If you’re looking for an interesting project for your child or teen to do then have you considered time lapse photographs? A time delay or time lapse photo series is really easy to organise and fun to do. And when you get to see the end results of your project, you’ll be wowed!
Here are some simple tips for doing your own time lapse photograph project. You’re literally capturing time on film which is cool.
Time-Lapse Photography Ideas for Kids
There are lots of ways to do time-lapse photography but they all centre on the same idea, taking a picture at the same place over a period of time.
It’s a cool way of capturing a local scene or understanding changes that happen slowly over time.
What is Time-Lapse Photography?
Time-lapse photography captures changes or movement that occurs over a long period time. For example, you could capture how a plant grows or see changes in scenery over time.
The photographer sets up a camera in a fixed location and takes a single picture at regular time intervals.
Ideas for Time-Lapse Photos
- Flowers opening
- Plants growing
- Mom’s pregnancy
- Sunsets or sunrises
- Construction projects
- Self-portraits as you get older every year
- A busy street over one day
- Ice melting
How to Do a Time-Lapse Photo Project
- Decide on a subject.
- Decide on the location you are going to take the pictures at. It needs to be the same spot so that you can see the photos develop over time.
- Take pictures of your subject at regular intervals. You could take a picture every minute for an hour, every day for a month, or once a fortnight for 3 months (or even once a month for a year.)
- Make sure you stand in that same spot each time you take the photos.
- Print out all the photographs at the end of the time period to compare them.
- You could make a collage out of them like on the image on the article.
Smartphone or Camera Time Lapse Photography
Encourage your child or teen to experiment with different time lapse photography.
If they are using a smartphone, you could also consider downloading a time-lapse app e.g. Lapse It Pro, PicPac Stop Motion & TimeLapse or Lapse It.
If they are using a camera, some cameras have time lapse settings. If not, then just go with the same spot and same time, or same spot and different times to take your time-lapsed photos.
This might even lead your child or teen onto doing a Stop Motion film next.
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About the Author: Jill Holtz
