Introduction

These pages implement a form of timelapse photography. They are not quiet what you might expect from timelapse in that:

• There are only a small number (twelve) of images from each site
• The images are taken at 90 minute intervals
• The camera is hand-held, so the images are not quite identical.

The purpose of this project is to capture the changing light during a day. The pictures are all taken on the summer solstice, starting at 04:30 and repeating every 90 minutes up to 21:00. The sites choosen give views facing East, North and West to ensure I captured the dawn, dusk, and midday sky.

From 2018, the site that works best is Haslingfield Church 2018. That frame has three grave stones in the fore-ground whose shadows give a sun-dial effect, highlighting the changing day. I also love the way the stonework of the church changes throughout the day as the angle of sun moves round.

2018

2019

For 2019 I chose four different at locations around the village. If I am being honest, the result are not as good as I had hoped, and certainly not as good as 2018. All the pictures do show the changing lights, but to get a real sense of change you need lots of objects producing lots of shadows, which is what we have with the Chursh & Gravestones in 2018

2022

2020 & 2021 were a wash-out due to Covid-19 restrictions. For 2022 I decided to be a little more ambitious and take on the centre of Cambridge. I spent a few hours prior to the 21-June looking for angles and views that would be both recognisably Cambridge but could also show the changing light patterns during the day.

All well and good, until I turned up at 04:30 on the morning of the 21-June-2022, right in the middle of May Ball season. Which meant – pantechnican trailers everywhere. Either clearing up from the night before, or unloading for the upcoming night’s events. The consequence was any consistency of angle of shot of the colleges was nigh impossible. The other slightly disappointing aspect was that the day clouded over from around 5pm to 6:30pm, which meant the light and the shadows of the 18:00 shots are not what I was hoping to achieve.

I will also admit that spending over 18 hours on a shoot was exhausting. (I needed to be up at 03:30 to start shooting at 04:30, and starting the last series at 21:00 meant I did not get home until around 22:00). It needed better planning, and near the end, my concentration was not what was needed. However here are the best. Enjoy.

2023

After last years marathon I kinda chickened out this year a reverted to a tried and tested subject – that of the village church, which I took from several angles. It meant way less walking and that each session was only 15 mins.

2024

Different location this year. We were at a friends house in the village of Kingston, South Cambs, celebrating the solstice. Not in a Druid, semi-religous sense, in a ‘their granddraughter was visiting and so they were having a BBQ and invited us over’ sense. I injected myself into the proceeding at around 04:00am and proceeded to take photos from seven locations around the village. If seven sounds a bit excessive, it was. But, whilst the village is extremely attractive it is predominantly on a North facing hillside, so I was unsure how the images would turn out. And when in doubt, go for quantity, in the hope that you will get some of quality.

A point of note. My go to lens, as you may have gathered is a 28-300mm Nikon. Really do like this lens, but when wide open there is a noticable vegnetting at the corners, which is particularly distracting when you have a skyline. To oversome this I have to allow for the images to be cropped to remove the shading.