It took 50,000 photos and 3,100 miles to take this incredible timelapse of the European Alps

Germany-based landscape photographer Christian Möhrle has created some stunning timelapse videos and photography and DIY tutorials. This time, the journey took him across several European countries where he shot images for his latest timelapse Exploring the Alps.

It took 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) of the journey, 50,000 photos, and a bunch of adventures, challenges and overcoming fears to get the shots for this timelapse. Christian shared with us how he did it, along with some funny and less funny details about his trip.

The Alps in Europe are stretching 1,200 km across eight Alpine countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Slovenia, and Switzerland. “In 2019 I spent all my free time traveling roughly 5,000 kilometers across most of those countries to find the most beautiful spots in the Alps, Christian explains. Some of the places he visited were the Dolomites in Italy, Zermatt with the famous Matterhorn Mountain in Switzerland, the Zugspitze (Germany’s highest mountain), and the Mont Blanc region in the French Alps. Christian has kindly shared the map of all the spots shown in the timelapse, and you can then check them out here.

Other than traveling across Europe, Christian also took around 50,000 photos, coming home with around one terabyte of data. But his journey was about more than just taking thousands of photos. There were plenty of funny situations, but many challenges, too.

“The opening sequences were all shot at the Eibsee in Germany. The original plan was to get more footage here on the last day of our stay here. Unfortunately, my girlfriend and I visited the Christmas market the night before and got a bit drunk. The next day we weren’t able to do anything!”

Still, Christian managed to shoot everything that he had planned, although not everything went smoothly.

“We had some bad luck on our trip in the Swiss Alps. First, we couldn’t do any hiking around the Matterhorn as the trails were still closed in May due to snow (they open in June). We were still able to get up on some mountains using trains and gondolas.”

These alternative methods of transport came at a price. Around 400 euros spent on gondola tickets, to be more precise. What made the whole adventure even more difficult was the fact that Christian is generally terrified of heights. Spending lots of time in gondolas going up mountains wasn’t exactly the most pleasant experience for him, but hey – I’d say that it was totally worth it!

During the trip, Chris and his girlfriend also had a rather close encounter with an avalanche, which was about 400 meters away from them. During their stay in the French Alps, a thick fog was also a problem. “The weather was bad for the whole time except for the first day,” Chris tells DIYP. “We took the gondola up to the Aiguille du Midi to have a great view over Mont Blanc, but due to fog we didn’t see anything at all.” Bummer!

During one day they spent in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, there wasn’t any visibility due to low-hanging clouds. Still, this ended up in the movie because turned out to look really cool.

If you’re wondering about the gear, here’s the list of cameras, lenses and other gear Christian used to shoot photos for his timelapse:

Here are a few more photos:

I enjoyed watching Christian’s latest timelapse – it’s calming, beautiful, and filled with masterfully composed shots. Plus, I really love mountains and nature, and Christian captured them beautifully in his video. Make sure to watch it, and also check out more of Christian’s work on his Instagram, Facebook page, and YouTube channel.