So that were my first experiments. The project was still called ‘Spacetime’ at that point. The problem was, though I really liked the concept, I wasn’t really happy with the visual side of it. Spacetime travel alone just looked a bit boring to me. Eventually I decided to move away from the traveling through spacetime concept and focus on the velocity aspect, respectively the inertia of human perception. Instead of having the camera on the dolly I’d put an object on the dolly and then move the camera after each shot around the object to examine it. So the spacetime thought is still there but more isolated as a phenomenon and no longer as the only subject. Also I decided to switch to a digital still camera.
An early and very rough sketch of the new concept. Still very jerky as I moved the dolly manually. I still needed to rework the dolly mechanism with the new camera as digital cameras have no cable release like old school photo equipment. I also experimented with the spacetime exploration concept in digital and in color:
But even the color didn’t help. it just looks very unexciting compared to the rotation around the object on the dolly in the sequence above this one. After resolving the cable release issue I thought about changing the title from ‘Spacetime’ to ‘Dromosphere’. Here’s a self portrait with the new setup:
I had to build an adapter to be able to use the cable release mechanism of the dolly. I also had to build a coupler as I had to set the ‘pre-shooting mechanism’ of the camera with it. You always have to press down the button just a littlebit to activate the autofocus and the other auto stuff. That I had to do manually with my right hand (as seen above) before the dolly mechanism gets activated with my left hand (which in this picture holds the mirror). Sounds complicated? Yes it was. I hated this stupid mixup of mechanical issues in an otherwise pretty electronic setup. So with some money won at a festival I decided to buy a more professional SLR camera that had an electronic release feature.