Blood Moons and Remote Islands Come Alive in These Brand New Timelapses

Filmmaker and SKYGLOW Project co-founder Gavin Heffernan is back with two new time-lapse films, which form part of his Parklight project, spotlighting America’s national parks. Following his earlier films that captured parks in moments of quiet vulnerability during government shutdowns, the newest videos take the series further, offering viewers a chance to experience two very different landscapes in full motion.

The latest films, Channel Light and Eclipse Joshua Tree, are a study in contrasts. One captures the restless, sunlit energy of Santa Cruz Island off California’s coast, while the other follows the desert from pink Mojave sunrises to a dramatic Blood Moon lunar eclipse. Both are built on Heffernan’s signature approach: long-form timelapse photography that reveals rhythms we rarely notice in real life, from shifting clouds to the slow sweep of the night sky.

Channel Light: Life on a Remote Island

Santa Cruz Island in the Channel Islands National Park feels like a world apart. Its rolling green hills, sheer cliffs, and endless Pacific vistas make it one of California’s wildest coastlines, and so it’s the perfect subject for a time-lapse.

In Channel Light, Heffernan captures the island in all its beauty. Clouds race overhead, sunlight slides across cliffs, and the Pacific churns constantly below. Long-form timelapse gives the landscape a restless, alive feeling that a static image simply can’t match.

Moments of life punctuate the frame: a curious island fox wanders across the hills, while the rusted remnants of Scorpion Ranch hint at a human past long gone. These small details add narrative depth to an environment that might otherwise feel purely scenic.

The result is a film that immerses you in it, letting you feel the wind, the light, and the solitude of one of America’s most remote public lands.

Eclipse Joshua Tree: Desert Skies and a Blood Moon

While Channel Light celebrates daytime motion, Eclipse Joshua Tree takes viewers on a journey from sunset to eclipse in one of America’s most iconic desert parks. Returning to Joshua Tree National Park, where he first learned the craft of night-sky timelapse over a decade ago, Heffernan was greeted with two clear nights, which were perfect for capturing a rare Blood Moon lunar eclipse.

The film opens with glowing Mojave sunrises and towering cloud stacks, gradually giving way to the deep blues of twilight. As the Moon slips into Earth’s shadow, the desert darkens, and the lunar surface turns a deep, copper-red, hanging silently above iconic formations like Jumbo Rocks and Skull Rock. After totality, star trails slowly arc across the sky, marking the night’s passage over desert trees and boulder fields.

For the sunrise sequences, Heffernan experimented with stacking daytime shots, a technique he learned from Canadian photographer Adam Frisk. With this technique, he creates a soft, painterly effect that enhances the surreal quality of the desert light.

Time-lapse With a Purpose

PARKLIGHT is more than just a visual feast. It’s a reminder of what’s at stake for America’s national parks. Staffing at the National Park Service has dropped nearly 20% since 2010, even as visitor numbers surpass 325 million annually. Deferred maintenance now totals over $22 billion, affecting trails, roads, and infrastructure across the country.

“Even when our systems pause, nature doesn’t,” says Heffernan. “These parks remain alive — still glowing, still breathing — but they need us to protect them. I want the series to remind people that the wild endures only if we care enough to preserve it.”

Time-lapse is the perfect tool for sending that message. By compressing hours, nights, or even days into moments, it reveals movements that often go unnoticed. Parklight captures both the endurance and the fragility of these places and, hopefully, inspires viewers to act.

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