The Magic of Time: Why I Love Shooting Timelapses
There’s something hypnotic about a well-crafted timelapse. Watching time speed up, seeing clouds race across the sky, city lights flicker on like fireflies, or people moving through streets like water currents—it’s a perspective on time we don’t usually get to witness.
I love shooting timelapses, though I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s the movement of time itself, the way it transforms the ordinary into something cinematic. Or maybe it’s the anticipation—setting up the camera, waiting, and finally watching the world unfold at an accelerated pace. Whatever it is, every timelapse feels like a small act of magic, a way to bend time and space into something visually mesmerizing.
The Thrill of Compressing Time
In our everyday lives, time is something we barely notice. It moves at a steady pace, often too slow when we’re waiting for something and too fast when we want to savor a moment. But in a timelapse, time bends to our will.
A sunrise that takes an hour to unfold can be captured in seconds. A city’s rush hour, usually a chaotic mess, becomes an orchestrated dance of headlights and pedestrians. Even something as simple as shadows shifting across a landscape can take on a poetic quality when sped up.
Shooting a timelapse makes me appreciate time in a different way. It forces me to slow down, to think about how movement flows through a scene. When I frame a shot, I’m not just capturing a single moment—I’m capturing an entire sequence of moments, compressed into something new.
Shot from the top row of a double decker Go bus
Setting Up: The Art of Patience
Unlike regular photography, where a single click captures an instant, shooting a timelapse is an exercise in patience. It requires planning, careful framing, and a willingness to wait. A five-second clip can take 20 minutes to shoot. A full sequence could take hours.
I’ve stood in freezing cold weather, waiting for the perfect sunset timelapse. I’ve sat on the roof of my van, camera pointed at the sky, tracking the slow drift of the Milky Way. I’ve watched tides pull in and out, capturing the way water reshapes a shoreline. The process itself becomes meditative.
Timelapse photography teaches you to slow down and observe. You start noticing how fast clouds move, how people interact with a space, how light changes throughout the day. Even if the final result isn’t perfect, the experience of shooting it is rewarding in itself.
Gear and Settings: Keeping It Simple
Shooting a timelapse doesn’t require the latest, most expensive gear. Sure, high-end cameras and intervalometers help, but I’ve shot plenty of fun timelapses on nothing more than an iPhone and a DJI Pocket 3.
The basics are simple:
✔ A Stable Camera – Whether it’s on a tripod or placed on a steady surface, the camera can’t move. Stability is everything.
✔ Interval Shooting – Choosing how often to take a frame (every second, every five seconds, etc.) determines how fast or slow time moves in the final video.
✔ Manual Settings – To avoid flickering exposure shifts, it’s best to lock in manual focus, aperture, and shutter speed.
✔ A Bit of Patience – Because good things take time.
That’s it. No complicated setups, just an appreciation for the scene in front of me and a willingness to let time do its thing.
The Unexpected Joy of Watching It Back
One of the best parts of shooting a timelapse is the moment when I finally play it back. No matter how many I’ve shot, there’s always a small thrill in seeing time unfold differently than I experienced it.
The slow movement of clouds becomes dramatic. Crowds of people blur into a pulsing wave of motion. Lights flicker on and off like a heartbeat. What felt like an ordinary hour suddenly looks extraordinary when sped up.
There’s something deeply satisfying about turning time into a visual story, about revealing movement in a way that the human eye doesn’t normally perceive.
Shot while enjoying a coffee in Dublin, I think the weather changed 3 times during the 30 minute coffee break.
Why I Keep Shooting Timelapses
I think part of my love for timelapses comes from the way they change my relationship with time. In a world that constantly demands us to rush, timelapse photography forces me to slow down and wait. And yet, paradoxically, it also speeds time up, letting me see how everything flows in ways I’d never noticed before.
It’s both an escape and an exploration—a way to see the world differently, to capture something that feels bigger than a single frame. It’s not just about the final video but the process of being present, of watching the world move at its own pace before I hit "play" and watch it transform.
I don’t always know why I love timelapses. But I know I’ll keep shooting them, keep experimenting, keep waiting for the next perfect moment to unfold. Because there’s nothing quite like bending time to see the world in a new way.
Would you like me to add anything specific—maybe a favorite timelapse experience or some additional creative tips? 😊
