Cal Cole may be only 18 years old, but he’s already getting attention for his time slice photography. The British student recently saw his creative photo of a pylon go viral on Reddit, which was a welcome surprise. One look at the photo and it’s no surprise that it garnered so much attention.
Cole cleverly used the pylon as a sort of stained glass window. Indeed, its geometric architecture makes the perfect frame for the different colors of the sky that Cole photographed over the course of an hour. In total, 14 photographs were used to craft the image, which Cole tells us is heavily influenced by the work of artist Alex Hyner. The post-production process took about five or six hours; and, initially, Cole wasn’t quite sure what to make of the result.
“For a long time, I wasn’t sure how well it would turn out,” Cole tells My Modern Met. “But I sent the image to my friends— something I always do as they give me an honest opinion—and they said it was one of my best photos. That’s when I realized it was something I was very happy with.”
This story just proves that oftentimes, it’s hard for creatives to objectively see the power of what they’ve produced. Thankfully, Cole did post his photo and even shared some of his editing secrets on Instagram. From there, it was posted to Reddit, where it racked up over 87,000 upvotes. While Cole was flattered by the attention, the original poster had not given him credit for his work, which he noted was “frustrating.” Luckily, others in the thread gave him the credit that he deserved so that more people could discover his work.
As for what the future holds, Cole is not quite sure. What he does know is that he hopes to embark on a creative career either in film, photography, or graphic design. Given what he’s accomplished so far, we’re sure that he’ll reach his goal.
18-year-old Cal Cole shared how he edited his viral time slice photo, which was made from 14 photos.
The final result is a creative image that shows the stunning colors of the sky.
Check out some of the talented photographer’s other time slice photos.
