A MAN who grew up in Peter Tavy has helped to put Dartmoor National Park on the map — after an ambitious time-lapse project showing the park at its most dramatic reached the final of The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Alex Nail, who now lives in Bristol, and Guy Richardson, based in Exeter, 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. The project made national headlines at the beginning of 2015 after the video went viral.

The project was nominated in the Time-lapse Special category of the 2015 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Alex and Guy were named runners-up in the category at a ceremony at the National History Museum on October 13.

The contest is the world’s most prestigious photography competition with 42,000 entries from 96 countries. Finalists are exhibited at the National History Museum and at numerous venues nationwide and internationally.

Alex and Guy entered a 90 second excerpt from their film to qualify for the competition.

Alex said: ‘It was a massive surprise to both of us to find out that we were finalists. It’s the competition everyone aspires to and it felt like vindication for our hard work. I think we’re both excited at the prospect of putting our small and relatively little known national park on the international stage.

‘It was hard not to feel emotional when we walked up to the Natural History Museum for the awards in the knowledge that our film was on display inside!’

Every six or seven second clip produced by Alex and Guy constitutes between 20 minutes and three hours of work. Some sequences took as long as six hours to capture.

‘Guy and I put such a disproportionate amount of work into the film that we knew it would be well received but we were still blown away by the response. We still get emails from people who have seen the film at the Princetown Visitor Centre two years after it was originally shown. Knowing that your work has had an effect on people is hugely rewarding.’

Alex had been working for an engineering firm but following the film’s success, he decided to take up photography professionally. He has secured a number of jobs since, including a range of national tourist and conservation organisations.

‘I’ve dreamt of pursuing my photography professionally for quite some time, it’s a goal I have been working towards for years. After the Dartmoor Time-lapse was released we slowly started to get enquiries, first from local and then national organisations, which gave us the confidence to make the leap. Since then we’ve shot short time-lapse clips around the UK as well as producing a couple of short films. I’m sure financial pressures will come to bite soon enough but for the moment I’m enjoying the opportunity to pursue something that I love.’