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| A GIF |
Thinking about new ways to photograph and capture time flowing I decided to experiment with a different image format, called GIF. The GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) is a bitmap type of image that was first introduced in 1987. It's better known for being used as animated pictures, that have a limited color range (only 256 colors) and that support a maximum of 8 bit per pixel. With the GIF I wanted to capture looping animations and cyclic action that could seamlessly continue for an infinite time. On my sketchbook I jotted down any ideas of actions and movements to capture:
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| Ideas on my sketchbook |
To create GIF's I used an app on the iPhone called DSCO which takes videos of maximum 8 seconds and automatically creates the GIF. To capture cyclic actions in most of my attempts I used a tripod to eliminate camera movement and shake during the video-take. By doing that the background is fixed in position and doesn't move when the animation of the GIF restarts. Firtsly I captured one of my friends doing actions back and forward to create an animation without any perceptible stutter.
In this first attempt the background stays in a fixed position, but there is still some animation stutter due to the fact that she doesn't return to the original position with her head.
The result here is better. The background stays fixed and there is no animation stutter. I used the filters of the app to give a vintage look to the image.
In this two images Giuseppe is moving from one side to the other of the frame. As each animations ends he continuously renters from the other side for an indefinite amount of time. Due to the compression and the low frame rate of the video choose by the app the moving subject appears blurred and not in focus.
In this picture I captured a cyclic motion - the spinning bike tire - that seems to never stop. This picture required many attempts due to the difficulty in obtaining a non stuttering animation.
The concept behind this picture is the same. The pages of the book infinitely flow creating a surreal effect that suggest the book is made of infinite pages.
At home I continued to look for everyday objects and movements I could use to create GIF and I also tried to shoot some of them without tripod trying not to move the camera too much:
