It’s been already 52 weeks since I announced and started my 52 Timelapse Project! The project is finished and I’m really happy with that 🙂 It was so much fun to make this project and I can’t be happier when I know it’s done. I’d like to thank all of you guys, who supported me during this year! Check out the summary video and then below read what I think of this project and whole 2017, and what’s the most important –  what’s next on Beyond The Time!

How I feel about 52 Timelapse Project

Just as I wanted it to be – this project was a great motivation to two things. First of all, to go out and shoot. Timelapse is all about experience. Previously, I rarely shot individual clips. Overall, I prefered well planned projects. I’ve had lots of different timelapse shots in my head, but until I put it in some project I didn’t want to shoot it. So, thanks to this project, I could shoot all the things that came into my mind. Not only could, but also must 😉

Secondly, I was obligated to create regular content for this blog. Basically, it was the first full year of this blog existence and I’m really happy with it. Running such website seems easy, until you try 😉 Building community is not an easy task, but we’re heading in the rigth direction, of course thanks to all of you!

With such project, you can find out what kind of shots people like, what works better and what not. When you publish the timelapse video project, it’s judged as a whole. When you publish individual clip, it must be good to get people’s  reaction. Of course, it’s extremely hard to release 52 awesome, entertaining shots. I’ve had some better and worse ones 🙂 The additional difficulty was that I wanted a blog post about each shot. I wanted to let you learn something each week.

Now, I think that this project is a great knowlegde base for every one, who wants to be a timelapser. I covered there so many different, new, experimental techniques, that everyone should find something useful that helps them shoot more creative shots. As I said one year ago – that’s a project I wish someone made when I was starting out (or even now ;)).

Of course, I learned a lot from this project too. I already mentioned that I had to choose the right shots to get people reactions. For sure, I became a better timelapser. As I said, timelapse is all about experience. Shooting timelapse is very time consuming, so you’ve got to be able to predict which shot will work, and which won’t. Of course I had some trials, that just didn’t work and I had to reshoot to get the weekly shot. Also, I could understand more how Facebook and its organic reach works (I mean slightly more, it’s still hard to get a decent Facebook reach). There was also one important thing I realized while working with Facebook – it’s harder and harder to reach people there, without paying for ads. That’s why I decided to add browser notification to this blog. So, if you want to be notified about every new, interesting post here, click the little red bell in the bottom left corner 🙂 

Of course, it’s not easy to be creative, when you know you must do something within a week. As with every commitment, firstly I was excited about every shot. Somwhere around the middle of the project, when I had the most of this year’s commercial work, it was really hard to keep this project running. I had to plan the shots according to my trips and buy a laptop to edit while I’m away from my home (and PC). However, such hard times (maybe even I could call it a crisis) make it feel even better when the project is done  🙂

Editing the summary video for this project was really fun! This video is a great souvenir, which reminds me of all the work I’ve done for this page during the whole year. What’s best for you about the summary video? On my blog, there is a tutorial for every one shot! 🙂

Overall, I think it was one of the best ideas I had for this blog (and for me personally) and was very developing for me and you 🙂

According to the number of blog post views, here are 6 most popular 52 Timelapse Project shots: 

Of course, it’s just blog post views, I can’t count overall video views, because I upload the videos to different places, not just Youtube. So, here are my 4 favourite shots of this project:

What’s your favourite shot of this project? Please put your top 3 into comments! Full list of the shots is here: 52 Timelapse Project – Showcase

It’s really over? What now?!?!

So, the project is over. I know that many of you expect me to start a new one for 2018. If you think so too, I will disappoint you. I won’t continue the 52 Timelapse Project during 2018. At least not at the same name and rules 😉 I really like the concept and the freedom, that this project gave me. However, it was sometimes tiring to keep making it every week, especially that I wanted to make every shot valuable for you. You know how it is, if you must do something, it’s much harder than if you decided to do it on your own 😉

That’s why I will still upload individual clips with mini tutorials for them. I feel like it’s a great way to learn different timelapse techniques for you. But now – it doesn’t have to be released every week and it doesn’t have to be just one shot. I’m not sure how I’ll call this series yet. Maybe you’ve got some ideas? Feel free to put it in the comments!

If you’re really passionate about timelapse or even want to become a profesional timelapser, I recommend you to start your own 52 Timelapse Project! It’s ‘just’ one shot a week 😉 Seems easy, but you need some persistence to finish that. For sure, you’ll become much better in timelapse photography  after this year and you’ll be really proud of yourself!

Other thoughts about 2017 and plans for 2018

This was a good year! 🙂 We’re building very nice community around this blog. I was thinking of starting a Facebook group for a while and finally, this year it happened. We’ve got almost 2000 timelapse fascinated members there. You’re invited too! Feel free to join us, share your work and ask questions. I’m in a few different timelapse groups and I think it’s one with the best community out there. Join us here: http://facebook.com/groups/timelapse.hyperlapse.

As a summary of the year, check out my company showreel, which shows some of the work I did throughout 2017.

Tomasz Walczak – Timelapse & Hyperlapse SHOWREEL 2017 from TL video on Vimeo.

This year I’ve also started a series of timelapse & hyperlapse workshops here in Poland and I’m also glad I finally did it. It was something that was in my mind for a few years. Now, with that experience I’ve got some plans for 2018 🙂 I’ll continue the workshops in Poland, but what’s more important for you, I’m working on a very detailed, timelapse and hyperlapse course that will be available on this blog. It won’t be a free one, but for sure it would be the most detailed course on the internet 🙂 But don’t worry, there will be plenty of different free tutorials on the blog. For know I don’t receive any money for what I do on this blog. And at some point there’s always a decision, whether to start monetizing the page somehow or just spend less and less time creating content. I don’t want to get adds on the blog, because it requires as much clickable content as possible and in my opinion it makes it less valuable. I don’t really like the concept of sites like Patreon, because I feel like people who support creators there don’t get very much in return. In this case, you’ll get premium content and the same as on Patreon, you’ll let me create more and more free stuff for blog. However that will take a few more months to finish 😉 Of course, I’ll still publish free stuff on the blog before and after releasing courses. 

Also, if you haven’t heard yet, I’ve started new timelapse film project a few months ago and it will be the biggest one so far! 🙂 It’s called Explore Poland and it’ll be a flow motion hyperlapse journey across my country. We already have some footage shot, about 1,5min of the video. We’ll be finishing it in spring 2018. I hope to release that somewhere in the middle of 2018. It will cover really amazing locations, new techniques and some really unique stuff! Also, this project will have some nice behind the scene film, so you’ll be able to check out how some of the shots were made 🙂 I already made over 1000km to shoot it! And it’s just a beginning 😉 You can check out some BTS pics on my Instagram.


Also, I wanted to start a timelapse challenge for you guys for some time. For now, I don’t have anything for prizes, but as soon as I release my T-shirts, I will come back to this idea. As I said, there’s nothing better to learn timelapse that by shooting some! 😉 In 2017 you were following me shooting timelapses. Now, I hope to check out some of your work. In 2017 I tried different t-shirts with different printing techniques from different manufacturers. Now I need to just collect some funds to get the t-shirts. I don’t want to start the challenge without any prizes, but hopefully it will be at the first half of 2018 🙂

I hope 2018 will be at least as good as 2017 was for this blog 🙂 I’m really glad you are here with me! Stay tuned, follow my blog and shoot as much as you can! I wish you all the best in 2018!!

 

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