At one point, when things like istopmotion were common and digital HD stock footage was a new thing, I licensed my footage on this site regularly.
This was 1997. I was growing up in a university town in North Carolina. When I was just a kid, a sophomore, I went to a charter school as an experiment. A small state sponsored school that had a wholly different approach to education. Teachers were not at all allowed to keep students in class. There was one day in particular of importance that I was not anticipating.
I remember this one day vividly, watching Koyaanisqatsi in the austere and green interior of the local Seeds of Sheba building, this one story, four roomed building that you would not expect to experience… is there an antonym for ornate? Koyaanisqatsi ended and I was the only one left in the class, all the other students had left. The teacher was a young man, he wore his disappointment like his heart on his sleeve. His name I’ve long forgotten, and he will never know the importance of the two hours that movie had on my future. Time lapse photography existed, and I now knew it. Things would be changing, but it would take time.
The school folded at the end of that year, it’s charter revoked from funding. Back to public school. I waited for five years not even knowing what was to come.
In 2004 when it became feasible I took to the outside and spent the bulk of my twenties in Oregon, going outside virtually everyday to try for something.
As a junior at the University of Oregon, I compiled my collection of outdoor digital time lapse to license in HD and started SkyTimeLapse.com. I realized that having footage was not enough. I would need a way to get my footage out there. Search was key, I would find. I flew close to the sun, and search rankings were my wax wings. I self hosted my videos, then.
High I flew, reaching page 1 in ’05 and ’06 and part of 2007. The world changed, and as a consequence, I would need to as well…
