Every week we pick 5 Creative Commons songs to get your creative juices flowing. This week roaming through peaceful nature and enjoying its calmness is the theme!
This Week’s Picks
This week’s mixtape picks up from last week where we were roaming the landscape, taking pictures of the environment and enjoying the outdoors. Last week was all about the moody tones, with some grit and spit in the beats, trying to find all kinds of tunes to listen to, something that would ignite the soul. This week is a step into calmness as we move our photography into the wilderness and wide open spaces of nature. Recently I have gotten into timelapses of nature, seeing the clouds race across the sky as the light sweeps across the vista. So I thought these songs would be perfect company for me while I sit and watch nature unfold. Hope you enjoy.
Border Blaster by Josh Woodward (CC-BY)
Now this is the song you hear as you drive your car to parking lot of the park you are about to spend the next few hours walking around in and photographing. You feel the slow buildup of excitement and positive energy. You grab your camera bag and you start hustling into nature, to see what you can capture that day. The sun is shining and it means that there is going to be a few good shots that you are going to remember from that day.
I really enjoy this song for the great feeling of being out there in the open space, alone but also not alone. The world is still moving around you and you just can feel it, if not see it. I would use this song for a great time-lapse of the sky, the sun setting, clouds roaring by, the stars peeking out and illuminating the area. This has such a good, uptempo beat that I think it fits perfectly for going from slow still shots to the quick paced ending of your day to night time-lapse.
This song has a great “lost in the woods” feel and not in the scary way. You can almost hear the wind moving all the limbs and leaves around you, the sun hitting your face as you look to snap your photo. I can see every nature photographer looking up from their camera for a moment and actually enjoying the moment before they go back to their goal of capturing the “perfect” moment.
God Be With You Till We Meet Again by Chris Zabriskie (CC-BY)
Don’t let the album cover fool you: this is not a fast paced or “explosive” song. But it is powerful and creates such a strong aura of calmness. As with most of his music, Chris Zabriskie knows how to create ambient music and if you were looking for song that you could close your eyes and basically meditate to while you were in the woods, this would be that song. It has a bit of a sorrowful tone to it, almost a parting of ways but maybe, just maybe a new beginning as well.
To be honest, to me this was the best way to end the trip out in nature. You can feel that you’ve hit the end of your limit. The battery is near dead, the roll of film is almost used up, your creativity is almost depleted. And then you get that last moment of inspiration, that last spark. You raise the camera, set your composition, and then…….click.
