Shooting Time Lapse is one of the great adventures of still photography. In this lesson I will show how to shoot, and light a simple time lapse sequence. I wanted to shoot a time-Lapse piece in my style. I also combined the Time Lapse sequence with a live action piece as well. That made it even more fun. I used a Kessler Cinie slider that is programmable to make slow moves during time-laps shooting. The Gnome short was about 75 minutes to make the 3 foot move. This technology has come so far in the last 2 years. It was great fun. I hope you find it educational.

#1
This was the first shot I took of the Gnome on the lawn. The light is harsh and the shadows are deep. Its too contrasty.

#2
I put up a 20 foot square silk. It was tied off to the trees and allowed to hang low.  The lower you get a silk the more area it covers. The silk acts like a large overhead soft source. 

#3
Here is our Gnome with the silk as the only light source. The light is now soft and non directional. Its soft and nice but still needs help.

#4
I added a Hensel 500 watt hot light with an open face soft box as a fill. Its a tungsten light so we added a full blue (CTB) gel to correct for the color. The Hensel hot lights are very nice because they use all the same light modifiers that the strobe heads do. 

#5
Here is our Gnome with a fill light. Its all very nice but a bit boring. It needs something.

#6
I added a shinny board on camera left that picked up the sun and made nice high light on the Gnome.

#7
The sun moves so this is going to need to be watched during the shoot to keep the high light on the Gnome.

#8
Here is our final shot. I feel like the light looks interesting and engaging. We are ready to shoot.