Summer Moment of Zen 2020

Today I had my summer moment of Zen:

This year I ventured into Asturias to a really cool cove that I discovered last summer in Tapia de Casariego:

and as I had hoped, it provided and amazing tide differential:

Once again I targeted a big tide moment, this year was not a double whammy like last year but it was still a big tide:

In the end I was capturing for 6 hours 10 minutes and 2 seconds:

Which gave a lot of time to:

  • spoke with some pilgrims
  • picked up trash on the beach
  • had a cool beverage
  • had lunch
  • started reading Rise and fall of D.O.D.O.
  • watched a fisherman
  • watched some people kyaak

Here is the rig used:

And then combined all the pictures into a video: mencoder -idx -nosound -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mjpeg -o 2020_zen.avi -mf fps=24 mf://@list.txt

Thanks for reading and feel free to give feedback or comments via email (andrew@jupiterstation.net).

Summer Moment of Zen 2019

For the last 3 years I have been celebrating what has now become an annual summer ritual: finding some cool spot, timing my arrival with the changing of a tide, setting up my camera rig, and spending 5 - 6 hours contemplating a bit of everything while my camera takes a picture of the changing tide every 5 seconds. This ritual I have baptized as my summer moment of zen (all credit of the “Moment of Zen” concept goes to Jon Stewart and the Daily Show).

This summer I coincided my excursion with a perigean spring tide.

Oh what is a perigean spring tide you ask? It is when a spring tide (nothing to do with the season but when there is a FULL moon or NEW moon) coincides with the moon closest to the earth in its orbit (perigee). Let me draw you a picture:

On august 3rd the moon was only 603,305 KM from the earth and coincided with an almost new moon causing a gravitational double whammy, bulging tides to higher and lower levels than are normally witnessed (a tidal differential of nearly 4 meters):

So I got up early and positioned myself on a nice perch overlooking the bay of the Eo River:

and setup my camera rig (camera, solar panel, Mexican blanket, and a thermos of coffee):

and hung out from 07:45 and until 12:45:

Here is how it was when I arrived and when I left:

And then i combined all the pictures into a timelapse video:

Enjoy!

Thanks for reading and feel free to give feedback or comments via email (andrew@jupiterstation.net).

Summer Moment of Zen 2018

The second ever summer moment of zen (or maybe 3rd, but was not able to find any record or video from 2017!)

Implementation details

  • Location: Peña Furada
  • Date: 16/08/2018
  • Duration: 15:58 - 20:45
  • Camera: GoPro HERO3+ Black Edition
  • Frequency: picture every 10 seconds
  • Number of pictures taken: 1,707
  • Photo Resolution: 6.75 MP Wide

Pictures

Thanks for reading and feel free to give feedback or comments via email (andrew@jupiterstation.net).