in here taken throughout the day. My camera battery lasts two hours while letting the camera run with one exposure every five seconds which yields about 1 minute of video or one exposure every ten seconds for about 30 seconds of video. Then I have to change the camera battery.
Click below to view the video.

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After the Rain - Waterfall

6/26/2020

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Click to see larger

I like waterfalls, but they are pretty scarce in the flat lands of North Iowa. After a heavy rain the a few days ago I found this trickle of a waterfall at the Lime Creek Conservation Area. It probably won't last long.
Click the image to see larger and watch the short video below.

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Clouds on Earth Day

4/22/2020

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When was the last time that you just sat back and watched the clouds roll by? I love this time of year with the billowing clouds and storms. In this time of social distancing and stress turn on your favorite inspirational music, click the play button below, expand to full-screen and enjoy the flowing clouds as they melt in to a nice Iowa sunset.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. (no audio)

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Color the Wind 2020 Kite Festival Video

2/16/2020

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It was a beautiful Saturday for the 2020 Color the Wind Kite Festival in Clear Lake, Iowa. I don't know how many kites were there, but I walked at least a quarter of a mile on the ice to try to see them all.
Here is a short video: (After the video YouTube will probably take you to a bunch of videos that aren't mine. Click the back button or reload the page to get back.)

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Yellowstone in Winter Video

1/31/2020

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Here is a short video of wildlife, waterfalls, geysers and thermal features taken during our five-day trip to Yellowstone National Park in mid-January 2020 with the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA) photo tour. (At the end of this, YouTube will probably take you to a page with a whole bunch of videos that aren't mine. Sorry. Just reload the page or click the back-button to get back here.) See also the Yellowstone in Winter photo gallery linked from the previous blog post.

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"Best Local Film"

9/5/2019

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Dale Mills and I were honored tonight to receive an award for the 'Best Local Film' for our film 'A February Canoe Float' at the Iowa Independent Film Festival, among the six films that were screened tonight. It looked pretty good on the big screen. I was a bit surprised because all of the films shown tonight were very good. I'm glad they liked ours.
(Produced, directed and edited by Bruce G. McKee, written and narrated by Dale Mills.)
Click images below to see larger.

Update: The film is an official selection at the 2020 Snake Alley Festival of Film July 30, 2020 and the Siouxland Inspirational Short Film Festival.
The film was a semi-finalist at the Muscatine Independent Film Festival, but didn't make the final cut. I'm still honored that it was being considered.

View the film - 'A February Canoe Float'

See also the second in the series "A Spring Sojourn via Canoe"

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The Milky Way and Jupiter

6/9/2019

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The Milky Way and Jupiter over the Winnebago River (a little closer to home) in north Iowa. Now the rest of the (long) story. I have been waiting for the right conditions to get a photo and time-lapse video of the Milky Way over this spot in the river where it heads straight south. I had scouted the location and knew where to go but needed a clear sky, low humidity, little wind and a moonless night for the period when the galactic center of the Milky Way would be visible. It all came together a couple of nights ago when the crescent moon set early. I went out a little before midnight, got out of the car and was swarmed with mosquitoes so I turned off my headlamp to walk the 20 yards or so through the woods to get to the right spot along the river. I turned on my flashlight briefly along the way to make sure I was in the right spot only to find that I was in the middle of the largest patch of poison ivy that I have ever seen. In the course of setting up the time lapse camera, going home to take a nap then going back at 3:30 AM to retrieve my camera I walked through that patch four times. I did have on my knee-high leg gaiters and boots, but now I was afraid to touch either of them and had to put on gloves to remove them, (and later wash everything in a bucket outside), I have a history of huge breakouts from poison ivy, so I'm waiting to see what happens, but I did wash very thoroughly when I got home. Ugh. The photo turned out okay even though we have a lot of light pollution in this part of north Iowa.

Below is a short time lapse video. I had to edit out a section in the middle because a moth landed on the lens and did a dance. The camera was running on auto-pilot so I didn't see it until I got home.
Video:

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A February Canoe Float video

3/8/2019

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Take a few minutes, sit back, relax, and enjoy a quiet canoe float down the river in North Iowa with my good friend Dale Mills who wrote and narrated the text for the video. Dale has canoed the Winnebago River for every month of every year for at least a couple of decades. He is very passionate and poetic about canoeing, nature and conservation.

Update, Sept. 5, 2019:

September 5-7, 2019

Awarded 'Best Local Film' at the Iowa Independent Film Festival on Thursday September 5, 2019 at the Mason City Public Library.

See also the second in the series "A Spring Sojourn via Canoe".

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Clouds on a Summer Day over Iowa - Video

6/27/2018

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Yesterday the sky over North Iowa was very active. It is fascinating to watch the clouds but hard to realize the flowing changes in the clouds until it is sped up with a time-lapse video. This was recorded as a time-lapse video with a GoPro camera with a 10 second interval between each frame. There are 30 frames in each second of video, so it takes 6 frames in one minute, five minutes to record one second of video, and one hour to record 12 seconds.
Click below to watch the short video.

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Sunset time lapse Video

8/29/2016

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There was a nice sunset last night with lots of wispy clouds.When I see it like this without many clouds low on the horizon I know it will be a pretty sunset. Sometimes it is difficult to know when is the right moment to take a photo because a sunset or sunrise can change so quickly, so I took one every 15 seconds and stitched them together with Adobe Premier Elements. Here is the sunset in a short video:

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EagleFlight Video

11/22/2015

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Video of a Bald Eagle in Flight during the Raymond Barlow Raptor Workshop at the Canadian Raptor Conservancy near Simcoe, Ontario. The falconers flew the Eagle across the pond several times rewarding him with a tasty treat each time. I don't remember the exact camera settings. It was a 10-22mm lens on a DSLR and slowed down to half-speed in the editing.
(Due to goofy YouTube stuff it may go to another video after viewing. Reloading the page should get you back here.)
https://youtu.be/McsrwaV2zOs

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Clouds Over Iowa Video

5/8/2015

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Last evening I tried out the new digital remote trigger (intervalometer) that I have for my camera. I had it set to take one exposure every 15 seconds for about an hour and a half as the clouds came rolling in ahead of a storm. I stopped taking pictures when it started raining. Then I opened the 300+ still images in Adobe Premiere Elements and made them in to a time-lapse movie. (This is part-1. I'm working on a longer version over several days.)