ClicksyPicsWiggle animations and anything old timey!

Photographs of the Federal Navy, and seaborne expeditions against the Atlantic Coast of the Confederacy, Civil War.

View the original image from the Library of Congress here.  To find out how these are created, go here.

“Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.”

-Frederick Douglass

Of all of the images I’ve seen on the LoC website, this has been by far the most striking. If my guess is right, this man is a Corporal in the Union army. Perhaps guarding this building, or just resting with a book. This was taken when the Union General Sherman was in Atlanta, after forcing the Confederacy away from the munitions center. He allowed his men to rest and recover in Atlanta for a couple of months before moving on, during which time a photographer documented the scene (unfortunately most of his images were destroyed in a fire). Most people don’t realize how many black soldiers there were on the Union side. According to the National Archives, “By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy.” Find more about participation of blacks at the National Archives here. This image was badly warped, and isn’t a particularly striking animation.  I think the image stands very well on it’s own.

View the original image from the Library of Congress here.

My second attempt at colorization. This was also what I came up with when searching for Easter images.There were a few cute ones, but they made for difficult animations. I guess this reminds me of being a young girl and dressing up with my sisters to get our pictures taken. Of course we would have included our dog!

View the original image from the Library of Congress here.

This is my first attempt at coloring an old photo. I decided to color only her face to make it a stronger focal point.  Here is the original:

View the original image from the Library of Congress here.

You ever wonder how things that seem so obvious simply don’t occur to you sometimes? That’s what I felt when I created this animation.  Originally the girl was blurry because I wanted to keep the writing on the signs clear. Then I started masking out some areas to make the image more consistent, and poof, it occurred to me - desaturate everything but the girl. This isn’t the perfect animation for this kind of effect. When a subject is considerably closer or farther from the lens, you gain a huge wiggle in either the background or foreground, which is the case with this image.   But I’m looking forward to seeing what this effect can bring the right animation.

It seems poetic considering the circumstances. She kind of reminds me of the girl in the red coat in the movie Schindler’s List. Amidst the mess that this young child must have seen, she still gets excited about getting her picture taken. She looks happy. The devastation of the SF earthquake was truly horrific. According to wiki, the death toll was estimated to be above 3,000. Check out some of the panoramic images here. Towards the bottom there are some broader views that give us an idea of the scope of destruction.

View the original image from the Library of Congress here.

In a continuation of the ‘My old animations sucked’ theme:

The bottom pic was a challenge, you can see from the angles the card was likely warped when it was scanned.  Regardless, the first one is no fun without the second.

So I was going through some older animations and realized… they sucked! I guess there was a learning curve.  Cleaning them out is my weekend project, here are a few to start:

To find out how these are created, go here.

I like the irony of this animation as it relates to this website.  I zoomed in a bit on this image to show more detail, see the full view at the LOC link below.

View the original image from the Library of Congress here.

I was impressed with the detail in this image, and it’s so old!  The gun is a little blurry, check out the original LOC image at the bottom link for a bit more detail, or click the picture to see the larger animation.

View the original image from the Library of Congress here.

3am, long shift at work, but this one was just too cute to pass up… I didn’t even realize he was a golfer until I read the LOC description: “Golfer, seeming to be in pain, seated on ground, woman standing nearby with shocked look on her face.” Photograph from the Keystone View Company.

View the original image from the Library of Congress here.