By Darren Gilbert

You’re completely self-taught, and today, one of Africa’s top time-lapse photographers. Where did your interest in photography come from?

Photography is something I have always been interested in. When I was growing up, there was always someone running about with a film camera. Around grade nine, I was given my first camera, a Sony Cybershot 2mp point and shoot.

I used to take random snaps of boarding school adventures and holidays back in Namibia.

Was there a particular moment in time that you thought this was something you wanted to take further and make it a career? Or was it a gradual realisation?

While making decent cash doing freelance design work in London, I bought myself a Canon 400D DSLR. I started experimenting with different lenses and always took it with me on my travels around Europe.

Being a digital designer, I was always working with digital imagery and became quite good at re-touching. I was also giving weekly art direction to the photography department within the company I worked at.

Over the five odd years that I was back and forth between Cape Town and London, my passion for photography grew and I started picking up on this new hype called time-lapse.

I eventually bought my first full frame camera, a Canon 5D MK II, and a couple of lenses, along with a time-lapse rail.

I like to see myself as a creative first, so this was more of a natural progression into a medium that I enjoyed.

You specialise in time-lapse photography. Why this particular technique? What is it about time-lapse photography that you enjoy?

It’s different … When I started, it was quite experimental and relatively unexplored. This intrigued me.

I was also at a point in my life that I really wanted to see and experience the world instead of sitting behind a desk (although I probably spend more time at a desk now than I do shooting. Murphy … hate that guy.)

I enjoy the aspect of it still being an evolving skill. I really enjoy the fact that I get to travel and see places that a desk job would never have allowed me to see. And I really enjoy just being present and absorbing my surroundings and really having the time to appreciate the time and locations that I shoot at.

Having worked as a time-lapse photographer for at least the past five years, you’ve undoubtedly faced various challenges. What has been the biggest challenge that you’ve faced?

The biggest challenge is sticking to my guns when being approached to do work for someone and not selling myself short. If you sell yourself short and purposefully undercut other people, you are putting yourself in a corner that is very hard to get out of, as well as simply lowering the general standard of the industry.

Financially, this is a very expensive industry to be working in, especially when freelancing and having to buy all your own gear. It’s constantly evolving, so updating equipment and staying current with everything is probably the toughest thing to do as an individual. But it is pretty necessary.

Working hard and staying passionate and excited about what I do is the only way I have made it to where I am at the moment.

What are your favourite photography tools to use for a shoot?

There are a bunch of really good apps that are specific to weather and photography that make planning certain shoots really important. 

A camera – full frame if possible, but it’s not the end of the world if I don’t have one. I’ve shot some amazing stuff on cameras that are relatively inexpensive. Currently I have the 5D MK IV. 

A tripod – You really need one of these unless you are just going to be shooting hyperlapses, where you might get away without having one.

An intervalometer for triggering the camera to shoot lapses at certain intervals

Lenses … I mostly use the Canon 16-35 MK II.

Decent filters … These are probably the most underrated tool.

Time-lapse is one of the most popular techniques around. What do you do to stand out from everyone else?

I’m constantly learning new skills and evolving the ones that I already have. You need to be excited about what you do, otherwise there isn’t any point in doing it. As I didn’t study filmmaking or photography, I learnt everything via trial and error and essentially wrote my own book on how things are done and how they should be done.

Being a creative person at heart, I feel I might just look at things differently to how other people might look at the same thing. I’m not constrained by what I learnt in school or college, and I think this makes quite a big difference. I really love what I do and I think it shows in the work that I create.

Do you have any advice for budding time-lapse photographers?

Shoot as much as you can. If it is something you really enjoy and are passionate about, over time everything else will fall into place. And you will have the best job in the world.

You can watch A Lapse in Time: Volume III here.

For more information, visit helloiamrory.com. Alternatively, connect with him on Facebook or on Instagram.