Moving Images
Eadweard Muybridge
Muybridge was the man who used photography to explain how a horse moved. Adapting the very latest technology, he proved his theory that there was a moment during a horse's run when all four legs lifted from the ground by getting a galloping horse to trigger the shutters of a bank of cameras. This experiment proved for the first time what no-one had been able to see before. Muybridge invented the zoopraxiscope, a method of projecting animated versions of his photographs as short moving sequences, which anticipated the development of the cinema and more sophisticated ways of creating moving images - The Movies.
Muybridge is one of the most influential photographers of all time. He pushed the limits of the camera’s possibilities, creating world-famous images of animals and humans in motion. The images opposite show first the series of photographs of a horse in motion. A series of trip wires were used to release the shutters of a bank of cameras arranged along the side of the track. The animated GIF opposite shows what these individual stills look like when they are played together. This is almost exactly what films are - a series of still images played (usually) at 24 frames per second to give the illusion of continuous movement. |
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Animated GIFs
An animated GIF is a special type of graphic image which is designed to play a sequence of stills repeatedly in succession. There are now various apps available which make it easier to create animated GIFs. I have been experimenting with one called Mo Pho. This allows you to create either a flipped image or a longer series of stills (a story). I have posted an example opposite.
The website gifmelter allows you to take the URL of an animated GIF and distort it in unusual ways. I have posted some examples below of screengrabs taken from the site of the melted version of the GIF opposite. |
Stop Motion and Time Lapse
Now that we've done some thinking about the relationship between still and moving images (thanks to Eadweard Muybridge and the animated GIF) let's have a look at two related applications for this concept - stop motion and time lapse. Stop Motion is a technique mostly used in animation whereby still images (often drawings but sometimes photographs) can be made to appear to move by linking them together at a certain number of frames per second. Here's an example of a photographic stop motion animation:
Find your own example of a photographic stop motion animated film and embed it on your website.
Find your own example of a photographic stop motion animated film and embed it on your website.
- describe what you like about it
- explain why you think the artist(s) chose this technique to communicate their ideas
- explain what you have learned about the stop motion technique from looking at this example
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Tasks...
Find your own favourite time lapse sequence.
- describe what you like most about it. You might want to think about the atmosphere/mood of the sequence, the effect of the soundtrack (if there is one), whether or not the camera moves or is static and how the film captures the passing of time... etc.
- explain how you think the artist(s) created the time lapse footage - what equipment might they have used and why? How might they have edited the separate shots together into a continuous sequence?
This is a very different kind of time lapse film created by the artist Sam Taylor-Wood. It has been on display in art galleries. Compare it with the example you have chosen using the following prompts:
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