Many an avant-garde film has been made focusing only on the qualities of light off of a single surface; it's all a part of the endless and always interesting look into the "texture of film" and the dynamic between light, motion, and celluloid. This early entry into the form and movement of movies comes compliments of Ralph Steiner, cinemagraphic explorer and documentary maker.
The explanation behind this movie is, of course, the type of thing that makes people uninformed or uninterested in experimental cinema blanch: Steiner records the reflection of light off of various bodies of water, playing around with exposure, aperture, speed, and angle. It seems like a boring concept, but the poetry and beauty of the imagery speaks for itself. Better yet, the images themselves get increasingly abstract as they move from easily recognized bodies of water (rivers, waterfalls, spouts, etc.) to sharp, contrast-enhanced lines, shapes, and movements. The dynamic spreads across gradual shades in graceful curved arcs in slow motion to flickering black-and-white sharp-angled bodies clashing upon each other. In one simple concept comes hundreds of different views of what water is, how it can be captured on film, and how the different means of capture can change the subject, texture, emotion, nature, or context of the image.
--PolarisDiB
The explanation behind this movie is, of course, the type of thing that makes people uninformed or uninterested in experimental cinema blanch: Steiner records the reflection of light off of various bodies of water, playing around with exposure, aperture, speed, and angle. It seems like a boring concept, but the poetry and beauty of the imagery speaks for itself. Better yet, the images themselves get increasingly abstract as they move from easily recognized bodies of water (rivers, waterfalls, spouts, etc.) to sharp, contrast-enhanced lines, shapes, and movements. The dynamic spreads across gradual shades in graceful curved arcs in slow motion to flickering black-and-white sharp-angled bodies clashing upon each other. In one simple concept comes hundreds of different views of what water is, how it can be captured on film, and how the different means of capture can change the subject, texture, emotion, nature, or context of the image.
--PolarisDiB