A?MAN who grew up in Peter Tavy has joined forces with a fellow photographer in Exeter to complete an ambitious time-lapse photography project that shows Dartmoor at its most dramatic and beautiful.

Alex Nail, who now lives in Bristol, and Guy Richardson, based in Exeter, have spent several years working on the 'Dartmoor Time-lapse' project. The project aims to share the stunning beauty and variety of the national park's landscape through the medium of time-lapse photography.

Alex and Guy have hiked all over the moor, regularly camping out overnight to capture their images.

Though Alex now lives in Bristol and has travelled several countries to take landscape shots of mountain vistas, he regularly returns to shoot Dartmoor's unique landscape. The moor played a huge part in inspiring Alex's love of photography.

He said: 'When I was 16 when I saw the work of Australian photographer Peter Jarver. There was a particular image of his, taken in the Australian rainforest, that caught my imagination.

'I knew that there were similar locations near home on the Colly Brook in Peter Tavy and from then on I was hooked.

'I started hiking onto Dartmoor and eventually camping out overnight to get images at sunrise.'

The project was inspired by the development of affordable technology and Alex and Guy's ambition to show off Dartmoor National Park at its most glorious.

'A few years ago it became affordable to capture professional time-lapse footage thanks to hardware and technology improvements.

'The Americans were the first to do it well, but Guy and I wanted to be the first to take on a major project of a UK national park.

'Time-lapse seemed like the perfect medium for showcasing Dartmoor to a wider audience —sometimes still photographs just don't do the landscape justice.

'We have been meeting up for camps and going on trips together on Dartmoor for many years, it seemed like a clear progression.

'Personally, having now moved to Bristol, it felt like a "last hurrah" to really show Dartmoor at its absolute best.'

The hugely ambitious project has led to the creation of a seven-minute video which took hundreds of man-hours to finish.

It was only Alex and Guy's patience and dedication that led to the completion of the project.

Alex said: 'Every six or seven second clip constitutes between 20 minutes and three hours of "real time" work.

'Each sequence has about 20 minutes setup, 30 minutes waiting for the light and then ten minutes packing up with half hour walks either side and a fair amount of driving!

'So no sequence took less than two hours out of our day and some took up to six hours.

'We spent between 30 minutes and two hours processing each clip.

'It's a complex process to produce smooth vibration and flicker free footage. So whatever the final number is it's certainly several hundreds of hours work to produce that seven minute film.'

It is currently possible to watch the video online, but will be taken down in the next few weeks after the Dartmoor National Park Authority were so impressed by it that they decided to purchase the rights to it.

'We pitched the idea of an exhibition to the Dartmoor National Park Authority in July 2013 and showed them a short trailer we had created from the initial three months' shooting.

'They were on-board from the start and keen to show the exhibition in time with opening the new Princetown Visitor Centre in spring 2014.

'The exhibition ran for six months and the reception was fantastic, particularly of the film itself. DVD sales went well and after the exhibition ended a couple of organisations approached us to see if they could show the film.

'Since the film was designed as a showcase of Dartmoor, we were keen to offer the film to DNPA first so they could use it for promotion.

'We're still finalising terms — music licensing has been a problem — but hopefully they will be able to start using the footage soon.

'Guy and I both have very high standards and poured everything we had into the project.

'We were very pleased with the resulting film and even more pleased to find the national park as enthusiastic as us. Obviously the positive comments we had from the public were fantastic but the endorsement from the National Park was the icing on the cake.'

You can still view the video online at http://www.vimeo.com/115117069">www.vimeo.com/115117069

DVD copies are available from the Dartmoor National Park's visitor centres, including the Princetown Visitor Centre.

More information on the project can be found online at http://www.dartmoortimelapse">www.dartmoortimelapse. com

• Some more of Alex and Guy's beautiful images will appear in next week's Times.