Running through life at a frantic pace, living in the 'now', we often remain ignorant of those natural phenomena that take place over longer time scales (especially with the majority of our lives now also spent indoors). "The wheels of the cosmos turn too slowly for humans to watch", says José Francisco Salgado in the trailer to his upcoming feature Sidereal Motion. "Until now." With the advent of digital cameras, the art of time-lapse photography has risen to new heights. Through the lens of these artists we can see what the world might look like to a consciousness that perceives things over long time-scales: vehicles and people swarming like ants or insects (perhaps no better example than in the beautiful video "Hajj: A Journey of Purity"), clouds that move like oceans and rivers, and the billions of fixed stars in deep space that sweep into view as our planet revolves throughout the night, a real-life Total Perspective Vortex.

Here's ten* exquisite time-lapse videos that have made my jaw drop to the floor, listed in no particular order. Make sure you select the HD and full-screen options if possible! For more information on the videos and artists who created them - including equipment used, locations, and licensing queries - visit the linked titles.

Grab a beverage, sit back in your seat and enjoy.

10. The Mountain
by TSO Photography

A stunning time-lapse video from Terje Sorgjerd, filmed around Spain's highest mountain, El Teide - one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars, and the home of Teide Observatories. The shots of the Milky Way are breath-taking...indeed, if you break out of the 'twinkling lights in the sky rotating over the Earth' perspective, and instead grasp your viewing position as it really is - on a spinning globe, watching billions of fixed suns in the virtually unending depths of the cosmos sweep into view - the opening sequences to this video can pretty much bring a tear to your eye (well, at least they do for me).

The celestial viewing delights in this time-lapse are also at times framed by an Earthly phenomenon:

A large sandstorm hit the Sahara Desert on the 9th April and at approx 3am in the night the sandstorm hit me, making it nearly impossible to see the sky with my own eyes.

Interestingly enough my camera was set for a 5 hour sequence of the milky way during this time and I was sure my whole scene was ruined. To my surprise, my camera had managed to capture the sandstorm which was backlit by Grand Canary Island making it look like golden clouds. The Milky Way was shining through the clouds, making the stars sparkle in an interesting way. So if you ever wondered how the Milky Way would look through a Sahara sandstorm, look at 00:32.

9. In The Land Of The Northern Lights
by Ole Christian Salomonsen

Six months and 50,000 images in the making, Ole Christian Salomsen's timelapse video of the Aurora Borealis ('The Northern Lights') is exquisitely beautiful. The time-scales aren't as stretched as in many time-lapse videos, in order to preserve the real-time speed of the aurorae as much as possible, "instead of the northern lights just flashing over the sky in the blink of an eye":

One can only wonder what ancient people made of this spectacular atmospheric phenomenon, in which spirits seem to rise from mountains and dance across the sky.

Clint Eastwood's Hereafter tells the story of three individuals touched by death in different ways, and how each of them deals with their encounter with 'the other side'. Here's ten other movies which explore what might lie beyond the veil of death:

10. Ghost

This 1990 hit movie may have revolved around the sappy, sentimental story of eternal love between characters Sam and Molly (Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore), but the real star was Whoopi Goldberg and her portrayal of Oda Mae Brown, a fake psychic who suddenly finds that she can hear the dead. Here's the scene in which she first encounters the ghostly Sam (oh, if only such a thing would happen to Sylvia Browne).

9. Enter the Void

Sex, drugs and the NDE: there's nothing sappy and sentimental about this afterlife rendering. In Gaspar Noé's provocative Enter the Void, small-time drug dealer Oscar is shot by police inducing an 'astral journey' around psychedelic Tokyo. Taking inspiration from mushroom trips, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Raymond Moody's NDE bestseller Life After Life, Noé hits the viewer with sensory overload in order to portray the altered states of consciousness that Oscar encounters (including a 6 minute DMT trip) during the movie. ... Read More »