Gif-enchy! Photographer elevates moving images to an artform and now makes advertising campaigns for the likes of L'Oréal and Hermès

  • Romain Laurent is a photographer from France now living in Brooklyn
  • Started creating Gif images two years ago in order to entertain himself
  • But as his pictures improved companies asked to use them as adverts
  • He has since worked for the likes of Starbucks, Gap, L'Oréal and Hermès

For most people, Gifs are nothing more than moving pictures scattered throughout their Facebook feed featuring cute dogs or people injuring themselves in amusing ways.

However, photographer Romain Laurent has managed to turn the humble Gif into an art form - and is now making a living out of them thanks to advertisers taking an interest in his work.

What started as a quirky hobby for Laurent to blow off steam from his day job has now seen him produce Gifs for the likes of Starbucks, L’Oréal and Hermès.

French-born photographer Romain Laurent has turned Gifs into an art form, making entrancing pictures that are part still-image, part video, like the one above

Laurent began making the images around two years ago as an escape from advertising work that he was doing, and they usually feature his friends and acquaintances  

The artist typically takes a short film of his subject, chooses a single still frame to act as a base for the finished product, then layers video over the top 

 

Born in the French Alps but now living in Brooklyn, New York, Laurent told Wired that he started making Gifs two years ago in order to let out his spontaneous side as an escape from ad work.

Initially pledging to make one loop a week and post it to his Tumblr and Instagram pages, his Gifs are typically a mixture of still and moving images layered over the top of one another.

Laurent explained that he films a sequence on his camera, typically featuring friends or acquaintances, before going back and selecting a single good still frame to work with as a base.

From there he uses editing software to layer the moving parts of the image over the top, then cleans up the picture around points where the moving image and still image meet.

While Laurent started making the Gifs to escape from ad work, it wasn't long before companies became interested - and he produced his first Gif campaign for Hermès (above)

Laurent said a key part of doing Gif advertising was being allowed to keep his signature quirky style, like in this commercial for Starbucks 

Laurent spends a long time editing each image to make sure each Gif loops perfectly with no obvious start or end point, such as in this campaign for Gap jeans

In this L’Oréal campaign, a model has an unending can of hair spray applied to her head before walking out on to the catwalk

 

While some of his early gifs have obvious 'break points' - where moving image and still image don't quite match up, or are slightly disjointed - he says he learned to perfect and speed up his technique.

Looping the images perfectly, so there is no obvious start or stop point, is also key to Laurent's work, and something he works hard to get right.

He said: 'In all my work I like to play with people’s "wait, what?" moment. I feel this is a perfect medium to be silly.'

When Laurent started his work with Gifs, the key was to be as quirky as possible, he said, tackling each image without a set plan, and improvising until something good came out of it.

After he perfected his technique, however, advertisers were soon keen to use his images as a new way to draw attention to their products.

While his advertising campaigns are slightly more conventional, when producing images for his own collection Laurent said he likes to be 'silly' 

Explaining his process, Laurent said each image comes about from improvising with the model, encouraging them to throw in ideas until the project comes good - or falls flat 

The French-born photographer, who also works as a director, said that he like to have people think 'wait, what?' whenever they look at his work - a medium the Gif is perfect for 

 

Laurent agreed to taking part in some projects, though wanted his quirky approach preserved in the finished product. 'There was a great deal of respect of my artistic point of view,' he added.

The finished products included a Starbucks advert showing Frappuccinos floating around a woman's head, a seemingly endless line of models wearing Hermès clothes falling off a cliff, and a model whose hair is being forever sprayed with L’Oréal hairspray.

While he also makes money from directing and photography, Laurent is now pioneering the way in making Gif adverts for companies as well.

He added: 'I’m having fun and smiling while I do them, and if people smile when they see them, I think that’s perfect.'

While some of Laurent's work is playful or amusing, other images are slightly sinister - such as this young female photographer surrounded on all sides by iPhone cameras 

In this Gif, Laurent takes on the traditional artistic self portrait, but instead of showing his own face, he replaces it with a lampshade and a set of quirky shadow-eyes 

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