What is Cinemagraph Photography?
Cinemagraph are photograph stills where a small portion of the photo is animated. The term cinemagraph was first coined by photographers Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck.
Cinemagraphs were created by combining a video recording a series of photographs. Using photo editing software such as adobe photoshop, the section to be animated is “masked” into the still photo. In other words, just to make a complicated thing sound simple, you are seeing a small snippet of looped video laid on top of a photo. This allows you to create some fanscinating and amazing photos. Some are beautiful like a person sitting on a beach with the waters sparkling. Some are straight up scary, where eye balls suddenly move or some something unexpected moves in the photo.
Cinemagraphs are more startling when the photo is clearly a still (depicted by something that is normally moving that is frozen) while another portion that should be still has subtle movements.
See some great examples from around the web below:
Sorry, couldn’t figure out the source as these photos are everywhere.
VOTE BELOW FOR YOUR FAVORITE
Let us know what you think of this new Cinemagraph style!
21 Amazing Cinemagraph Photography to Blow Your Mind
Cinemagraph – Beautiful Beach Ocean
- Cinemagraphs – Beautiful Beach Ocean
Cinemagraph – Sizzling Bacon
- Cinemagraphs – Bacon Sizzle – My Kind of Photography!
Cinemagraph – Birthday Candles
- Cinemagraphs – Candles
Cinemagraph – Newspaper Reading at Park
- This One Blew Me Away! Stunning Cinemagraph.
Cinemagraph – Cat Ears
- Cinemagraph – Cat Ears Wiggle
Cinemagraph – Coffee Latte Stir
- Cinemagraph – Coffee Latte Stir
Cinemagraph – Dr Strangelove Facial Expression
- Dr Strangelove Facial Expression – Hilarious!
Cinemagraph – Expresso Coffee Machine
- Never thought, staring at an Expresso Coffee Machine was so Fascinating
Cinemagraph – Scary Moving Eyes
- Moving Eyes – Like a Bad Horror Film
Cinemagraph – Time Watch
- Hey I Remember when Those Watches Were Popular!.. did i just date myself?
Cinemagraph – Windy Clothes
- A Slight Breeze. Very Harry Potter Like
Cinemagraph – Fresh Tomatoes on Vine
- What I Would do to Bite into those Tomatoes (w/ some sugar)
Cinemagraph – Wine Pouring
- Cinemagraph – Never Ending Wine
Cinemagraph – Freaky Shining
- Speaking of Freaky – Shining?
Cinemagraph – Hot Dog Stand
- Cinemagraph – Hot Dog Stand – Mmm Hungry
Cinemagraph – Ketchup Bottle
- Cinemagraph – Ketchup Bottle for that Hot Dog Above!
Cinemagraph – Pigeon Hangout
- Cinemagraph – Pigeon Hangout
Cinemagraph – Picture Model
- Cinemagraphs is the Most Popular in the Fashion Industry
Cinemagraph – Scary Models
- Honestly, I find these Model shots Absolutely Frightening
Cinemagraph – Scary Movie
- Another Clip from some Scary Movie I’d Never Watch
POLL: Which Cinemagraphs were your Favorites! [Pick up to 3]
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Cinemagraph App on App Store
There is an App called Cinemagram that makes it easy to do this on your phone!
Button below should take you to the Cinemagram App:
Cinemagraph Tutorial Video
For those who are too curious and want to know. You can watch this video. Warning: Not for the technically impaired. Those of you impaired should just get the Cinemagram App.
10 Comments
Awesome stuff! Maybe I should make some of my own. Oh, and that last picture…beware the bean bag!!!
Oh, I probably shouldn’t double post, but what if we use HDR photography on cinemagraphs? How crazy would that be!
if you have the time, go for it! would be awesome to see more of this kind of artwork out there. HDR Cinemagraphs does sound incredible.
We have a collection of nice HDR photos here as well.
Amazing HDR Photography
Simply awesome!I don’t see that bacon smoking though.haha..Love what you can do with technology.
Brilliant stuff, thanks and kudos for this post. After looking at the images, I was immediately going to ask if there was an iPhone app for doing this, but the link was already there! 🙂 And a big up for the tutorial too, cheers!
PS. The ocean-beach one is the best, by far!
Excellent series and I particularly like the man reading the newspaper – delicate little touch in the scene.
I downloaded the Cinemagraph app – and wouldn’t you know it – not a soul was stirring on the street. Must try tomorrow…
Hey David & Ahmad,
Unfortunately, I gave that cinemagraph app a go… but was unhappy with it. It is really difficult to make a good one using that app. It is only possible if your camera is super still. You’ll have to place it on something or on a tripod. It’s a bit of a hack of an app anyway, not quite proper way to excute a good cinemagraph.
I have discovered a pretty good tripod for an iPhone. Place your iPhone against a window and shoot what is on the other side of the glass… 🙂
Clean Cut Media:
I agree, its a useless app, which is a real disappointment to be honest. Tested it a while back, didn’t work, chucked it out of the phone! I think there are some great software on the PC (and maybe Mac) that do this for you using video clips, I’ll look into it sometime and post back.
I love that the best photos on here are candid photos! The newspaper readers and the photographers are great!