Have you discovered cinemagraphs? Not yet? Then click on the above image!

The following post was written by Acushla Obusan and is reblogged here from Cinemagraphs | cushlalalalaland…

Cinemagraphs are just like GIFs, but way cooler. GIFs to me are like awkwardly made videos or captions compared to Cinemagraphs. GIFs also consist of photos that are moving in effect of putting a lot of pictures together in a video format, then playing it in fast forward making it look like an animation or a movie. In comparison, a cinemagraph is very similar to a GIF but simply captures a cinematic moment. It’s one moment, kept in a compilation of dozens of frames, playing at a certain speed. It’s really interesting. I can’t explain it’s unconventional beauty. It has a lot of meaning. It’s a moving picture (not a movie, just a moving picture), in just a single captured moment of complete significance. It’s just like those moving pictures you see in Harry Potter. In the Harry Potter newspapers, or the pictures he keeps of his parents. If you’re a potterhead, you’d understand what I’m saying.

Hard to explain. Let me try again.

I don’s suppose that you’ve seen any of the most amazing cinemagraphs of all time. The birth of cinemagraphs occured sometime in 2009 when Visual Graphics Artist Kevin Burg began experimenting with GIF formatting. Those that you see in Tumblr. However, cinemagraphs became official as a new way of photographic art as soon as he teamed up with Jamie Beck. With that, cinemagraphs were born.

They say that cinemagraphs are ‘more than a photo, but not quite a video’. The perfect explanation, quoted by supermodel Coco Rocha. To make a cinemagraph, you’ve just got to take a traditional photograph and combine a living moment into the image through the isolated animation of multiple frames. Now, together they named this new diverse way of art ‘Cinemagraphs’ because of a cinemagraph’s characteristics of obtaining the basic principles of photography, while capturing cinematic quality as seen in every moment. It was then launched by the duo via social networking sites to help spread the word on this amazing invention. Truly, Jaime Beck and Kevin Burg just created the rebirth of photography and film as a whole.

This is why:

(by the way – if you can’t see the motion within the following images, just click on each one and the images will evoke in a new tab with viewable motion)

(All images sourced from cinemagraphs.com.)

Do you see what I mean? Wonderful isn’t it? Gorgeous even! It’s so beautiful, capturing every moment making it cinematic yet just a photo, but not just. It’s more than that. But less than that. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s just beautiful. A new way of art that I too wish to explore.

With that, I must end my post. I have just introduced you to ‘cinemagraphs’ . The uncompletely explored avenue of photography which I love. By the way, the pictures I showed youmy favorites shot by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck posted on cinemagraphs.com for editorial fashion, Fogfish, and some random places on the streets of New York. It’s really nice and I hope that you too appreciate the beauty captured within each cinematic moment. I hope you do, just as much as I did.

I’ll be making some cinemagraphs of my own sometime soon. I’m tired of making GIFs because they only capture the photo, but not the whole moment. They don’t tell a story. They don’t look cinematic either. However, I do praise the makers of GIFs since without GIFs, cinemagraphs wouldn’t be created.

The above post reblogged from Cinemagraphs | cushlalalalaland.

And if you’re keen to try making a cinemagraph yourself, do check out my following post, How to Make A Cinemagraph, which provides the choice of three helpful tutorials! Good luck… and have fun!