Photographer NJ New Jersey & NYC New York

photography by Neil van Niekerk

Timelapse photography : Murals & Artwork

New York NYC timelapse photographer

Timelapse photography : Murals & Artwork

To show how the creation of a mural or other artwork unfolds over hours, days or weeks, timelapse videos are ideal. By compressing the timeline to a shorter video, you really get a sense of the mastery in how the artwork was created.

Have a look at these examples and then if you have a forthcoming project where you want a timelapse video as a record of the final result, let me know.

I am based in northern New Jersey (NJ) , but as you can see from these videos, I do timelapse photography work across New York City as well.

Please contact me for more details & pricing, and to discuss your project and see how I may be able to help you.

Neil van Niekerk
[email protected]
862-485-7276

 

 

The largest single-day time-lapse photography project that I’ve worked on to date, involved seven cameras running simultaneously while recording six graffiti art murals being painted – all during the course of one afternoon! These time-lapse sequences were shot for an agency that was creating a promotional video for MLB. The concept behind this was that they had five artists painting murals of the six most likely drafts for MLB this season. The challenge here was then simply one of logistics – making sure everything was set up and in place, ready to go before everyone started.

 

 

As an example of a vertical time-lapse video, which works especially well for Social Media purposes, check this time-lapse created on behalf of Warner Brothers. To announce and advertise the new Harry Potter Store on 5th Avenue, Manhattan, they had this mural painted on the side of a building.

It is fascinating to watch the precision with which the artists painted the mural over a period of four days. Of course, with time-lapse photography, we get to watch this event unfold in less than a minute.

Since the mural is (obviously) vertical, it just lent itself naturally to a vertical video format — perfect for posting in many of the social media sites that favor a vertical format.

Here I used a waterproof housing specifically designed for long-term outdoor time-lapse photography. The camera is protected, by the housing, and is powered via a solar panel connected to it. For more details, click through on the behind-the-scenes description.

 

 

Time-lapse photography: sidewalk art in New York. Hani is a sidewalk artist who was commissioned to create this art piece of a Wyoming ski slope on a sidewalk along 5th Avenue in Manhattan. In turn, I was commissioned to create a timelapse of this pastel art piece being created over a two day period. I used multiple cameras to achieve a final timelapse video that is more dynamic than just a single camera viewpoint.

 

 

Timelapse photography: painting ceiling artwork, NYC. Building out a new jewelry store in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan, the timelapse took several months as the renovation project unfolded.  Part of it was when they had an artist paint a forest scene on the ceiling — the effect is the of looking upwards in the middle of a forest and seeing the canopy of trees above you. This part of the timelapse project, shown here, took 5 weeks to unfold.

The client: Cadar
The artist: Rey Jaffet — check out some of his other work on his Instagram account.

 

 

Another long-term timelapse project – this time of a mural being painted in Philadelphia. It’s always so fascinating watching an event that took weeks, captured as a video of just a few minutes.

 

 

Time-lapse : mural in Jersey City, NJ. Another vertical time-lapse video! This majestic modern art piece was created over a 3 week period through rain and shine.

Two cameras (one of them a backup) were in water-proof housings and connected to solar panels for power.

Since high-resolution cameras were used, I was able to provide the client with both horizontal and vertical edits of the video.