Cinemagraphs: the art of the animated gif

Remember the early days of the web, before Flash and JavaScript, when the animated gif was the only thing that could move in a webpage (and more often than not to a displeasing effect)? Those days are long gone, and the gif has been de-throned and for good reason: most of them were not only crude, but utterly ugly as well, by definition bordering on the kitsch side. But the gifs you are about to see are a completely different story.

Fashion (and not only) photographer Jamie Beck creates these amazing animated gifs with the help of web designer Kevin Burg. 

These gifs walk the fine line between photography and video, belonging to neither. They are studies on a scene. You might even miss the motion completely if you are not careful enough. But, even if minimal, this motion is heavy with emotion and fluent with meaning.

The artistic duo calls their animated gif cinemagraphs and explain: “There’s something magical* about a still photograph — a captured moment in time — that can simultaneously exist outside the fraction of a second the shutter captures.”

You can find all of Jamie’s animated gifs in her tumblr: from me to you. Not only that,  but you can also find all of her fashion photography (New York Fashion Week, anyone?), her own styling and street fashion photography (I love her vintage style; it is actually her on the portrait above),  her food blogging, her series on NYC and other cities and A LOT more.

*[Speaking of magic, this minimal flickering inside the photograph is exactly how I always imagined the Daily Prophet.]

See also:

• Dogs left in cars
• Where children’s dreams dwell
• The portrait of a blogger