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I currently work out of westside studio in toronto (westside represents me for commercial photography in canada). Ryan enn hughes: my daily routine is quite random to be honest. The compositions are a result of hughes’ ongoing experimentation exploring the art of photography manipulation
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with DAN$E I wanted to create a ‘moving painting’ of sorts, and GIFs allowed me to do that. what really has struck me is that GIFs are a non-time based presentation method (they can endlessly loop), and are accessible to everyone via the internet, not tucked away in a gallery for just a few to see. presenting this project as a GIF felt like a natural progression of the idea for me. the aesthetic of DAN$E is developed after I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but it didn’t quite work as a strict photograph or motion picture in my mind. DAN$E is an interesting project for me personally on a technical level, as I’m combining aspects of photography, motion pictures and painting in a digital environment. Ryan enn hughes: this past year I’ve been questioning definitions and categories quite a bit, as I’ve worked as a strict photographer, a strict filmmaker, and have combined ideas and tools from both in multimedia projects. The pieces are informed by hughes’ background in paintingĭesignboom: what role does materiality play in the construction of your projects, and ‘DAN$E’ in particular? to create DAN$E, I worked with photographs originally captured for the ‘ 360 project‘, a collaboration with canada’s national ballet school. DAN$E is an animated GIF project of ballerinas photographed in 360 degrees and digitally manipulated to appear as moving paintings using photoshop and other animation software. I’ve been creating stop motion pieces with still photography cameras for a few years now – but seeing beck and burg’s cinemagraphs really blew me away, and it was the first time I really thought of the GIF as a presentation method or medium unto itself. it began with seeing the cinemagraphs released by jamie beck and kevin burg last year. Ryan enn hughes: for the last couple months I’ve been fascinated with GIFs. designboom caught up with ryan enn hughes to discuss the project -ĭesignboom: please tell me a bit more about ‘DAN$E’, when did you start developing your most recent project and when did you first take an interest in animated GIFs? The compositions are a result of hughes’ ongoing experimentation exploring the art of photography manipulation, and is an extension of his ‘360 project‘ where dancers from canada’s national ballet school were photographed with a panoramic approach using a 48 camera circular rig. the project draws from hughes’ background in fine art, depicting moving images of ballerinas with a distinctly painted aesthetic, reminding one of degas’ iconic impressionist pieces while incorporating a contemporary, du jour motion-based element. Canadian director and photographer ryan enn hughes has sent designboom new additions to his animated GIF series, entitled ‘DAN$E’.