Little Porch of Horrors

We had one of those rare mornings with not a breath of wind, and I noticed an unopened bloom on the hibiscus on our back porch. I decided this was a great opportunity to create a time lapse using the GoPro Hero 3 camera so I grabbed the tripod and camera and set things up.

I didn’t activate the wifi, in an attempt to conserve battery life, so I couldn’t monitor the pictures via my phone; I had to sort of aim the camera in the general direction of the flower, counting on the ultra-wide lens to catch the action (however slowly it might move). I set the timer to one frame per minute and headed back inside. 

What I didn’t count on was how pitiful the camera’s battery life is even without wifi. It shut down after about two hours. I later realized that I could have waited another twenty minutes to begin the process and probably ended up with the flower in full bloom, but, as they say, it is what it is.

With a little work in Photoshop (I chose 15 photos along the timeline, then duplicated and reversed the sequence), the following living, breathing hibiscus just popped out. It’s sort of freaky, really. (If you have a slow internet connection, be patient…this is a 1.5 mb gif image).

By the way, Primelapse.com seems to be an excellent resource if you’re interested in timelapse photography.