Your work can become a powerful piece of storytelling. Traditionally the thing of interest would be the finished article, the culmination of lots of effort. Think of grand unveiling ceremonies, or of presentations. Yet increasingly there is an appetite for showing the nuts and bolts, and capturing the effort that goes into completing something. This is where time lapse photography plays a pivotal role.
Recording and Promoting Projects
Architects and construction businesses in particular are keen proponents of time lapse, both as a way of recording their work and marketing it. Paul Adams, photographer and videographer, explains why: “It’s effective as portfolio work to be shown to prospective clients, but also as shared promotional content online”.
Paul cites a recent project involving Dukes 92 Bar and Restaurant closing for a major refurbishment lasting some months. In this instance, they shared ongoing time-lapse sequences online, showing the entire project’s development from start to finish.
Karen Hackett, Head of Marketing and Social Media at Dukes 92, explains, “With the prospect of being closed for 3 months, time lapse seemed a good way to keep our customers engaged and informed, showing we were busy creating something new for them, but importantly in a fun, light format“.
“We know that online news websites have a big appetite for video content and video grabs attention on Social Media. As we had hoped, the time lapse gave an extra dimension to our highly successful relaunch“, continues Karen.
Paul concurs, “The visual sequence demonstrates the scale of the work to an online audience. In a sense, it justifies the disruption caused because it captures something almost magical in the way the project progresses. You can see the transformation from what is basically a construction site to the finished, refurbished restaurant”.
By being able to demonstrate the sequential progress of a building, architects are offering a series of rapid-fire snapshots of their processes in action.
“The key thing is that time lapse is explanatory but concise”, Paul points out. “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what is the value of an entire sequence of them?”
Time lapse photography is the perfect visual record of something progressing. It’s a visual synopsis that works as a way of documenting work and displaying it. It has the added, significant advantage in terms of today’s joined-up communications that it is visually arresting.
“If you want shareable content, time lapse is absolutely on the money”, Paul concludes. “It has a certain quality that transforms even the everyday into a compelling mini-narrative”.
To find out more about Paul Adams’ video work, please visit paulmarcadams.com.
Alternatively, if you believe that your next project could benefit from time lapse photography, please call him on 0796 882 3147.
