Utah National Parks in a Nutshell (July 2013)

Canyonlands National Park

This just in! Camping is in tents! (See previous post.)

Hi everyone! It’s been awhile since my last serious update, and a lot has happened!

My blog just turned 4!

So, a few days ago, wordpress just let me know some big news! (Yes, we’re bff’s and talk often.) My blog turned four years old… That’s a big deal. And just like having real kids, that’s when you really need to start taking care of them.

My blog has a name!

Again, just like any four year old, you gotta name them when they get to a certain age. (For legal reasons, I guess.) Maybe you’ve already noticed, but I’ve changed it from it’s initial “jletookthis.wordpress.com” to a sleeker, sexier domain name… http://www.seldomlyupdated.com. Yeah, that’s right. It’s a strangely fitting and apropos. It also gives me an opportunity to use the word “apropos”.

Raise the roof! Our National Parks have reopened!

So, congress congressed and they were somehow able to pull their heads out of their respective (yet somehow, less respectable) asses. They  raised the debt ceiling, and our economy didn’t spiral out of control and we can go on living for a few more months and enjoy our reopened parks.

UTAH in 15!

So, in honor of the National parks reopening, I thought I would post a video I had put together from my trip to the big national parks in Utah this summer. My brother, his friend and I (see photo above), took a week to hit Mesa Verde, Canyonlands, Arches, Capitol Reef, Bryce, and Zion. With all the photos I took, I decided to put it together into a pseudo-timelapse travel slideshow/video. Although I didn’t pre-plan it, I think it turned out pretty well.  So, if you’re keen to spend a some time on a whirlwind trip hiking and zooming past some beautiful scenery, feel free to take a look. Enjoy! (Also, it’s best viewed in HD on Vimeo.)

Hiking Long’s Peak: Redux

Hiking Long’s Peak:

A slideshow

So, I made a slideshow for the Long’s Peak hike, which I blogged about in laborious detail here: https://jletookthis.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/longs-peak-my-first-fourteener/

I know some people appreciated the timelapse-slideshow I made of my Europe trip, so I decided to do the same to all the photos from the hike.  You can watch the video in HD on Vimeo, or in the embedded video below.

Long’s Peak: My First Fourteener from Justin Le on Vimeo.

In August of 2011, some friends and I attempted to hike Long’s Peak – one of the more well-known fourteeners in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. The journey is grueling, and reportedly perilous. Would we make it? Watch the video to find out!

I blogged and posted some photos of the hike a couple months ago (https://jletookthis.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/longs-peak-my-first-fourteener/), but then I decided I’d put together a timelapse-style slideshow of the hike with all the photos I took. These photos were shot in raw, and were taken straight out of camera with no editing or cropping, and batch exported to jpeg.

Gear: Nikon D700, Nikon 20mm f/2.8, Sigma 24-60mm f/2.8

Song: Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

http://vimeo.com/34117404

International Travel: jletookthis Trip to Europe 2011: Poland, France, & England

My first real trip to Europe, consisted of 5 days in Warsaw, Poland, 3 days in Paris, France, and 5 days in Cambridge, England.

Eurotrip 2011: Poland, France, England from Justin Le on Vimeo.
(Watch it on Vimeo for the HD version…)

I left Detroit, MI on 10/28/11 and returned on 11/11/11. Midway through my trip, as I was scrolling through my pictures on the LCD of my D700, the thought occurred to me that it could be neat to make slideshow out of all the photos. This way, I don’t have to spend hours, days, or weeks going through my photos before I feel like I can show them to people, and can share them immediately.

Obviously, for my fragile ego’s sake, I have to mention these are all un-edited and unprocessed. Therefore, I make no guarantees as to the actual quality or content of these photos individually, but together, it seemed pretty nice. These are all the photos from my memory cards. 1511 photos, which was about 20 GB of space, all crammed into 8 minutes. I imported these photos into Adobe Lightroom 3, converting from .NEF to .DNG, with a basic preset which slightly adjusts the clarity and the tone curve. Once imported, I did a batch export to .jpeg, resizing the image height to 720px (maintaining the 3:2 aspect ratio), and then brought them into Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 as numbered stills. Added title screen and credit screen, slowed the speed to 12%, and added music. Song selection was based on what I was listening to on my iPhone while traveling, and has no real relevant meaning, aside from any subconscious reasons that I’m unaware of.

As this was my first time doing anything of this sort, and using Premiere Pro even, please forgive the basic-ness of this vid.

Things you’ll see in this video:

Poland (Warsaw):

– Tenderheart Care Bear, Shark Attack, & Waldo (aka Wally in Europe).  Halloween isn’t celebrated in Europe like it is in the States, so the Americans in Poland celebrated it twice.
– Assistant Coach Katz
– Old Town Market Place
– All Saints Day at the Cemetary

France (Paris):

– The Opera
– St. Germain des Pres area (I guess the French love the rapper, Jermaine Dupree)
– Eiffel Tower (La Tour Eiffel)
– The Champs-Elysees Avenue
– Arc de Triomphe
–  National Residence of the Invalids (Hotel Des Invalides)
– Moulin Rouge
– The Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Le Sacre-Coeur MontMartre)
– Place de la Concorde (including the Fontaines de la Concorde & the Obelisque de Louxor)
– Jardin des Tuileries
–  Love Locks on Pont des Arts
–  Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel
– The Louvre
– The Notre Dame

England (Cambridge):

– Thien & Stephen’s new pad
– Jesus Green
– King’s College
– Clare College
– Saint Catharine’s College
– Great St. Mary’s Church
– Our Lady & The English Martyrs Curch
Thanks for watching and I hope you enjoyed it.

Camera Gear: Nikon D700, Nikon 20mm f/2.8, Nikon 50 mm f/1.4D, Nikon 85mm f/1.4D, Sigma 24-60mm f/2.8. Video created on my Dell XPS 15.

Any other questions, let me know. Thanks!