Of all the various ways of measuring things, Time is generally the most important or critical, at least it is to me. Size doesn’t matter, distance can be reduced or extended by speed and volume can be altered, sometimes by the flick of a dial. But Time, that little four letter word that I have given a capital “T”, has a mind of its own and will never change, despite the best efforts of the Large Hadron Collider scientists.
Twenty-four hours a day, Time rules my world; where I have to be, what I have to do, what has to be finished, deadlines. I can’t change these. I ask for one more minute to finish editing a piece and if I get it I lose a minute from the next Time period. The producer tells me we are on air in five minutes and EVS need the cut in three. I need six, but somehow I finish in four and we get to air. Yes! I beat Time, kind of.
So with all these Time pressures, why on earth do I love making Time lapse sequences? Because, let’s face it, the world looks much better when slowed right down or sped right up. It’s boring at normal speed, that’s so everyday, so dull. In slow motion you can see things missed in real Time. Footage from the Phantom Flex or Hi-Mo cameras analyse movement in a beautiful and intriguing way.Timelapses truncate Time and let you see in thirty seconds what took hours or even days to actually happen. You can’t comprehend that as a human, so to see a flower opening, a bridge being built or even the view from the highest building in the world (see Philips Bloom’s fabulous film) is a miracle because it manipulates Time.
So I am bored of the speed at which I live and want to control it and if I can’t become a Time Lord, then timelapse photography is the closest I am likely to get.To see some of my attempts to control Time go to my Vimeo site at http://vimeo.com/pukkatv/videos
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