I started this project 10 years ago, back in 2015, when I was living in the city center with easy access to Byparken, Bergen's central park. The original idea was simple: to create a timelapse showing the full blooming cycle of one of the Japanese cherry trees — from the first tiny buds in spring, through peak bloom, and all the way until the flowers had fallen and only leaves remained. I wanted to make it seamless — a clip where days rush by in a blur of shifting weather and people passing through the park on their daily routines.
I had seen others do similar timelapse projects in forest clearings, capturing a full year by taking one or more photos every day and playing it back as a film, showing the year unfold. I found that incredibly inspiring and wanted to bring the same concept into an urban setting. And what better city to showcase than Bergen — the most beautiful of them all?
After a few days of recording the cherry tree I had set out to capture, I decided to expand the project by adding three more locations in the park — figuring I might as well make the most of the time I was already spending there. As I kept returning to the same spots day after day, I had time to reflect on the project. I began to worry that the result might feel a bit limited unless it captured changes across a longer period. So, a few weeks into the project, I decided to also include summer and autumn, so that the material would have more depth and variation.
Toward the end of summer, life took an unexpected turn. My dad’s health declined quickly due to cancer, and he passed away far too early. A couple of weeks later, I noticed the first subtle signs of autumn beginning to appear, and I went out filming again for the first time since he died. That day, I made a decision: I would complete a full cycle of the year. And with that decision came another — to turn the project into a complete film. Something more than just the four long-term timelapse clips. I realized it also needed regular timelapse footage and video to fully capture the rhythm of the seasons — a fuller tribute to the city he loved, and something I know he would have enjoyed seeing.
One of the biggest technical challenges in this project was achieving consistency between each recording for the long-term timelapse clips. Since the goal was to create seamless transitions between each day — and ultimately between weeks, months, and seasons — the camera had to be set up in exactly the same spot each time. To position it, I relied on existing features on the ground — for example, placing two of the tripod legs against specific cobblestones at the same location each time. For framing, I used visual reference points in the scene that I knew would remain over time — like the corner of a window, a flagpole, or the roofline of a building, just to name a few. Looking through the camera’s live view screen, I adjusted the tripod’s ball head so these reference points aligned with specific horizontal, vertical, or intersecting guidelines. It sometimes took a few small adjustments to get everything lined up, but once it did, I could be confident that the composition matched the previous recordings as closely as possible.
Most of the footage was captured in spring and autumn, when the changes in the park are most dramatic. During summer, I continued filming regularly, though not quite as intensively as in the transitional seasons. In winter, I went out when there was finally some snow — either covering the city mountains in the background or briefly blanketing the park itself. Altogether, I documented 90 of the year’s 365 days for the four long-term timelapse sequences that form the core of the film. Around these, I built the rest of the piece using more traditional timelapse and video clips — capturing life in and around the park as it shifted through the seasons.
To show how Byparken sits within the broader landscape, I also filmed a handful of wider shots from the surrounding mountains. Bergen is often called “the city between the seven mountains,” and from those higher vantage points, the relationship between the park, the city, and the natural terrain becomes more visible. A few of these clips — showing both the park and the city from above — were captured in later years, and a couple even before I started the project, but they help round out the feel of the place and the passage of time.
So… why did it take ten years to finish?
A big part of it was the post-production work. Aligning all of the footage from the four long-term timelapse clips turned out to be far more time-consuming than I had expected. Even though I took great care when setting up the camera each day, every sequence still needed careful fine-tuning in post to create smooth transitions from day to day. I kept revisiting the footage, trying to improve the alignment — striving for that perfect flow — until the process became a bit overwhelming. Whenever I felt my motivation slip, I would take a break — letting the project breathe before diving back in. Those breaks often collided with other events in life, stretching out over months and sometimes years. In other words: life happened.
A few frames still have slight mismatches — small differences in alignment causing some background elements to not overlap perfectly — but I’ve come to accept those as part of the process. It’s good enough to tell the story.
And now, after one final push, I’m ready to call it finished.
So here it is — Bergen’s Symphony of Seasons. A tribute to the park, the city, and the passage of time. And to my dad, whose passing became a driving force that kept me motivated to complete this project.