Flickr introduces long photos
Flickr has opened for uploading videos, or, rather, what they call “long photos”. As such, they are not trying to compete with YouTube or Vimeo, but rather making it possible to upload videos that are closer to a photography than a movie (i.e. with a narrative). I like this approach, and it resonates with how I am often recording a video as if it was a photography.
The difference between what I could call a photo video and a movie video, can be seen as analog to the difference between music compostion/production and soundscaping. Composition/production is about organizing sonic events in time. Soundscaping and field recording is about capturing and reproducing sound.
Obviously, drawing distinct borders between photo videos and movie videos make no sense. After all, a video recording is using time as an element, no matter what is being recorded. And the photography/film history is full of experimentation on the borders between photography and movies. But there are some important conceptual differences and practical considerations being taken when photographing a still picture rather than shooting a movie. It will be interesting to see how people approach this, as the possibility to add “long photos” to Flickr is now a reality.