ClicksyPicsWiggle animations and anything old timey!

1864 - Aiken's Landing, Virginia (vicinity). Young girl at Aiken house

I fell in love with this image when I found it about 6 months ago.  Since then, I’ve struggled to imagine what to do with it.  She’s too stern to smile, her hands are fixed and her dress is too complex.  Then I noticed a bit of a wind blur where the ribbon on her dress is, and it occurred to me - the movement can be made primarily in the environment.  I focus too much on the subject when, sometimes, manipulating the environment can give it more of a real feeling.

Some details struck me when working with the full sized image.  She was married, and she was a very hard worker.  She’s young, yet her hands are scarred.  One nail appears to be just growing back in.  Her face shows a hard life, yet her hair and dress are immaculate, despite the windy day.  So I guess because of all these details, it was important to me to get her right.  Seeing things like that make the person more real to me and, hopefully, more real to you as well.

Check out the original here. Find out how these are created here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.

This is a bit of a spoiler for my next animation, but I wanted to share an illusion I see often making these.  Notice how her dress looks blue, then orange? And the brick looks orange, then blue?  This animation only has one colored frame, the second frame has no color.   It’s just an illusion, the brain filling in the gaps.  Most are not so pronounced because they have more colors.

I played with fire.

Don’t let your Christmas tree do this.  Go in there and smell it a few times a day or something…

Check out the original here. Find out how these are created here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.

This image has only a bit of restoration work, it doesn’t need my help.  This is one of those rare images with movement, one photo was taken then another a moment later.

Find out how these are created here.  View the original image here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.

1900-1920 - The Samaritans of Nablus (Shechhem). Samaritan smoking the narghileh.

I know what you’re thinking…  but he’s probably smoking tobacco.  For a long period in many areas in Europe they were quite a status symbol, and it was common to be photographed with the narghileh (aka hookah).  They would often mix the tobacco with sweets like honey, and sometimes used a bit of rose oil or other liquids to alter the flavor.

It’s important for me in this work to remain respectful.  So many pictures I’ve imagined these people doing some pretty goofy things, but on most, I won’t do it.  I wouldn’t want to see one of my passed on relatives being made to do something silly (even if it would make this website way more popular).  Sometimes the photo is taken in a humorous way, and with those I will be more liberal, because that was the intent when the photo was taken.

I think I’m finally getting the hang of adding more animation within these images.  It was hard to grasp… here you have two frames, left and right.  Within those two frames you may have several areas with movement.  For each movement, it’s done once for the left frame, and then again moved for the right frame - or the animated area would lack wiggle and look wrong.  This way I am able to add more movement outside of the main focal point of the image.  Above, the focal points are his face and the hookah, those are the two places on the image that are most in focus through the wiggle.  This is because they are about the same distance from the camera, and it’s lined up at the points of interest.  But the hand on his lap has a very pronounced wiggle.  I haven’t tried movement that drastic yet, but eventually the right image will come along.

Some of you may be wondering why I use so many photos from the middle east.  This is because there are so many good quality images, dry plate, available from the Library of Congress from that region.  The above image was taken in the American settlement in Jerusalem.  Jerusalem was a place that many wanted to see, so it not only educated, but it sold a lot of stereo cards.  Likewise, Egypt, the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, all of these places have a huge selection.  But the dry plates, many in the collection are of exceptional quality.  With these I can spend less time restoring the images and more time animating.

Find out how these are created here.  View the original image here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.

More practice with fluid motion.

Find out how these are created here.  View the original image here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.

I hope you’re not getting sick of the wave animations, I’ve been practicing to get them more realistic.  At first I had the fellow in the boat wave, and that just looked cheesy.  So I settled on moving the oar, but then it was boring, so I added the bird.  I think the main problem with this animation is that it’s limited to 6 frames.  I wanted to try to trim them down (I’m sure load time on this site is already a bear for some people), but in this animation it was just too limiting to make for fluid movement.  I guess the best option would be more frames and a smaller size.  I’m not totally pleased with this animation, but I learned a lot!

Find out how these are created here.  View the original image here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.

1900-1920 - Costumes, characters, etc. Measuring wheat. Jerusalem.

I got lucky on this one, this stereo was in great condition.  You can still see a little fading on  his back, but I got most of it pretty easily.  I’m not totally happy with the grain right under his hand, but I think I’ve stared at this one enough for one night.

Find out how these are created here.  View the original image here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.

1906 - Dynamiting dangerous walls on Market St., after the fire, San Francisco Disaster, U.S.A.

There are so many great images I pass up because of warping and fading.  You hear me complain about that a lot, this one is a good example.   The buildings on the left are warped, and it’s a bit stretched and uneven.  The flashing is from areas that have faded out over time, and would have to be evened out to really make it a good animation - and still, it’s hard to get them all.  To fix this image enough to make it passable, no coloring or extra animation, would take 2-4 hours.  I was layering it up and thought this would be a good picture to explain that.

For those of you that don’t know, this is a photo taken after the great quake in San Francisco in 1906.   It was around 7.9 magnitude, and 3,000 were estimated dead.  There are some great pictures out there, especially panoramas, that detail this disaster.  Check out the wiki page here.

Find out how these are created here.  View the original image here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.

1904 - Willie, "the terrible," under grandma's care for a few days in the country. (Small boy with geese and ducks, with reflection in pond.)

5 sections on the geese were cut out for movement here.  Then they were cut out again in the reflections and lined up to match the animation on the top.  Then my brain exploded.

I would have liked to animate the ducks to the left, but the wiggle is so strong there I don’t think it would have been very realistic.

Find out how these are created here.  View the original image here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.