Cinemagraphs – Still Photographs That Move

Watch as I perform feats of magic with this picture of a Jack of Spade…

The awesome folks at Photojojo.com posted a tutorial on creating your own Cinemagraphs like the one shown above. Cinemagraphs are essentially animated GIF’s minus the nineties flair. The idea is to have a still photo with minor elements of motion. I recently purchased my first my first DSLR camera (a Nikon D3100 which I absolutely love) a couple of weeks ago and came across this tutorial when I was trying to find out what apeture was.

Cinemagraphs are a lot of fun to make. All you need is a video recording device, a tripod, video editing software (maybe), Adobe Photoshop (I use CS3), some imagination and a little time to kill. Once you have these things, just follow the steps listed here and you’re ready to get your GIF on.

Here are a couple I made in my hometown of Springfield, Ohio:

The fountain on Fountain Avenue:

The downtown plaza:

I really enjoy making these and plan on making a page on this site dedicated to Cinemagraphs. I’ll update this post when I do.
(Update: I’ve finally made a page for my Cinemagraphs. Enjoy!)

One bit of advice if you plan on filming outside, try to film on a clear day. Clouds can cause shade changes which become very apparent in your Cinemagraph. I hope you enjoy and if you make or find any, please post a link in the comment section, I’d love to see them.