Multi-Year Time Lapse Photography

At first sight, time lapse photography is easy. You can do a time lapse on a smart phone over the course of a few hours, or over a few days using a GoPro. However, a multi-year time lapse throws up a whole new set of problems.

Click above to play the the full multi-year time lapse video. Click below to read more. Please comment and/ or follow me on the social media channel of your choice by clicking on the relevant icon to the right.

Background and Structure of this Post

The client is W.G. Carter, a high-end builder of bespoke luxury homes and “Grand Designs” style renovations. I have done a number of photography projects for W.G. Carter, including images of past projects (for use on their website and display in their offices), a large corporate shoot including all staff and about 50 liveried vehicles and work in an Oxford college. In fact they were my first commercial assignment, see my post: “Learning Architectural Photography“.

W.G. Carter’s Managing Director was keen for me to do a time lapse of a large and complex private swimming pool development. I was initially reluctant as this is a specialist area and one in which I had no expertise. However, as I looked into it, I had an idea that I thought was worth a try.

This post is divided into the following sections:

• The Brief
• Why Multi-Year Time Lapse Photography is More Difficult
• General Approach
• Problems Encountered Along the Way
• Refining the Finished Video.

The Brief

W.G. Carter’s brief, as part of a country house refitment, was to build a swimming pool complex buried within the hill close to the main house. Stage one was extensive excavation; stage two building; stage three landscaping to make the whole environment look good again. Swimming pools construction is apparently notoriously difficult and this project promised to be additionally challenging, and consequently prestigious, even for W.G. Carter.

Originally the project was expected to last for 18 months.

Why Multi-Year Time Lapse Photography is More Difficult

Issues that become dominant as the duration of time lapse extends:

1. weather sealing
2. continuity of power
3. equipment security, i.e., ensuring that the camera isn’t nicked
4. image security, i.e., reliability of memory cards.

The last point was of particular concern as my biggest fear was getting to the end of the project to find that no images had been recorded.

General Approach

Problems Encountered Along the Way

Site Support

Whilst everybody thought the idea of a time lapse documenting the build was quite cool, many of the on-site staff had the impression that this would result in a speeded up video of their every move and were not that keen on being spied on. Early in the project we found that our power supply had been accidentally unplugged in favour of some other equipment. This is where our automated alarm system kicked in and enabled me to phone the site manager, within minutes of this happening, and ask him to investigate.

Issues beyond our control

The whole of the O2 mobile service was down for a day. Although this initially caused us to panic, we had only lost 1 day’s worth of footage, i.e., one frame, and if we were really that worried, we had it on the memory card.

Our FTP server, hosted by a premier third party provider, got hacked. We had copies of everything on my NAS drive which we immediately backed up to a remote NAS. Then redirected newly captured images to the remote NAS. In this way the remote NAS, directly under our control, replaced the third party platform, whilst my NAS remained the daily backup. We have found no reason to go back to the third party server as the dual NAS system worked until the end of the project.

Refining the Finished Video

Selecting the daily frame

Although we only need one frame per day, the issue is: which frame do we choose to provide the smoothest and most attractive video?

Initially we thought we would choose the same time every day as this would mean the sun was always in the same position. However, we found that better results were obtained by selecting the image with the largest file size as this corresponded to the most detailed image with the most contrast and colour.

Inter-frame movement

One problem with the camera was that its mounting to roof via a wooden post was less than perfectly stable, particularly in high wind, and allowed a few pixels of movement between shots. Usually not that much, but enough to make the image look a bit juddery.

My initial idea to fix this problem was to write a Photoshop action in the form of a Droplet and align each frame with the previously aligned frame. Simple enough principle, however Photoshop really doesn’t like saving a document twice, one changing with the name of the image and stored in the specified destination, and the other just updating the “Reference” image. This required a spot of JavaScript.

However, a much better solution was found in the form of the free version of the DaVinci video editing software. This had image stabilisation built in and seemed to do a competent job, although the aligned frames gradually became smaller, giving the effect that the camera was zooming. Then it recovered gradually but gave illusion that the viewpoint was moving. Strange and unexpected but both I and the client thought this added to rather than detracted from the viewing experience. The software also allowed us to add a soundtrack – “Flight of the Bumblebee” by Rimsky Korsakov

Most importantly, the management at WG Carter were happy.