Peter Drury first got into time lapse photography because it was a great addition to the videos he was making for his construction company clients. In one of his recent projects, he's been tasked with documenting the building of an inner city park from the Hamilton New Zealand local government authority. Using Blink and a Solar Enclosure, not only does he create impressive construction time lapse photography of the project, but he weaves different angles of both time lapse and straight video together to create a truly interesting perspective of the work.
“Time lapse from one fixed camera can look very one dimensional so mixing in real time shots really adds to the production value.”
Below are three progress videos, which are regular updates he sends to the client, who then publishes it on social media to update the public -- to illustrate the work the public is paying for. We feel that Drury really nails construction time lapse photography and these videos show the power of what it can convey.
Videos Courtesy of Peter Drury
Drury told us that he gets so much positive feedback from all involved in the projects . The client who commissioned the work publishes the videos on their Facebook page for ratepayers to be kept up-to-date on the progress (which gets thousands of views and likes from the public). And the construction workers love it too - and share it with friends and family. Construction projects are pretty amazing feats - and these progress videos help celebrate each step of the way, and all of those involved.
His setup is locked off on a tower block overlooking the construction site. He mixes his time lapse footage with other GoPro time lapse footage of daily construction work as well as DSLR video on days where there’s action.
“Once set up with the CamDo equipped GoPro it ticks away adding good production value to the video without me having to make multiple visits to the site.”
He even has a video he created of the construction of a reservoir, which was used in a presentation to win a construction innovation award.
Projects like this don’t come without challenges, as we hear from many photographers when talking about time lapse photography. Peter says that planning your shooting schedule can be a bit challenging since the amount of action from day-to-day varies so much. On slow days, the fixed overview camera takes care of that. But when there are crane lifts he makes sure to get onsite to change the timing of the cameras and get other interesting angles.
Products Used:
- Blink Controller
- Solar Enclosure
- GoPro Camera
Schedule:
- One frame every 5 minutes
- Monday to Friday
About Peter Drury:
Peter began freelancing two years ago after 30 years working as a senior photographer/videographer for a large multimedia organisation producing content for newspapers and websites. In that time, Peter covered many national and international events including Olympic and Commonwealth Games. His last major photography job was the 2015 Nepal earthquake. His clients are mainly regional councils, agribusiness institutions, corporates and tertiary education providers. For more information or to contact Peter, check out hisportfolio andcompany websites.
