times square

Shooting an Overnight Time-lapse in Times Square

Sunset in Times Square

Last night was one of the coldest nights so far this winter in NYC, and I spent most of it outside in Times Square, working with Jon Morris, the Creative Director of The Windmill Factory. Jon is directing a music video of the song Fool for Firehorse, and needed to shoot a time-lapse in Times Square. With Director of Photography, Branan Edgens taking care of the technical end of things, setting up the Canon 7D to shoot every 4 seconds, we set in for a long, cold night in midtown to watch the camera, change the batteries and make sure everything was happening according to plan. I took the first shift from the late afternoon through the early evening and then came back for the final shift at 6am.


Jon Morris of The Windmill Factory


A little before 8pm, as I was grabbing some coffee and warming up at Starbucks, I happened to recognized Philip Bloom grabbing a coffee as well. I consider Philip to be the guru of DSLR filmmaking and time-lapses. He's is incredibly talented, and has been very generous with his fantastic tutorials and behind-the-scenes insights on shooting, lighting, gear and post-production. Basically, everything I know about shooting video with a DSLR and creating time-lapses I learned from his blog. He was really nice, and stopped by our set-up to check out what we were up to and shared with us the infrared shots he's been taking in NYC (which can be seen on Flickr here). It was a very cool and inspirational encounter!

Philip Bloom (left) and Will O'Hare (Right)


I tend to avoid the crowds in Times Square as much as possible, but it was interesting to watch the mass of humanity unfold before us as we stayed in one place for so long. Tourists came and went, many asking us to snap photos of them in Times Square, and two couples got engaged in front of us on the stairs, including a couple from Berlin that I chatted with and I took a couple of photos for them.

A newly engaged couple from Berlin celebrates in Times Square

I also took advantage of shooting some HDR photos and some panoramas with my Fuji X100. Once the video is finished, I'll share a link here as well.


Paula and I trying to keep warm!