Last June, at the end of a long day in the middle of a long trip, I said goodnight to the crew working on National Geographic Adventure’s fall apparel guide, and headed out into the starlit night of Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park, South Island, New Zealand. Ever since I’d seen the mesmerizing time lapse movies a friend had made in Tokyo using his Canon 5D digital SLR still camera, I’d been obsessed with the idea of making some of my own. I say “idea” because in truth I thought about it more than I actually did it.

Time lapses take, um, time. Time that you leave your camera running on automatic while you wait or worry about weather and theft or mechanical breakdowns or dead batteries. Making time lapses is often better in theory.

Anyway, it was a stunning night, so I went for it. Set up my Nikon D3 on a ridge overlooking Mt. Cook, programmed it, and scurried off to my car, where I curled up in the backseat and tried to sleep. As if. Though not a cloud in the sky, I fretted about rain. Or dew. Or animals that might knock the $5,000 rig to the rocky ground. After barely an hour, around 1 a.m., I gave up and shut ’er down.

So, what you see here is short, too short. It could be sharper. But it’s still pretty darn cool, if you ask me. Makes me wish I’d hung in there all night. No matter, I like it as it is. Has me fired up to do more, which leads me to tomorrow…

Tomorrow: How to make a time lapse.

Tagged as: time lapse