In the past year, I’ve progressively become more obsessed with time-lapse photography. Due to my hip injury, I haven’t been able to trek around with my camera slung on my side (my historical method of hiking, traveling, exploring and doing photography). Instead, I hike around with a tripod/camera in my backpack; when I come to a particularly compelling viewpoint, I will stop and take a time-lapse.
What is time-lapse, you ask? The process of time-lapse photography consists of putting the camera on a tripod and taking a picture at a specific interval (usually between 4-20 seconds) for a period of time (30 min to 5 hours); then using each image as a frame in a video. This creates a “speeding up” of time effect that we aren’t able to capture with our own eyes. For example, 1 hour of clouds moving, the sun setting or stars floating across the sky can be condescended into a few seconds.
I love this form of photography because it adds the dynamic element of movement as well as capturing the subtle changes of nature as time progresses. It’s also very enjoyable to set up the tripod and step away from the camera for a bit. As a photographer, it’s easy to become overly excited about the potential pictures you are capturing of a beautiful scene; and completely forget to actually view the natural beauty outside of the lens. During these time-lapse sessions, I usually take this time to reflect on life, jot down ideas in my journal, do some stretches, attempt to meditate or simply pace around and worry that I may have not used the best camera settings. If I’m in an urban setting, it’s always fun sit back and watch people look at my tripod with curiosity; frequently I’ll meet friendly locals in the process.
In the past year, I’ve created time-lapse videos of Montana, The Republic of Georgia, Yosemite, San Cristobal de Las Casas (Mexico) and now Deep Northern California and Oregon. It’s my new favorite way of documenting my travels. I find that photography in video form is more easily consumable; instead of 1,000’s of distinct photos that get lost in the digital void, my travels are condensed into neatly packaged, beautiful videos with a fun soundtrack. I’m looking forward to more time-lapse on this trip as well as my looming Spain adventure.
Over 13,000 RAW images were used to create this video. I’ve spent the last 5 days in Sisters and Bend furiously working through photo/video editing and the metric ton of computer processing required to produce this video. I hope you enjoy it! For best viewing experience, watch in full screen mode and set the quality to 1080HD (click the ‘HD’ button on the bottom right side of the video).