What if you could snap a full day to night transition with a click of a camera rather than just a split of a second? You can, of course, do this with a time lapse. But I am talking a single photo.
Photographer Richard Silver did just this with his “Time Sliced” project. The photographs in this project show iconic buildings and each photo in this project is made from 36 photos taken at intervals and spliced together to make a full day to night transition.
I was wondering how Richard left the camera for a full day at one location and he told DIYP that
I set my camera up on my tripod knowing I will be taking the same exact photo for about an hour or so. I get to my position (which I pick ahead of time for best location) 30 minutes before sunset, stay there through sunset and 15-30 minutes after the sun sets. Depending on how far I am away from the building or monument that I am shooting I shoot with anywhere from a f11-f16 F-stop, either 100 or 200 ISO and start out in AUTO and move to manual as needed for light. I try and let the natural light be the final lighting that I use. In the end I take 40-60 photos but use mostly 36 images for the final single photo. Starting off in Lightroom and then moving into Photoshop is the process I go with
It may seem easy but there are plenty of challenges:
Trying to come up with the original idea of how to do it. It took a while to figure out how in Photoshop I could accomplish what my vision was. Also, cameras are not like the human eye at all. I find it strange that sometimes the photos do not match up to one another when I am putting the Slices together. That is one of the problems with the post processing which is the most frustrating. When taking the photos, there are a many. People in your way, cloudy days (I have shot a few places in NY twice), street lights appearing, car lights, people bumping into your tripod and in the winter freezing my butt off
Birds Nest, Beijing, China
Colisseum, Rome, Italy
Duomo, Milan, Italy
Gateway to India, Mumbai, India
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey
Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
Parliament Building, London, England
Revolution Square, Havana, Cuba
Shanghai
Big Buddha, Phuket
Sula Pagoda, Yangon
Tongariki, Easter Island, Chile
Trieste, Italy
Venice, Italy
[Time Sliced | Richard Silver]
very cool idea, I think I will have to give that a try! love the inspiration and new stuff here! thanks!
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/oct/23/day-night-stephen-wilkes-photographs-in-pictures
Any idea on how to edit those photos, iot get the final pic? I mean, transitions between slices are simpli done by a sort of feathered selection or how else?
A quick glance reminded me of test strips from a dark room. Now I miss the dark room.
It is extremely beneficial to the keen observer, especially the photographer, to note the stages of transition from day to night and vice versa. Those roughly 72 minutes (the time equal to 18 degrees of Earth’s rotation) display the four different stages of change. In the evening just as the last of the sun’s rays rise above the Earth’s surface we begin to loose color, then details fade away into shadows, ,the shadows yield to silhouettes, and finally darkness. The following morning you can watch the whole process in reverse.