As I weathered the worst storm to hit Washington, D.C. in years (they’re calling it “snowpocalypse”!) I thought about a video I made the last time I was in our nation’s capital. There was much less snow on the ground that time; it was just a few days after President Obama’s inauguration, and the city seemed eerily silent – a stark contrast with the crowds and activity I had seen on television just days before. Row upon row of porta-johns were lined up on the national mall, and only a few solitary runners and the hardiest tourists were out there with me. I passed the workmen scrubbing the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial, and was startled to see a huge red-tailed hawk perched on one of the pedestals along the stairway. I wish I had taken more photos – another guy was there with one of those lenses that look about a foot long, snapping away. Anyway, I wandered around and took advantage of the quiet to get some impressions of the city, and later that evening took a drive around town as a light snow began to fall again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I put the images I gathered into a short video \/ slideshow, which you can see below, but that’s not what this post is about. Instead, I’d like to share how I did the last few images at the end, which combine several images on top of each other, overlaid with a burning – or rather “unburning” credit, and using chroma key (aka “green screen”) technology. The video below contains the first version of that effect, which you can watch if you have about a minute to spare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n