Cinemagraphs: A Moment In Time

08.15.17

When you take a photograph you capture a moment in time. Karl Lagerfeld says the beauty about it is that the moment is "gone forever, impossible to reproduce". And he's right. When you've encountered a wonderful moment and you took a picture of it you'll remember that moment forever.

But sometimes a still frame is not the right representation of a situation. For example when you're capturing movement. That's why Apple invented Live Photos and Instagram stole "Stories" from Snapchat. People resonate with short but accurate moments they encounter in their life.

A cinemagraph tries to capture the stillness of a photograph and the action of movie. It differs from a usual movie by having a steady fixed part in the image and bring attention to small and moving details like fire, water or hair. The term was created by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck, the most prominent representative of this technique, whose work you'll find in this article.