Hasta La Gadget!

In this short film, iPads create three-dimensional images out of light, using long-exposure photography and stop-motion animation.

The resulting animations are astonishingly versatile and beautiful. They include abstract alphabetic and geometric figures, but also dancing robots, blocky automata, and diffuse molecular effects.

The filmmakers also make terrific use of their landscape; some of the light figures are photographed reflected on or seen through surface. The ghostly city lights and shadowy iPad “handlers” are also part of the film, and surprisingly moving.

The first half of the video above describes the process used to produce it, which Jack Schulze from design consultancy Berg compares to a virtual CAT scan. The filmmakers first created a software template that plots 3-D models and generates 2-D stills. They then replay those stills on the iPad in sequence. Helpers hold the iPad and move it through space, so the stills assemble themselves in space as if the iPad were “extruding” the 3-D object. Long-exposure photography stitches everything together.

The film was made by Berg on behalf of creative communications giant Dentsu. Dentsu’s London agency asked: “What might a magical version of the future of media look like?” Berg responded with this film.

Dentsu’s Beeker Northam writes that the project grew out of the meaning of each of the three words, “Making,” “Future,” and “Magic”:

• “Making”, with its emphasis on craftsmanship, understanding of materials and media, and collaboration;
• “Future”, meaning something not seen before, something new and unexpected (not so much sci-fi, as near-future);
• and “Magic” – surprising, culturally powerful, unusual, capable of delighting.

This is the first of two collaborations between Berg and Dentsu. I don’t know what these film costs or how long they took to program and photograph, but I see tremendous potential here. Light is the new clay.

Making Future Magic: light painting with the iPad [Berg London]
Light Painting Video ‘Making Future Magic’ Is Made of 3-D and iPad Genius [Switched]

See Also:

• Patina and use-wear by BERG
• The City is A Battlesuit For Surviving the Future
• Wired 14.03: How Digital Animation Conquered Hollywood
• Equation: Quantifying Light = Great 3-D Animation
• In Praise of Ralph Bakshi, Animation Pioneer
• Big Bang Big Boom: Stop Motion Animation at Its Finest

Your all-in-one smartphone can’t take photos nearly as well as a DSLR, but there’s something special about that camera you carry everywhere. Every serendipitous or dramatic moment is subject to visual immortalization — so long as you have a fast shutter finger.

Enthusiasm in the fleeting nature of smartphone photography has spawned a subculture called “iPhoneography.” Several iPhoneography blogs and photo groups have cropped up in major cities including London and New York, where smartphone shooters post artistic photos of their local communities.

“Everybody always has their iPhone with them, so you can get these photo opportunities that you’d never have with your giant DSLR,” said Zach Winter, a proud iPhoneographer. “You can be kind of sneaky with it.”

Despite the lack of manual controls on smartphone cameras, their photos can look pretty decent, and you can touch them up easily with photo-editing software sold through the iPhone or Android app stores (e.g. for the iPhone, we’re big fans of CameraBag.)

Winter is just getting started with an iPhoneography blog for the San Francisco Bay Area. He encourages smartphone users visiting or living in San Francisco to submit their best photos to build a stronger Bay Area iPhoneography community. Even though it’s called iPhoneography, Winter welcomes Android shooters to submit their pics, too.

“There wasn’t any sort of community in San Francisco, and I thought that was kind of odd considering that Apple is based in the Bay Area,” he said. “There’s some community struggling with San Francisco, as far as the arts go.”

Winter provided the photos in the gallery above as some excellent examples from photographers who submitted to his site, as well as some pics he shot with his own iPhone. They are indeed impressive.

Inspired yet? Wired.com invites you to submit your best smartphone photos to us. We’ll post the top entries here on Gadget Lab.

See Also:

• Show Us Your Best iPhone Art
• Gallery: Confessions of an iPod Touch Artist

Over Labor Day, many of you went to work with your cameras to capture the ultimate moment of R&R. More »

You accelerate, hit maximum velocity and the world blurs. Whether you’re driving a sports car alone or a moped packed with your entire family, this week’s Shooting Challenge participants always made the experience epic. The results: More »

What’s a boy to do when he desperately needs a portfolio full of galactic imagery of his own doing? In most cases, we’d suggest he grab up a telescope (or one of these), the biggest DSLR he can find and a planetary expert who knows a thing or two about exposure. But thanks to a mod that’s becoming more and more common these days, it seems that you can replace the latter recommendations with an iPhone 4. Yep — Apple’s latest smartphone, when paired up with a miniature tripod mount and a telescope, can apparently take lovely shots of our dear moon, and if you’re struggling to actually spot it, we hear that Planisphere app is pretty handy. Hit the source links if you’re scouting some inspiration.

iPhone 4 cuddles up against telescope, snaps impressive moon closeups originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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