The Power of Time-Lapse and Tilt-Shift

A few years ago I found a time-lapse video online that I watched at 2am and I was struck by so much awe and beauty I bookmarked the video and it's been on the top of my browser ever since.  Give it a quick look... I promise you'll feel calmer in about 15 seconds:

The soundtrack is what I think really sells it. Even without the visual, the piano is so calming it makes me want to melt away like warm butter into a soft and beautiful sleep. Okay enough of this poetry-mush... let's get down to business. The first question is how do they get these beautiful steady shots over a period of time? For that, let us turn to the magical world of the internet, also known as the largest free education database in existence:

Okay, so now we all know how to create a stunning time-lapse videos. Good. But photographer Keith Loutit has taken it a step further and added another element to his time-lapse videos: tilt-shift. 

Tilt-shift, for those less aware, is a stylistic type of blurring that can make large landscape pictures look like little miniature models. I grabbed these two pictures as examples... and even though these are normal real-life shots taken over a large area, this simple blurring effect makes them look very small. 

So what happens when you combine this effect with a time-lapse video? Cool looking shit, that's what. 

Check out Loutit's time-lapse over the skyline of Shanghai: