You've been warned: You'll soon see images like the ones in this post -- part moving, part still -- everywhere. Animated GIFs are making a comeback, and Echograph, a new iPad app, is taking them to the next level. Remember how the newspaper photos in the Harry Potter movies came alive? That's what this app brings to the Muggle world, for $2.99.
Here's how it works: You shoot a video, select a five-second clip, and choose one still as the main frame. Next, use your finger to erase part of the image. That portion of the frozen image is replaced by video playing on an endless loop. The result? Hybrid images that keep your eye guessing.
Echograph is the creation of Nick Alt, founder and CEO of Clear Media, a Southern California-based 10-person creative agency that does work for Mattel, Chik-Fil-A, and Macy's while also developing their own products.
Alt's team actively uses a variety of photo-sharing services like Facebook and Instagram, but wanted something more. "I'm over the novelty of shooting so much stuff," Alt says. "Now I'm thinking more about the image I'm going to create."
Echograph grew out of his interest in Lomography and other old-school photo techniques that encouraged shutterbugs to choose images carefully, with a story in mind, rather than shooting mindlessly. The idea was to use the iPad's touchscreen to marry those old-school, more tactile techniques with the new ease of digital photography. The app lets you "paint with video with your fingers," he says.
Frustrated by the slow turnaround of transferring videos from the DSLR to the iPad in early versions of the app, the team built a compact flash card reader that connects to the iPad via the 30-pin dock connector.
With this tool, photographers can instantly download a shot from a high-definition camera, make an Echograph, and if it doesn't work, immediately reshoot it. Why shouldn't users be able to "test right on the fly, not come back to the studio to import and process footage," Alt says. "Instead of being a bunch of developers back at the shop, we're trying to solve our own problems."
