Mindrelic – Manhattan in motion from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

The year of the tilt-shift continues, but it surely can do no better than this urban time-lapse that sets “Manhattan in motion”. The video, by Rochester-based videographer Josh Owens, actually slightly predates the tilt-shift/timelapse free-for-all, but features all the trend’s hallmarks (bird’s eye photography, scalar shifts, wide shots), though it easily exceeds all prior or succeeding instances of these. Owens’ lens moves nimbly from the tops of skyscrapers to the street-top pavement, verging off high-altitude ledges or strapped to the car hood of a taxi-cab to capture the visual hum of the city’s diurnal cycle in its entirety (or at least, its most dynamic). The 4-minute video, culled from hours worth of footage, offers new–sometimes startingly so–viewpoints of the island metropolis, reimagining Manhattan’s familiar and oft-replicated skyline by revealing its original strangeness. The camera frolics with rogue gargoyles of forgotten tower-tops, peeks on an office party, and straddles rush hour traffic–all in a curious vein that’s as endearing as it is impressive.