In 2019, I planted this night-blooming cereus into two pots. This is the third time this plant flowered in my apartment. It is the second time this year but the first time for the second pot. When flowering, this plant, Epiphyllum oxypetalum takes around 3 to 4 weeks to grow from a tiny bud to around 20cm in length. As the name suggests, it blossoms at night. As quickly as everything starts, it ends very quickly as well.
I set two cameras to capture the entire process, Sony ZV-1 and GoPro Hero 11. On the former, I used interval shooting (10-second interval) and on the latter, I used time-lapse function (5-second interval).
Learning from the past, this time, I set the white balance manually using a grey card. By doing so, I don’t have to edit and correct the white balance and colour for the entire JPEG file.
I used two sets of Neewer Bi-colour 660 LEDs that produce 3,300 lux on both sides, set at different heights. I also used a black background to accentuate the flower. The shooting “started” an hour early, at around 8 pm to give me time and “ended” at 6 am the next morning.
Sony ZV-1 produces 3,000 JPEG files. Using Adobe Premiere Pro, I merged these files to produce a 2 minutes clip which was exported at a resolution of 5472×3648 (5.4K). After that, I edited the exported clip in Final Cut Pro by speeding the time to 200%, slicing some parts from the beginning and removing parts from the ending, adding music and exporting it into a 4K video.
Eriksvej, Roskilde
8 August 2023