ClicksyPicsWiggle animations and anything old timey!

1900-1920 - The Samaritans of Nablus (Shechhem). Baby Samaritan.

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

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.

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.

I believe this is is Trajan’s Kiosk, on Agilkia Island.  Here is the wiki page, which also has a current image. Seems in the 1960′s, they moved this monument from the island of Philae because of high waters due to the construction of a dam on the Nile.  I believe they got the date from existing images of the site.  With a quick search I was able to find another flooded view from 1906 here.

I had trouble dealing with the warping of the kiosk on this image, but wanted to try out the water effect.  I used a free program, Sqirlz Water Reflections, available at CNet here.  The resulting gif was then chopped up so the top is wiggle between the two sides of the stereo, and the bottom was the Sqirlz gif.  I added too many frames, which is why I’ve sized it down a bit.  I would prefer to do the water by hand, but that’s taking some practice.  There just aren’t any tutorials about how to create flowing water in an existing animation, especially with only 2 to 4 frames.  And then taking that water and integrating it into the animation in a way to retain the 3d effect.  There are, however, plenty of tutorials on how to make crappy ugly fake looking water in just a few frames.  Maybe if I figure it out with a simple technique I will post one.  If anyone knows of some good water tutorials, I’d love to get a link.

Find out how these are created here.  View the original image here.

I’m like the effect created by a reflection, it somehow makes the image seem more 3-D.  View the original here.  Find out how these are created here.

Another with a more slight wiggle.  I’m finding I need more transitions between the two frames to create more realism in the animation - at least until I get the hang of adding extra movement.  This one is primarily edited for movement in the sails.   Another that I’m not totally happy with, but I’ve been staring at it way too long, and declare it… good enough.

View the original stereo card here.  Find out how these are created here.

This is the animation that crashed on me Sunday.  He could be Brad Pitt’s grandfather.  Below is a bigger view.  View the original at the loc website here.  I will have this print up for sale in the next few days at deviantart.com.

View the original at the loc website here.

View the original from the Library of Congress website here.