Even before I first picked up a camera, I’ve long loved timelapse films. There’s something so soothing about watching the world go by at a pace that’s often indiscernible to us as we go about our daily lives. As a night sky and general landscape photographer, folks like Michael Shainblum and Martin Heck make some of my favourite all around timelapse films but as a storm chaser, discovering the work of Mike Olbinski was like stepping into another world.

Over the past few years I’ve been photographing sequences of incoming storms using my intervalometer primarily as a way to capture lightning bolts but also with the plans of eventually putting them together as timelapses. It’s a time consuming process and given my usual schedule, not something I was keen to sit down and wade through. But November 16th brought another foot surgery my way – this time with a solid 8 week recovery time – and one of the things I wanted to do during convalescence was finally sit down and get my timelapses together.

First step was familiarizing myself with a program called LRTimelapse. It’s recognized as being the best timelapse software out there and once you get past the learning curve (using their handy online videos), making the videos becomes easier and easier. Full disclosure, I started putting together some sequences of this year’s storms earlier in the summer during my first surgery recovery so I had a good handle on things but it was still time consuming to go through the rest.

With all my sequences made, the next step was to edit them all together into a short film, complete with music. Waaaay back in 2000 I went to school for television production but it had been a loooong time since I’d attempted any digital editing. Thankfully not much has changed and it’s a pretty intuitive process (especially with a few YouTube videos to get you unstuck along the way!). I opted to use iMovie as it’s less intense than Adobe Premiere and pretty easy to use. I knew the kind of music I wanted and after a quick search found the work of Chelsea McGough on Soundstripe. It was perfect.

The final result? Exhale – A Short Storm Timelapse Film.

I consider this more of a test drive into the world of timelapse filmmaking for myself and plan to do a lot more. While I can see a few hiccups here and there, I’m really happy with the final result. I learned a LOT during the process, both for what to do better in the field and in post-processing (namely make sure to get my damn sensor cleaned before chase season starts) and am really looking forward to this next journey with my photography.

I hope you enjoyed watching Exhale and this little behind the scenes story about how it all came about.