Nature Clips
watch – listen – relax - enjoy
Video Miniatures of the goings-on above our head
Red Star Down
The sun's deep red was not filtered by me, but caused by smoke and dust particles in the air during some horrific bush fires in Australia. Please note those clearly visible sun spots.
Flying Water
Earth is a Goldilocks planet with water in its frozen, liquid and gaseous forms. We didn't get the frozen form, but the others are in this clip.
There are 8 thousand million people on Earth. 8 billion. And each ought to drink 3 litres of water every day for good health. Seems a lot of waste then to see so much water sitting on the ground. Or flying through the air. Or disguised as clouds above our heads. Such good-looking waste.
Sydney Opera House
On Benelong Point jutting into the harbour. The design with those eyecatching sails was won by Danish architect Jorn Utzon among 233 submitted to an international competition. In 2007 it was added to Unesco's World Heritage List. Our clip sees the sun climb up behind the sails. It breaks free to Wagner's grand music.
Heavy Weather – Cloud Music
There was a blanket of heavy clouds over Wollomi National Park. Later a few open spots for the sun. Then more War and Peace in the Australian sky. Plus rain – in freezing winter. To protect the camera I had to shed some clothing. It gave me coughs and sneezes.
Sun Cows
Jacques Offenbach's 'Barcarolle' is intensely romantic, and an early morning farm yard is intensely not so. Yet, the cows seemed to like it - and cooperated on the musical cues.
Australia's Blue Mountains
Charles Darwin on his visit to the Blue Mountains in 1836: "… Certainly, the most stupendous cliffs I have ever seen…"
Subsidence, Darwin thought, must have caused those stupendous hollows in the ground. But the great man was wrong. Erosion did it. 60 millionyears of wind and weather removed three quarters of what had been,and left today's skeletal landscape.
The Blue of the Blue Mountains is caused by the Rayleigh Effect.
The leaves of gumtrees exude minute droplets of ethereal oil into the atmosphere. Together with tiny dust particles and moisture they scatter the short waves of the spectrum, the blue ones. On warm hazy days the air around the mountains catches the blues.
Pinnacles Desert
Apologies: plural 'Pinnacles Desert' ought to be is the correct title on the clip.
A patch of sand and accidental sandy formations in Western Australia surrounded by coastal vegetation. It is a relic from the last ice age about 15 000 years ago. Sea levels were 100m lower then. Wind blew the now exposed sand of the former sea floors landwards. Rain cemented sand into pinnacles wherever some calcium carbonate had accumulated and hardened. The softer parts were blown away. Chance at work.
Air Rings
This clip was filmed with an Endoscope – normally used to look into people's stomach or intestines. In this case it is a stretch of Australia's Queensland wilderness.
Lake Eyre
Lake Eyre is part of Australia's most arid region with an evaporation rate of 2.5 – 3.5m per year (8.2 – 11,5 feet) but a mean annual rainfall of 150mm. It lies 15m (50feet) below sea level and is the largest salt pan in the world. The crust is about half a meter thick floating on 6 metres of briny mud. Nothing grows on it but the crystals of salt.
Blue Mountains Sunrise
This was an eerie clip to take, alone among the mighty walls of Hanging Rock. Suddenly they were lit by a far away star. Then shadows wiped over them and night came dark from behind me. Like cosmic forces had attained form and were moving all around me.
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Ink Music
Once freed from its duty to write words on paper, this ink showed an amazing ability to listen, and to dance. Slow and fast and different styles. Clever ink.
Requiem for a Loser
We hear a starter gun and the galloping of horses. A race is being run. Money will bet. The winner gets all. But so aloof, the sun keeps rising over outback Australia.
Finally the last horse trots along. No applause, yet a glorious burst of light - for the loser.
Three Trees Dreaming
There were three trees on an Australian Stony Desert, barren from one horizon to the next. And they were dreaming. Because there was nothing else to do.
Hawkesbury Sunrise
The sun rose near Windsor, just north of Sydney. Shot on film with a 16mm Angenieux 9.5mm – 95mm zoom. As the sun climbed and the light got more intense I had to stop down to F22. This made tiny faults on the surface of the lens visible. It caused the unruly light spots around the main shafts. It's pre-digital, before perfection deleted glorious mistakes. Music made the wrong right.
One day in the life of Uluru (Ayers Rock)
Uluru is an 'inselberg' (island mountain), the bit above ground of a rock massif that runs east-west underground and might reach 5000 to 6000m in depth (16 400-19 700ft).
The rock's famous red glow is helped by countless tiny quartz crystals on its surface. They hold a mirror to the sun. A little haze helps. It filters out the short waves of the spectrum, the blues, so the rock can bathe in, and reflect, mainly red.
Time Walk
Sitting still for 14 hours is no fun. But I was young then. From sunrise of an Australian summer to sunset – sitting behind the camera – staring at a stop watch - clicking 1 frame all now and again – filming the doings of Time: moving shadows while Earth turned in the beam of the Sun at 1670km/hour (1038 miles/hour).
Australia's Nullarbor Plain
is the plain 'without a tree' – or just one of them. The cloudscape above is more interesting than the landscape below. And those clouds have a say over heat and cold and rain. They make a tree grow and make our moods. They are the actors in the drama of the sky.