Ever since I was a kid, not only did I love being outdoors playing, or looking under rocks for bugs, slugs, and garter snakes, I also loved nature documentaries on television (Wild Kingdom, Wild America, Nature, etc.). Fast forward from the early 1970’s to 2011 when I launched my YouTube channel “Ephemeral Rift” at 40 years old, and I began making the content that I enjoyed so much on TV and in real life.
As a matter of fact, my very first video, recorded on an analog miniDV camcorder, was of a trickling stream and a separate audio recording of my playing an improv music piece with one of my Native American style flutes. Eventually I would periodically record various nature videos, whether it was me walking around in the woods or still scenes meant to capture the ambient nature sounds.
Then I stopped doing them, and I’m not exactly sure why. Actually, as I take a moment to pause and think about it while writing this, the reason was due to my not living near a more “exotic” locale, whether it’s the mountains, Alaska, the Amazon rainforest, etc. Also, I filmed so much of the local woods where I live here in Pennsylvania, that it all started to look the same after awhile and, I hate to say and admit: it got boring. Nature? Boring???? Blasphemy!!!
Well here we are in 2024 and once again, out of the blue, I’ve been bitten by the nature bug. And. I. Love it! Yes, I love being creative and creating unique, original works of art (mostly performance art) on YouTube that you just won’t see anywhere else, but just as equally do I love being outdoors creating art in a manner you also won’t see anywhere else, but using nature as the palette and paints, I guess we could say.
Not only do I get to be outdoors, but more importantly: I get to combine all my passions: sound (even though I started to lose the hearing in my left ear beginning around the time I started my channel, coincidentally enough), photography/videography, nature, all the while exercising my mind and body by being creative and walking about the woods looking for the next scene, sound or critter to film and record. In fact, I’m so driven by it at the moment, I may not go back to making indoor videos for who knows how long: weeks, months, maybe even years! No, just kidding! I’ll eventually get back to making indoor videos, especially when the weather doesn’t permit me to film outdoors, but for now all I want to do is go outdoors, take advantage of the nice weather, and record stuff!
