STACK #140 Jun 2016

PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

Matt Vandeputte: thestormchaser

F or Belgium photographer Matthew Sydney – the place he believes is one of the best places in the world to truly capture the spectacle of a storm. He describes how incredible it feels to be in the midst of a clear day when clouds start creeping across the landscape like a wall. That’s when he grabs his camera and races to one of his favourite vantage points. According to Matthew, Sydney is like a Mecca for storm chasers. Specialising in time lapse photography is not something Vandeputte set out to accomplish. He moved to Sydney from Belgium in 2013 and started ‘playing around’ with time lapse; creating a niche for himself. “Basically I shot a lot of photos and created videos and one of the most interesting subjects is storms. I’m always shooting weather. It’s fascinating to see the light change and storms are visually so incredible if you speed them up. Luckily, Sydney has such extreme weather. It can be a perfectly sunny day and right before your eyes the clouds roll in and you have to run for cover. Then minutes later it might be sunny again. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world,” Vandeputte said. One of Vandeputte’s favourite time lapse videos was shot in Sydney’s eastern suburbs – at Dover Heights, near Bondi. He set up in a park that overlooks the city. “There had been five stormy days in a row and I knew the storm was coming over the Western side of the city. I knew the park would be an ideal spot. So I was there setting up my gear, waiting and looking at weather radars. Then, two hours later, I saw a very intense cloud coming across and it developed into a beast of a storm. It looked like it was literally eating the city.” He got as much footage as he could, knowing the storms move at a very fast pace. He shot for several minutes as his girlfriend ran back towards Vandeputte, nothing gives him as big a thrill as watching a monster storm roll in across

the car as lightning started to strike. “It was on the edge of being dangerous but I couldn’t move until I had got all the vision I could. I wasn’t going to waste it for anything!” Vandeputte describes pushing himself for as long as he could before dashing home to look at the footage and feeling ecstatic when he saw the spectacular vision he had shot. “I remember feeling amazed. Absolutely ecstatic. It looked like something out of a movie.” He posted his footage on Youtube and, so far, it has had 54,000 views. “Photography is all about showing people things that they think they know. But when you speed up time, it makes it so much more interesting. We are lucky being in Sydney because of the layout of the city and the variety of spots you can shoot from. According to Vandeputte, Sydney storms are very unique because they move so quickly, they are so visually impressive and, often, simply breathtaking. “Thanks to social media and people sharing footage of storms and general wild Sydney weather, people are beginning to realise how

magnificent they are and also the skill involved in shooting them. Not a lot of people shoot storms in a way that is pre-conceptualised vision – for example, shooting from a different range of angles. It’s my hobby but I love shooting and having a subject and a city where it is so easy to shoot.” Vandeputte has shot storms in many countries including Spain, Thailand, New Zealand, Belgium and the US. He said his time lapse videos can be seen on several documentaries and advertisements. He described watching television one night and then seeing vision of a storm on an ad, realising it looked familiar – and then realising it was his own footage. “There are definitely more than a handful of photographers specialising in time lapse photography and storms – more like two handfuls of people. Once you’re aware of time lapse videos you will start seeing them everywhere. It’s a way of looking at life through a different angle. Instead of a day moving slowly in real time, you speed up your life and see how busy we all are. It’s another way of seeing your life flash before your eyes.

Key features: • 22.3 MP Full Frame CMOS sensor • ISO 100-25,600 (expandable to L:50, H1:51,200, H2:102,400) • 6.0 fps for high continuous shooting • Intelligent viewfinder with approx. 100% coverage • Shoot high definition movies (1920x1080) CANON EOS 5D MKIII

Available in selected stores only.

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