Internet Mixtape

Great Examples of Tilt-Shift Photography / Video

Like those time-lapse videos in which people string together a series of photos of themselves taken every day for a whole year, tilt-shift photos and videos, in which real-life subjects appear miniaturized / toylike through clever lens-work, have become all the rage, cropping up all over the interwebs over the past year.

Basically, the effect is achieved in one of two ways--either with a rather expensive tilt-shift camera lens, or on the cheap using a quick tool sequence in Photoshop, and involves blurring the outer edges around a central image or field of view to make it seem like a macro photo of a miniature object.

Here's my favorite example to-date: a time-lapse video made by photographer Keith Loutit of tilt-shifted scenes from around Sydney, Australia, including an exciting sequence of a fisherman getting swept off a ledge into the sea! How charming!

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Here are some other tilt-shift videos by Loutit...

Mardi Gras, 2008

Mardi Gras from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

"Helpless" (Sydney, Australia)

Helpless from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

"Bathtub II"

Bathtub II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

"The North Wind Blew South" (Syndey, Australia)

The North Wind Blew South from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

"Metal Heart"

Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

And there's an entire Flickr group dedicated to tilt-shift work if you're interested in seeing more. Really great stuff...

(via Keith Loutit on Vimeo)

Art Archaeology (artchaeology?)

I stumbled across this amazing photo on Flickr, of a paint chip found at the recently demolished but formerly popular LA graffiti spot, Belmont Art Park. The caption says that the chip is about 1 cm thick, but has between 150 and 200 layers of paint, showing just how heavily used this park has been over the years. 

 

It raises interesting questions about urban archaeology, cultural loss and the current value society places on street art vs. how it will be perceived by future civilizations. Photos like this suggest that what soil samples, ice cores and tree rings are to paleoatmospheric scientists today, graffiti paint stratigraphy and dendrochonology will be for the archaeologists and anthropologists of the future.

They'll have to dig pretty far down below the basements of the housing development that's being built over Belmont Park to find any paint chips, though.