Cinemagraph

Recently in my tutorial we were discussing how a form of photography has only one part of the image moving.  I had personally never heard of these or seen any, so I decided to research this and try and find some photographs.

I found out that they are called Cinemagraphs which consist of still photographs where a certain movement is repeated, which is commonly publishes in an animated GIF format. The photograph can give an illusion that you are watching a video. I establish through my research that the term ‘CInemagraph’ was created by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck who used this technique in their fashion and news photography. This was done at the beginning of 2011 which shows that Cinemargraphs is quite a new technique drawing on old techniques of animated photography. Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg joined up together using both their expertise to create their ‘Cinemagraphs.’ Kevin Burg is a visual graphic artist and Jamie Beck is a photographer who wanted to bring their photographs to life.  This is what I would like also to achieve in my project using stop motion animation photography and bringing my images to life.  

Jamie was asked in an interview:

 How did you come up with the concept of ‘cinemagraphs’ with Kevin Burg? Was there a particular need to create animated images for a particular project?

Jamie: “Cinemagraphs capture a delicate part of life and capture the fleeting moments of time, the beat of a city or the breath of a human. It is alive and lives forever whereas a photo is frozen and a video is a linear description of time and can only be engaged through the act of pressing play. A picture says a thousand words but a Cinemagraph takes you there. Visual Graphics Artist Kevin Burg began experimenting with the .gif format in this style in 2009 but it wasn’t until we partnered to cover New York Fashion Week in Feb 2011 that Cinemagraphs were born. Marrying original content photography with the desire to communicate more to the viewer birthed the cinemagraph process” (quoted in Alexander, 2011).