It is 12:02 pm as I am writing this.

Above is a timeslice photo I have taken from the window of my family’s penthouse in Beijing, China. I would say this is one of the coolest photos I’ve ever taken. I did not use a tripod and all you need is a camera fixed in one position.

As I have explained before, composition is essential in creating a good looking image. I guess I was lucky enough to have the best view overlooking the Beijing skyline. The problem was that I did not have a tripod during my trip to Beijing. I had to DIY a stand for my camera to sit on and stay still for the entirety of the shoot. For timeslices, keeping the camera as still as possible was needed so that each photo can blend with the next, and when done correctly it should blend perfectly. For my settings I turned off the IBIS in my Hasselblad and set a timer to take photos every 5 minutes for three hours. I set my camera up at around 6pm and it should have taken photos until 9pm. For timeslices, the whole point is to capture the passing of time so a range that encompassed sunset was important. I left my camera in the windowsill of my room and came back later for it to have finished taking pictures. Another important aspect is to keep the room as dark as possible so that no light leakages can affect the photo. Also set the camera to aperture priority keeping it at around f6-8 for full clarity across the cityscape. A problem with this is as the sun set, the camera’s shutter speed time would range from a few seconds to minutes, the last few photos taking around 5-7 minutes to fully expose. This is also why keeping the camera absolutely still was essential - moving the camera a slight bit would ruin the whole process.

Next came the editing. I personally use Pixelmator Pro, it works great on my Macbook and I don’t have to pay extra for another Adobe subscription. Slicing the images together proved difficult, as there were no guides I could follow and it was my first time, so I just resorted to picking the best images for each part of the day, dividing each image’s horizontal dimension by the number of slices you want, and basically layer each image on top of each other, so that in the end the final bottom layer of the final image has been uncropped - the layers above are cropped by one slice’s length. In the image above, the right most slice has the full image uncropped as the lowest layer, the layers above are cropped by one slice length, and the left most slice has been cropped by 13 slice lengths. I guess its easy to do, just very tedious. It is important to just make sure the camera is absolutely still so that the timeslices will match perfectly. Apart from that, make sure the slices also encompass a wide range of lighting as in one in broad daylight, one during sunset, one after sunset etc, so you can really see the passing of time. Apart from that, you will find that you would have made a great timeslice. You can also play around with the slices as they don’t have to be vertical, you can slice whatever you want wherever you want - completely your choice. This is why I love timeslices so much, as you have an ultimate creative tool to do whatever you want.

If you are still reading, thank you so much for supporting my blog this far, and I hope that I can help someone with the sharing of my knowledge.

Grace if you are reading this, I thank you personally aswell. Thanks for being my #1 supporter. I’ll see you soon.

How to shoot timeslices.

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Social media as a photographer.