Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous blog posts that do not have a place in any other category

National Weather Service video…

Here is a video that I produced and edited for the Albuquerque National Weather Service. This brief video gives a quick tour of some of the day-to-day tasks that we perform at the Weather Forecast Office (WFO), including severe weather operations, forecasting, data acquisition, and more.

Narration: Tim Shy
Video and Editing: Todd Shoemake
Music: “Luminous” and “Things to Come” by Broke for Free (Creative Commons)

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Urban HDR…

The following images were shot downtown in Albuquerque. These were all multiple images superimposed on each other to capture a higher dynamic range of exposure, varying from 3 to 4 stops with each individual image. I used the HDR Efex Pro plugin to complete this after I had all of my images downloaded off of my camera. I had been sitting on these images for a while, but came across them as I was doing some long overdue organization of some of my photo libraries. I was quickly reminded what a fun process HDR can be, as long as you don’t get too carried away with it. I have quite a bit of time lapse images and other video that I have been tinkering around with too; hopefully some of these will be shared shortly.

Albuquerquean Graffiti

Artistic Graffiti

Tile graffiti mosaic in downtown Albuquerque

Tile graffiti mosaic in downtown Albuquerque

Sunshine Theatre Downtown Albuquerque

Sunshine Theatre Downtown Albuquerque

Century Theatre Downtown Albuquerque

Century Theatre Downtown Albuquerque

Gold Avenue Downtown Albuquerque

Gold Avenue Downtown Albuquerque

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enchanted autumn…

Almost everyone you talk to loves the fall season. I am no exception to this, and I think I love it for the same reasons as others: the cooler temperatures, the changing leaves, and of course Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque (I just don’t welcome the reminders that the North American monsoon has waned and winter is approaching). I have not attended the Balloon Fiesta for a couple years, and so I was itching to partake this year. I also had been scheming toward shooting some time lapse during one of the mass ascensions one morning. This past Thursday, the 11th, I made the trip and the weather was almost perfect. Light winds from the north northeast were draining down the Rio Grande near the surface, and just a few hundred feet off of the surface the winds were veering southerly. While this wasn’t the ideal “Box” setup, it was pretty darn close. Balloon pilots love the “Albuquerque Box” when due northerly winds at the surface are coupled with light southerly winds just a few hundred feet aloft. This allows pilots to ascend off the surface, drift southward down the valley, then ascend higher before catching the southerly winds aloft. When conditions are just right this will carry the pilots back to their point of origin where they can descend back to the surface for a landing or another ride through the box again.

Again this past Thursday, the conditions weren’t the most pristine that I have witnessed, but there was a pseudo-box effect. Some of this actually shows up in the time lapse footage I shot. After the sequence of the initial ascent of the balloons, there is some balloons noticeably drifting in opposing directions at different altitudes.

Also, within this video are some sequences I captured on Mount Taylor in west central New Mexico. The aspen were not a peak color, but they were radiating hints of gold in several locations.

Enchanted Autumn from Todd Shoemake on Vimeo.

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High Desert Skies Time Lapse

Here is a compilation of some time lapse photography that I have been shooting over the past several months. All of this was shot with my Nikon D7000, and then post processed in Aperture, QuickTime 7 Pro, and iMovie. The imagery was shot around the Albuquerque, New Mexico area, featuring sunrises, sunsets, lenticular clouds, storms, and general cumulus formation and dissipation.

High Desert Skies: July 15, 2012 from Todd Shoemake on Vimeo.

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annular eclipse time lapse…

We were able to observe the annular eclipse in Albuquerque on May 20th. Skies remained clear for the most part, and Albuquerque lay directly in the path for optimal viewing. I shot some time lapse before the first contact and during the totality (ring of fire). The sun set before the entire eclipse was complete, but it was still an amazing sight. Below is a brief compilation of what I shot.

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