Time Lapse: Picture a day for a Year

"The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, Shorter of breath and one day closer to death."  - Pink Floyd

This project started last year on New Years day.  I had to overnight an Amazon order to get the camera in time, but it seemed important at the time to begin on the first day of the year.  My plan (now completed) was to put up a time lapse camera on the back of the house and take a picture every day.  These then stitched together into a movie would create a real but dead memory of 2012.  What I pictured in my mind was more dramatic than the real thing.  I saw snows coming and going all winter, but the winter of 2012 was the winter that wasn't.  I saw grass growing, wheat growing, trees growing leaves.  All these things happened but slowly and more remote.  I saw animals in the yard, cows moving in the background and these also happened.
But, what the movie actually shows is very little because very little happens.  This is a metaphor for what a year usually is.  Every once in a while, a big year will occur in our lives where something momentous happens - either good or bad.  These things will happen though within the frame of everyday normal life. Grass grows.  Animals move.  Crops are harvested.  Snow happens.  If something important happened, it would have only been important to the camera if it happened within the approximately square mile within the lense.

This is probably a good thing.  The cows moving in the frame shows an occasional stop-motion view that looks like their movement is actually captured near real time.  It isn't of course.  The cows stoically stand in the rain, oblivious to their impending doom on the bun.

So how was this done?  I set up a Wingscapes TimeLapseCam on a 4x4 post attached to the deck on the back of the house.  The apparent "movement" of the earth during the first six months is actually the 4x4 warping as it dried.  The camera housing is listed as weatherproof, but I mounted it so it was under the eaves of the house, offering further protection.  On a relatively frequent basis, I recovered the pictures from the camera and stored them on my computer as a redundant copy.

The camera comes with software (TimelapseCam Director) to stitch the individual images together into a movie.  However, I found more flexibility with Microsoft MovieMaker.  The .wmv file format is a little bulkier than .mp4 format, but is near universally readable thanks to Microsoft's dominance (at least for now).
When I initially set up the camera, I didn't fully understand the settings so an initial few pictures were taken at night.  I did not include these in the finished project.

Personally I have really enjoyed this project.  The fact that nothing happens on camera is why I love my quiet little plot on this planet.  The sophomoric creativity was at least seen to completion.  One entire year of a picture a day.  How many of our adult projects of this level of triviality are never seen to fruition?

I'm actually going to continue this on.  Since I've been playing with other time lapse projects, I've bought a less expensive Moultrie Time Lapse Cam.  It looks nearly identical to the Wingscapes, but does not come with an adjustable objective lense.  The firmware seems cruder as well.  I'm also going to change the time program to take three pictures a day.  I'm not sure how I'll use the 3/day, but possibly this will be another showing of the seasons, as the sun moves north and south, appearing higher and lower in the sky late in the day.

2012 is over.  Outside of the next couple days, I have absolutely no idea what 2013 holds.  If it happens within the square mile behind the house, I may catch it on camera.