I found an absolutely stunning bit of photography and animation on the web today. I went to google and searched for “sophisticated GIF” and found some work that blew me away. Each shot is like a time capsule, a magical micro-moment – and they’re animated GIFS!
There’s a good chance you associate the concept of an animated GIF with something like a garish early nineties website along the lines of a Geocities homepage. Remember Borat? His original tongue in cheek website is no longer online but has been preserved by the good folks at the Internet Archive, and you should read my post on his insane animated GIF strewn website here: http://iam.strongandfree.ca/blog/the-internet-is-forever-wayback-machine-retrieves-borat
Above you’ll see an example of this amazing visual art. It’s like a throwback to the original days of cinema, when even the most primitive frames could spark delight and capture the imagination. Mind you, the duo of Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg are operating in modern NYC and their spin on the “cinemagraph” is very sophisticated in its execution. I going to encourage you to check out two websites for dozens of examples of the incredible imagery, before I ask you to analyze the image at the top of this post (you’ll see some teensy tiny flaws in the crosswalk area at right).
So be sure to spend a few minutes at the main page, and the blog by Jamie Beck (each site has different content)
Cinemagraph site: http://cinemagraphs.com/
Blog by Jamie: http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/tagged/cinemagraph
