[photo by Jamie Beck]
I have a new obsession: Cinemagraphs. Remember the feeling you had when you were a kid and you saw something for the first time and were in awe? That’s how I felt when I stumbled on Jamie Beck’s website. I must have wasted at least two or three hours looking through all of the cinemagraphs on her site.
What is a cinemagraph? Here’s how the creators of Cinemagraphs, Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg, describe it:
“Visual Graphics Artist Kevin Burg began experimenting with the .gif format in this style in 2009 but it wasn’t until he partnered with photographer Jamie Beck to cover NYFW that Cinemagraphs were born. Beck and Burg named the process “Cinemagraphs” for their cinematic quality while maintaining at its soul the principles of traditional photography. Marrying original content photography with the desire to communicate more to the viewer birthed the cinemagraph process. Starting in-camera, the artists take a traditional photograph and combine a living moment into the image through the isolated animation of multiple frames.”
Photos are great but they are flat and one dimensional. Videos are nice, but sometimes they are too long and you find yourself fast forwarding to a particular scene. But with cinemagraphs, the best qualities of photos and videos are combined. They are magical!
I’ve been experimenting with a few cinemagraph iPhone apps. So far, I’ve used the following:
My preference is Cinemagram. It’s faster than the other apps, and it has built-in filters which allow you to customize your photo-video.
Check out the Cinemagraph website. But don’t blame me when you look up from your computer and three hours have passed! :)
P.S. Here are 40 lovely examples of cinemagraphs.
2 Comments
I love Jamie and Kevin’s work as well – and if you’re excited about the new generation of animated .gifs – which is what this “new” medium is, go check out cinegif.com. and Google “Gif of the Day” for a cool WordPress site that displays animated .gif files from a wide variety of sources.
I downloaded Cinegif and so far it looks like a nice app. Thanks for clarifying that the new medium is called “animated gifs.”