When Guardian US editor Janine Gibson and my CUNY colleague John Smock talked in front of me about using animated GIFs in the service of news, I recoiled in horror and begged them not to.
I was wrong.
Playing with Google+ Auto Awesomeness — which takes contiguous photos and turns them into a dancing GIFs — while shooting at the US Open this week made me realize what new could be conveyed with a moving picture, à la Harry Potter’s blatt, the Daily Prophet, rather than a mere, print still picture.
Take, for example, this shot (these shots?) of Murray as he won against Leonardo Mayer. Imagine it better framed. Still, there’s something wonderful about the action around him at the moment of victory and the reveal that is Murray’s victory growl.
Now I know you may ask: Why not just include a video snippet? Well, that requires a player and the act of playing. And video brings with it so much baggage: sound and production orthodoxy. Video, of course has its place. But so do moving images like these.
Imagine, too, moving pictures showing the disaster of the Japanese tsunami rolling in. Imagine iconic images the past. I know some will accuse me of heresy, but I wonder what it would add to see John-John Kennedy’s hand raise in salute or the soldiers at Iwo Jima raising their flag with a moment’s animation. Imagine how these images as time-lapse could show progression: the growth of a crowd, the shrinking of an ice cap, the aging of a President.
And see what fun it can be just with a neon sign.
