On
July 30'th, 2021, on my
third adventure of the season, I finally had my first two submersion sinks of the season, the first of which was on camera, but from the opposite perspective!
This year, I decided to try something different. Many years ago, I had experimented with some first person sink videos, and now I decided to try it again, making this an experimental season of trials and errors. I made a head mount (actually found out it was called a head strap) out of an old belt and some vinyl straps. I then secured my Gorillapod to the front of it with a shoelace, and attached the camera, covering the camera and Gorillapod in plastic wrap to protect it. However, trying to get things perfected takes a bit of trial and error, and there is no shortage of errors this season! For this first attempt, the camera was centered over my face, such that it was resting over my nose, even though I should have remembered that I used to have it over my left eye! Sure enough, that oversight resulted in the camera pointing too high, and so most of the action and best view was below the screen, although you could still get some glimpses of the surface of the bog early on in the sink!
I posted that video, along with another one of me just carrying the camera (attached to my makeshift head mount) in my hand around my bog to test the picture quality with the plastic wrap over the lens, and was happy to see that there was no degradation, no matter what direction the camera pointed!
Years ago, I would get a glare when the sun shone on it, but I think I used a plastic bag back then, while I am using plastic wrap now. I regret not doing a test run with the camera on my head to make certain that the camera's view matched mine!
Ideally, the only thing I should have had to do was rotate the video 180˚, since the camera was upside down, and trim off the unnecessary parts in the beginning and end. But, realistically, I had to do a fair bit of editing to transform the video footage from something that a camera mounted on one's face sees and hears, to something that the person
behind the camera actually sees and hears! So, there were many more things that had to be fixed, especially the audio, such as doing some equalization work to fix the tinny sound of the camera's recording. There were also clicks, chirps, and other noise, and in one particular part of the video, a long stretch of steady crackling, that all had to be edited out and filled in with appropriate replacement sounds. There was also one part of the video I had to stretch out a bit because it was too abrupt. I also had to do some audio adjustments in part of the video to compensate for the difference between what is picked up by my ears, and what is picked up by the camera in front of my face, for added realism. I feel
horribly bad about the high camera angle, and hope that it doesn't drive people
crazy hearing all of the wonderful sounds of the struggling in the quagmire without seeing all of the action that goes with it! But, at least with the camera so "up close and personal" to the action, it picked up all of the subtle sounds as well, stuff that is often missed when the camera is 6 to 8 feet away, mounted on a stick stuck in the grass mat on the side of the bog. I also think I came up with a plausible excuse for looking up too high in the video.
These videos are best seen full-screen! Enjoy!
Looking Around At My Bog's Surroundings!Join me on a little walk around the vicinity of my patch of treacherous quagmire and take in the view!
You Sink Not Looking Down!Looking northward at a patch of bare, muddy ground. It looks innocent enough.
There are even some animal tracks on top of it. This video begins with this view, before you get transported into the body of a man hiking through the wilderness!
The hiker you are now merged with had spent way too much time looking down at his phone and tablet, and is now suffering from a serious case of
"cervical kyphosis", or "Tech Neck", making it extremely painful to look down!
Bad choice to be hiking through the wilderness in this body, since you can't see where you are stepping! In your temporary new body, you are also wearing some wide, clear goggles to protect your eyes from branches. While walking in the vicinity of a pond, you hesitate at that muddy patch, but because you have trouble looking down, you can't really assess whether or not it is safe to walk over.
Did the ground look like it was moving?
You lunge forward, and your adventure begins!
Will you survive?
After your adventure is over, you leave the hiker's body, and the video ends with an eastward look at the same patch of bare, muddy ground, which you discovered was not so innocent after all!
But, in your adventure, even though you can't look down, no matter how high you look up at the sky, the hungry quagmire will still manage to creep its way into your field of view, and suck closed over it!
So, click on the image link below and play the video, full-screen, to begin your adventure, if you dare!