This 15-Year Time-Lapse Photography Project Is a Must-Watch for Any Photographer

If you have 40 minutes to spare and enjoy both timelapses and glaciers, then this is one film you’ll want to watch. “Chasing Time” is a short documentary that follows photographer and scientist James Balog as he wraps up the 15-year Extreme Ice Survey, work that visually tracked the collapse and transformation of glaciers over time.

If you’ve seen “Chasing Ice” you’ll be familiar with the video team and the documentation of climate change in real time. This film shows the team disassembling their final timelapse camera in Iceland after closing down the glacier survey, and the focus feels even more stripped back and reflective than the original documentary.

Balog reflects on both the survey, climate change and his own battle against cancer. The result is a slowing down and appreciation of the world around us. If you’ve photographed chunks of ice on Iceland’s Diamond Beach, then you’ve also documented the glacier retreat and sea level rise in miniature, and Balog doesn’t disappoint by including his own portraits of ice chunks.

The before/after images and timelapses are almost staggering in their irrefutable evidence. As one scientist says, climate change isn’t something to have an opinion about; it is science and data, pure and simple.

What lands hardest is the way the film connects environmental data to something deeply personal. The glaciers become a kind of mirror, reflecting not just planetary change but also human limits. Mortality, attention spans, and responsibility are all things we tend to avoid thinking about for too long.

Chasing Time isn’t really asking you to feel inspired, it’s asking you to notice how much is already changing, and how normal it’s become to live inside that change without really acknowledging it. It’s also a fascinating look into a long-running documentary photographic project, and what happens when that comes to a close. If you watch it, you’ll probably come away thinking less about glaciers and more about the way you measure your own time.

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