Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Saatchi Looks To Elevate Animated GIFs To Art

In an interesting move, Saatchi Gallery, Saatchi Art, and Google+ said they are running a new prize competition to encourage the creation of "motion photography" -- better known to you and I as animated GIFs. According to the three, they are launching the Motion Photography Prize, which will encourage photographers to participate in the "new creative art form." Winners will receive a showcase of their works on Saatchi Art, which is an online art gallery, as well as an actual exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London, plus a trip with their photographer or filmmaker of their choice. Los Angeles-based Saatchi Art offers up paintings, drawings, sculpture, and photography online. Animated GIFs typically include a sequence of photos (often time converted from short video snippets) which are shown in a loop, and have become very popular to include on social media sites. The technique has been around for a long time -- nearly as long as the GIF format -- but only recently has it been easy to convert sequences of photos or video to the format.