Cinemagraph

Cinemagraphs in Motion: Blending Stillness and Movement

This project introduces the art of merging photography and motion to create a seamless cinemagraph—a visual composition where a single element moves while the rest remains perfectly still. Students capture their own stable video footage using DSLR or mirrorless cameras, carefully planning the motion to be isolated and subtly integrated. The final piece is composited in Adobe After Effects, emphasizing precision in masking, time manipulation, and visual storytelling. Through this process, students learn to balance stillness and movement to evoke emotion, focus attention, and transform ordinary scenes into mesmerizing living images.

Reem Chaaban

For this cinemagraph project, I explored how subtle motion can create a strong visual impact. I shot a scene of apple juice being poured and kept everything completely frozen except for the moving liquid. This helped me understand how important stable footage, clean masking, and precise time manipulation are in creating a seamless loop. Working in After Effects taught me how to isolate movement and blend still and motion elements naturally. Overall, the project improved my technical skills and showed me how a small, controlled motion can tell a simple but effective visual story.

Azza Alkendi

This cinemagraph freezes a nighttime moment where a girl stands with her back to the camera, holding two sparklers up into the dark. Everything stays perfectly still except the sparks, which flicker and burn in slow, continuous motion. That contrast between the unmoving silhouette and the alive, crackling fire gives the shot a calm but cinematic feel, like time paused just long enough to catch the light.