Gorgeous "Time Slice" Photo Collages Vividly Illustrate the Passage of Time

By Jenny Zhang on March 30, 2016

Since 2013, photographer and motion graphics professional Dan Marker-Moore has tracked the passage of time in cities around the world through gorgeous “time slices,” collages created by digitally merging dozens of individual photos captured minutes and even hours apart. With each strip representing a different point in time, the beautifully graphic images illustrate the transition from day to night through gradients, subtle motions, and the flickering of city lights as darkness falls.

“I've done enough where I can stand in a location and visualize what a time slice in a location will look like,” Marker-Moore explained his process to us via email. Often capturing up to 1,000 photos in a set period of time, he edits a selection of images in Adobe Lightroom and splices them together in After Effects. “The only curveball is usually the weather; it's hard to predict, sometimes. Usually it takes a few tries before I get a time slice finished. I experiment with how many slices and the direction of slices, as well as which segment of time to focus on. I will end up with a few drafts and refine the best one. Sometimes this can be a quick process, but often it takes a few days to get right.”

Three years in, Marker-Moore has created time slices of LA, NYC, Shanghai, Hong Kong, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Chicago, and Toronto, among other metropolises. For each new city he visits, he likes to capture a time slice–his own way of preserving the memory of another place traveled. “I am attracted to cityscapes,” he said. “They make for excellent time slices; as the sunlight dims, the city lights turn on.”

Above: Shanghai. 65 photos. 1 hour 53 minutes.

Hong Kong. 150 photos. 56 minutes.