Interview with Dan Marker-Moore The Time Slice Maven

Interview with Dan Marker-Moore The Time Slice Maven

I want to time travel. This is a known fact. But in case you thought I was lacking proof, I give you this, and this, some of this, and this. Need more? But this? I actually thing these photos from Dan Marker-Moore are more time travel street cred than all the previous links combined. You wanna know why? I’m idiot, of course you want to know why, I mean, that was possibly the greatest build up to an intro ever. OF COURSE you are chomping at the bit to find out how the heck these still photos could be more the essence of time travel than an actual time travel movie.

WELL, LOOK AT THEM! Single shot, and you are instantly seeing the stratification of time in a single plane. Right? If there were truly an Interstellar-like version of humans that operated a tesseract, I would assume that the admin panel for such a device would look more like peering through a Dan Marker-Moore photograph. They are that clever. Here is a great video detailing out the making of these fascinating photographs.

It’s pretty interesting to see that Dan flew to Shanghai specifically for this project and specifically to capture the city variations there. I’m pretty stoked to see how the photos turned out and the amazing effects shown by watching the sky color variations. They really explode off the page. If only my stock market dreams would become a reality!  hahah.

Dan was kind enough to agree to a quick informal interview about his time lapse pieces.

TH – When did you have the aha moment to time-stripe your photos into a single shot? How did that thought process come to fruition?

DMM – The first one was the moon rising…. I had this incredible time lapse of the moon rising behind downtown Los Angeles and wanted to share it as a single image. The slices weren’t there, but the concept was, the style has evolved since then to have defined slices.

TH – You seem to primarily shoot in the city, even flying all the way around the world to do so. Have you attempted to pull this effect off in other environs like for example small resort towns?  The coast? Etc? I would think that the results maybe quite fascinating.

DMM – I have Time Sliced other landscapes more than a couple times, and they didn’t seam to be interesting enough, it’s definitely something I want to continue to explore… however cityscape natural lend themselves to this style with the building illuminating and the sky dims.

TH – In your video you talk through your process of slicing the photos together in after effects?  I don’t know a whole lot about after effects, but was surprised that was your weapon of choice. What does this tool give you over say, Photoshop? Or other imaging editing solutions?  Just curious what I’m missing out on here!  haha.

DMM – After Effects is a video program which is built for designing with time…. it was really helpful for me to offset the layers and define the slices using after effects and then adjust those parameters on the fly.

TH – I have been aware of you and your gorgeous photos for a couple months now, but it seems like you have gotten a bounce from a buzz standpoint over the last month or so? Do you attribute that to anything specific that you are doing to promote your photos or is it more of a snowball effect happening?

DMM – I’m actually not aware of that… but the latest series was received really well which makes me happy.

TH – I know that you do this on the side – but do you have any goals or aspirations for your work? Anything that you would love to accomplish? Maybe a show? Certain shots you want to do?

DMM – I really want to continue to explore new places and try experimenting with different scenes.

Thanks a ton Dan for swinging by… and we definitely wish you well with your work in the future. We will definitely be keeping an eye on what you come up with next! And if you are interested in getting one of Dan’s limited edition time lapses you can do that here.