Being interested in both stills and motion led me to explore the world of botanical time-lapse, which is essentially a stills process that becomes a video in post-production. It is a patient process of photographing plants and flowers over long periods while they grow or bloom. Thousands of high-resolution stills are animated at different speeds to reveal a hidden world and a secret life that we don’t normally see. I started to arrange these images into symmetrical patterns and realised that the effects can be quite mesmerising.
These ideas developed into an interactive iOS relaxation app I have created called Moodlapse. The experience is based on creating beautiful kaleidoscopic videos of flowers blooming combined with soothing ambient binaural soundscapes to help stimulate different brainwave frequencies and promote a sense of well being.
The development of the app led directly to the Botanical Opticals series of high resolution static images now available as beautiful limited edition prints.
Symmetrical kaleidoscopic animations are created by tapping, tilting, or sliding your screen. There are 24 different flowers to choose from. Because the patterns are constantly moving, no two Moodlapse sessions are the same.
I think of time-lapse as a glimpse into the world of slow-time. Our perception of real-time is governed by what we can see going on around us. But there are many natural phenomena, such as plants growing or flowers blooming, that happen too slowly for us to see in real-time. Time-lapse dramatically telescopes a lengthy passage of time to show us what is happening and become more aware of these constant transformations.
One of the key benefits envisaged when creating the app was to allow users to slow down and focus for a few minutes in a mindfully creative way. It is an effective way to unwind and relax and offers a gateway into the potential benefits of mindfulness or meditation practice.
