Random thoughts @Random

Travel, Tech, Think without limits.

Timelapse in Tico time


(download)

 

Pacific Ocean Sunsets and

Beach Cruiser Bike rides

In Costa Rica, ‘Tico’ time refers to local time and that basically means that it’ll get there when it gets there. This is true for most any warm climate cultures and I like it for the most part. Seeing a sunset on the pacific coast along with a beach cruiser ride on the Caribbean side made for some of the most entertaining uses of my iPhone and a timelapse app while I was backpacking Costa Rica. The video above is a sunset afternoon that I captured while I was still in Manuel Antonio along with the behind the scenes photos for creating this clip. The hostel I was staying at had a great view of the Pacific with an outdoor deck for the common area and named after it's serene views and would definitely have to agree.

To pull this project off, I had a mini gorilla grip tripod iPhone case along with a bit of tape to hold the camera in place. This was also connected to my laptop to keep the battery charged since this was a good four plus hours of capture time. The timelapse itself is only a couple of minutes for an entire afternoon of watching the sunset. This is something that I am still in awe of as I’m originally from Chicago and have lived most of my life in Colorado. I simply didn’t grow up with ocean views like this and it made for an amazing afternoon with great weather as I was traveling during their rain season. After my new creative obsession formed, I was excited to capture more in timelapse and ended up making my way over to Puerto Veijo on the Carribean side. Since this was on the opposite side of Costa Rica, I thought about capturing an ocean sunrise to go along with the sunset. Well that pretty much didn’t happen. Instead, I captured another great experience, a beach cruiser bike ride in the afternoon. Both were some of the simple highlights you can find on a trip like this.

These days, I really don’t know how you can travel without an iPod. At the time, I used an iPhone 3G for this and have since switched over to an iPod4 for any travels. It’s not only great for photos and video but for communication as well. If I lose it or it gets stolen, I am less worried about it than a cell phone as it’s easier to replace. With the accessibility of WiFi and the massive increase in mobile apps, most anything is possible and it’s getting a lot easier to stay connected and be able to track your journey in more interesting ways. In another post, I’ll go a little more into detail on what kinds of apps worked best which might seem basic to some people but I still get a lot of questions on how it all works. Below you will find the link to the timelapse bike ride on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/rabbitreport

 

A changing Digital World

 

An Infrequent Flyer in Costa Rica

onedayonearth.org


Due to some fortunate frequent flyer miles, I took an unexpected backpacking trip to Costa Rica for a month and also participated in onedayonearth.org on 10-10-10. If you are not familiar with this, it was a global online documentary event created to capture 24 hours of video from thousands of people from all around the world. This included all levels of filmmakers to be apart of that involved a wide range of cultures, causes, ages and abilities. The final submissions were selected and compiled into one full-length feature documentary intended for showing at the main film festivals such as Cannes and Sundance in 2011. Overall, it was a unique learning opportunity as I had never worked on a project like this nor had I been out of the country before.

At the time, I was not sure where I would end up as I was traveling by local bus and the whim of where to go and what to do. I ended up on the Pacific side of Costa Rica in Manuel Antonio for the shooting day, which is a beautiful and scenic place to be. Above are the ten raw footage clips that I had submitted and they are all in sequence throughout the day. I tried to capture everything from local transportation, wildlife, events and simply following the day along to see where it all went. This included spotting my very first Toucan in the morning to fire ants on the side of the road as I hiked down to the beach to see the National surfing competition and a bikini contest at Buck Wilds beach bar. Not exactly sure who won as it was all in Spanish. Afterwards, I took a bus back to the Hostel and ended the day with a taxi ride to the beach again for a sunset bonfire and talking with some new travel friends. Overall, it was great day to be able to document as a day on Earth.

Having experienced this, it definitely shifts your perspective on how much the world is changing with a digital world that is becoming a much bigger part of our lives. From deciding how public or private a person can share in their day all the way to redefining an industry that’s creating new avenues to collaborate and communicate. A few years ago, a project like this probably wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for the recent development of social media, mobile and pocket HD cameras. This has also helped me to think about various ways of tracking my own experiences with travel and technology as I have been working on a new series of start-up projects. This will include more opportunities to travel abroad and learn about various cultures, which has always been a long dream of mine. I look forward to being able to share more on everything as it continues to evolve and unfold. Below is the link to the interactive map and video archives on the main site.

http://archive.onedayonearth.org/videos/index/16547701

 

The Happy Planet Index: Nic Marks

There seems to be a lot of new research and documenting around the idea of happiness. This ted talk helps frame some good guidelines below in helping create happiness as well as which countries are doing well at it. This was one of the resons I selected Costa Rica as my first time out of the country as it is rated as one of the happiest countries on the planet.

1) Connect
2) Be Active
3) Take Notice
4) Keep Learning
5) Give

Tribes will change the world, not advertising!

via youtube.com

Seth Godin on the tribes we lead. Great TED TALK. As always these little snippets of goodness are inspiring to say the least. The time to watch one is about the same as a sit-com without any commercials. Now that's an idea in itself, like the three questions to be asking yourself:

1) Who exactly are you upsetting?
2) Who are you connecting? 
3) Who are you leading?