Time-lapses speed up time and show us actions that normally happen at a much slower pace.
Everyone finds time-lapse photography fascinating. It can be surprising to see the most usual phenomenons, like a sunset, actually happening so fast. Our brain doesn’t see the huge changes when we are observing the slow progress of something.
If you are looking for inspiration, we have collected 21 of the most influential time-lapse photographers from across Instagram. Believe us, they are worth following!
Time-lapse photography is a technique, where the artist takes photos during a longer period of time. Then, these frames are played right after each other, at a fast pace.
It seems fast because there is a certain time passing between taking two images. These are regular intervals. This allows us to compress hours or even days into a few seconds or minutes.
The results are videos, but we call it photography because the basis of these are photos. Some cameras are capable of immediately creating a video of the images, but with others, you’ll need special software.
There is another genre close to time-lapses, and it’s called hyperlapse. The main difference is that the making of hyperlapses requires movement, and they are not shot from the exact same place.
Let’s take a look at our 21 current favourite time-lapse photographers!
Emeric is a French, USA-based time-lapse creator and video editor. He has been working with famous companies, editing, for example, TV series, documentaries, short films and marketing videos. He has stunning videos from different places, mostly recording cityscapes, but you can find time-lapses of nature or even the moon among his works.
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Artem Pryadko is a time-lapse photographer from Minsk, Belarus. His work consists of amazing videos of cities and natural phenomenons, such as a comet. He is a master of drone-lapses, which are time-lapse videos recorded with drones. This way he can make breathtaking videos from unique perspectives.
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Rob Whitworth is a BAFTA-winning and Emmy nominated filmmaker. He has been doing projects all over the globe, with highly acclaimed brands. He has been working with BBC, Netflix and Nikon, just to mention a few. His work is widely featured and he has won several awards. Watching his videos, simply makes the viewers say, “Wow, how?”.
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Dustin Farrell is one of the pioneers of time-lapse photography. He is shooting and filming with a Phantom Flex 4K. Not everyone is running out there with a camera like this! You can find a lot of different things in his works. From time-lapses of cities to storms, his vision gives an unbelievable atmosphere to any subject.
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Mike Olbinski is an Emmy-winner photographer. He is a wedding and portrait photographer, but what is most interesting for us now is his passion for storm photography. He captures incredible storms and makes time-lapses of them as well. His work has been featured worldwide, in movies, commercials, documentaries, and magazines.
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Vadim Tereshchenko is a hyperlapse artist living in Los Angeles. His videos introduce different cities, such as Las Vegas or Los Angeles. He also has amazing real estate hyperlapses which are just mesmerizing to watch. He also likes experimenting with surreal conceptions and manipulating his videos to create unreal scenes.
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Michael Shainblum is a California-based landscape, time-lapse and aerial photographer. He has been working as a professional filmmaker and photographer since he was only 16. The videos made by him have been featured widely, his work appeared for example in National Geographic. His creativity and passion helped him to have clients like Nike, Apple or Google.
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Geoff Tompkinson is a photojournalist, photographer and time-lapse video producer, who currently shoots during motorcycle tours. He has a greatly awarded 35-year career in photography and videography. He is the world’s first full-time professional digital time-lapse photographer! Before DSLRs were available, he already produced the first digital commercial time-lapse clips.
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Joseph DiGiovanna is the mastermind behind the amazing project, NYC TimeScape. His goal is to take one photo of New York every 30 seconds for 30 years. You might ask “how?”. Well, he has a camera set up in his living room, which he never moves, so it can record the images. This is a huge project, and it is going to make visible the changes that seem slow to us.
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Hal Bergman is a photographer based in Los Angeles. His work is mostly commercial photography, usually travel and industrial photography. He has worked with huge companies like Nike or American Express. He also has amazing time-lapse videos, and he likes experimenting with new techniques.
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Randy Halverson is a photographer, who produces wonderful time-lapse videos. He is a master of astrophotography, and he makes time-lapses in nature, mostly at night. His work is unique because he records movements of the night sky that wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye. If you want to learn how he does it, you are lucky because he also has workshops!
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Oliver Kmia is a photographer and videographer, based in Miami, Florida. He has breathtaking time-lapse and hyperlapse videos from different parts of the world. For his works, he uses a drone, this lets him take the videos to an even more interesting level. From capturing sunrises to making travel videos, his work is always perfect.
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Babak Tafreshi is an Iranian-American science photojournalist, who is working with National Geographic. He is the founder and director of The World at Night (TWAN). His images and night time-lapses draw attention to the importance of preserving the natural night environment. His breathtaking work shows a piece of the true beauty of our world.
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Enrique Pacheco is a videographer and time-lapse artist, who moved to Iceland. He loves exploring and capturing the wonders of nature through time-lapse videos. He also travels a lot and you can find time-lapses from cities like New York or Hong Kong in his work. But mostly for him, it’s about landscapes and astonishing sites.
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Christoph Malin is a filmmaker and mountain biker, which two he combines perfectly. He is also an astrophotographer, a member of The World at Night (TWAN) organisation. He considers the mountains as his home and he manages to show their beauty through his amazing photos and time-lapse videos.
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Casey Kiernan is a professional photographer since 2000. He has been filming in Joshua Tree National Park and the American Southwest for many years. His preferred genre is night photography, he is amazing in astrophotography. He produces breathtaking time-lapses, and he even has workshops you can join!
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Drew Geraci is a cinematographer and US Navy Veteran. He founded District 7, a company that specialises in time-lapse and aerial cinematography. He has worked with several famous clients, such as Netflix or HBO. Among many commercial productions, he produced the opening of the series, House of Cards, and three NFL Superbowl time-lapse intros.
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Morten Rustad is a professional time-lapse photographer, based in Oslo, Norway. Since he started his career on this path, he has been working full-time on his breathtaking videos. He is the CEO of VJUS, a Norwegian film production company. His videos show magical, dream-like landscapes, with rainbows, clouds, and anything nature can come up with.
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Keith Loutit is a time-lapse artist with huge projects. He started The Lion City Project in 2012, and he has been documenting the changing cityscape of Singapore for eight years. He captures skyscrapers growing from the ground, or sometimes disappearing. His videos almost seem surreal, you don’t see buildings growing this fast every day!
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Martin Heck is a time-lapse cinematographer, based in the Bavarian Alps, and he travels the world to make amazing videos. He is the founder of Timestrom Films. He enjoys shooting among difficult environments, this is how he manages to capture such amazing scenes. Astrophotography stands close to his heart too, you can see night records in his work.
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Tyler Fairbank is an Emmy-winning cinematographer and video director. He is currently based in San Francisco, but he has worked all around the world. He specialises in time-lapse and stop motion techniques. His amazing work is featured widely by companies like Netflix, BBC Travel, National Geographic or Netflix.
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If you’re a time-lapse artist yourself, it’s a good idea to get inspiration by watching other photographers work. If you’ve never tried timelapse photography, you surely have the motivation now!
Go through these 21 time-lapse photographers work and see which techniques you want to learn. You can get to dream-like places by watching them and see the environment changing at a surreal pace.
Do you agree with our list? Drop us a comment with your favourite time-lapse photographer under this post!
We are always on the lookout for exciting new time-lapse photographers. If you are a time-lapse photographer, and you feel like you should be considered this list, make sure to drop us an email at emma@expertphotography.com with your bio, website, and Instagram link!
