Hong Kong in hyperspeed: time-lapse video captures energy of our frenetic city

Canadian Brent Lewin, 35, said he started working on the project in December "to capture some of Hong Kong's iconic sites along with the energy of the city".

Armed with his Canon 5D equipped with Syrp Genie monitor, a tripod and a slider, which allows a camera to slide back and forth on metal rods, he ventured all over Hong Kong at different times of the day and night, over the course of several months.

He compressed that work into a 3-minute, 41-second reel that showcases the many faces of the city, its people, and its landmarks, set to the song O Cafe O Soleil by jazz artist Jacky Terrasson.

Watch: Brent Lewin's dizzying Hong Kong time-lapse

Lewin said sometimes he would have a clear picture in mind of how he wanted a certain sequence to look, such as the dizzying panoramas from the Observation Wheel, Hong Kong's answer to the London Eye, or the cable cars on Lantau Island.

Other times, he said he would wander around, waiting for a scene - the glint of chess pieces on a board as elderly Chinese played or the faces of restaurant diners - to catch his eye.

"It's a project I wanted to do for a while to explore the possibilities of motion-controlled time lapses," said Lewin, who caught the photography bug while exploring people and places on the job, working for a logistics company in Kabul, Afghanistan.

"The rest was just going out and experimenting on what [techniques] worked and what didn't."

Though his equipment was "all pretty compact to bring around on public transportation" or strapped to the back of his motorcycle, there would be the inevitable clash for space.

"The sequence on the tram and on the MTR were difficult mostly because of the congestion of people knocking around my tripod," Lewin said. "But I managed in the end to get something I was happy with.

"Many times a pedestrian would accidentally bump my tripod and I'd have to start the whole sequence over again."

Lewin also went above and beyond to secure a unique vantage point, even if it meant playing cat and mouse with building security.

"One challenge was trying to avoid the security guard in the parking lot above Temple Street market [in Jordan, Kowloon]," he said. "I got kicked out once but managed to outsmart her on other occasions!"

Lewin, though not a "huge jazz fan", said he asked permission from Terrasson to use the music on the reel after being "completely blown away" by the artist's performance during a Toronto Jazz Festival years ago.

Lewin said of his background music choice: "It's upbeat, ecstatic at times, uncomfortable at others, I just think it pairs really well with the visuals. I'm happy Jacky thinks so too."

"I like [the video] a lot,"  Terrasson said in an e-mail interview. "I think the music and the images go well together. The motion, the movement. It’s very well-synchronised. The pictures and the music carry each other throughout."

"From this movie, I would just say that the city seems to have it’s own rhythm. Lots of things happening. I can see a parallel between that and music," the musician and composer said.

Terrasson said he will be coming for the first time to Hong Kong in October. "I've never been... [but] my mother went and thought it was fabulous."

Lewin, who has lived in Kabul, Toronto, Budapest and Bangkok before moving to Hong Kong in October 2013, says Hong Kong's "great mix of natural beauty and colourful urban chaos" makes it a popular subject for time lapses.

And although Lewin is moving back to Bangkok again for work, after which he'll head to India to document issues along the Ganges River in India with funding from a grant, he takes with him memories of Hong Kong's delicious food and multifaceted quality.

He also leaves some advice for aspiring photographers: "I think the most important thing is shoot subjects you're passionate about. That combined with hard work, and the rest usually takes care of itself."