Unique look at organ installation – The Southern Cross, February 2016

Creating a time-lapse record of the installation of a 100-year-old, 3000 plus-piece pipe organ was always going to be a challenge, says photographer Ben Macmahon.

The organ was painstakingly put together piece by piece over a four month period during which the Cathedral was closed.

To capture this process Ben rigged up three cameras to document the installation. Each camera was programmed to take one photo every three minutes, eight hours a day, five days a week for four months.

“As the pipe organ began to take shape I moved cameras around and eventually rigged them as close as I could without getting in the way of the crews responsible for installing and piecing together the organ,” said Ben.

“After the installation was completed I began the editing process which involves a lot of organisation and heavy computing.
“Per camera I was taking 20 photos per hour which equals 160 photos per day, 800 photos per week, 3,200 photos per month – a total of 12,800 photos.

“With three cameras that is a grand total of 38,400 photos.

“The video will be 24 frames/per second which equates to 1600 seconds or 26 minutes of raw video footage.”

For more information on the Cathedral appeal click here.