A cinemagraph is the marriage of a single still photograph and either a real time video or a time-lapse video.

Or both…

The technique of combining still photography with a motion clip to create engaging visual treats has been around for several years. Since I first discovered this amazing trick I’ve been looking or the appropriate time and place to produce my first one:

Press the play button to see it again and again and again…

The story behind this is simple: working with my client, we decided to end the first part of what we hope to be a 2.5 year time-lapse film with a simple yet elegant group portrait of the heavy equipment operators in their employ. While shooting this epic group portrait, (one of my specialties) I had an epiphany: this was the time and place for my first cinemagraph.

And so it went. After the photography session, I took the file into post-production to tone colors, add a cloudy sky, add an employee who was photographed separately and finally, added the company logo and date of operations:

And just like that, my client has the perfect ending to the first chapter of their time-lapse construction film. Note: the cloudy skies in the still photograph above were used specifically for the framed prints given to each person in the photograph. The cloudy sky motion clips blended together in the cinemagraph had a different look and feel.

I’m planning on adding cinemagraphs to future time-lapse construction films.

Will yours be next?

Thanks for reading.

Michael

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