GIFs Go Beyond Gags to Cross Over to the Art Side

Animated GIFs are enjoying a renaissance on the interwebs, but very few of them could be considered art. That's why Peter Marquez grabbed our attention. Instead of getting laughs, his GIFs make us feel.
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Animated GIFs are enjoying a renaissance on the interwebs, but very few of them could be considered art. That's why Peter Marquez grabbed our attention. Instead of getting laughs, his GIFs make us feel. They're pictures you wish you'd been there for – of angelic, grungy kids living, dreaming and playing in New York City.

What keeps his photos from descending into a Levi's commercial is Marquez's eye and authenticity. He's not doing it for the money, he just loves it. He buses tables during the day and works on his photography at night – trying to shoot cool people he meets in the city.

"I separate the photo thing from how I'm making money," he says. "I would love to be an assignment photographer but at the moment I don't really feel the need to pursue that route."

Marquez cofounded the collective Giffriends with one of his best friends Michael Fivis who introduced him to the GIF-making process. Marquez even wrote his Parsons thesis on GIFs as a repetition of memory and how humans remember things (though he never graduated).

"I was like, 'Holy shit this is the best thing I've ever seen,'" says Marquez. "From there on out I think I just started making them. I've been going at it for four years now."

They say the best camera is the one that you keep with you and for Marquez that's the Olympus PEN E-P1. Its portability is what got him motivated to get working, using his life as inspiration for his art.

"Getting that camera was great for me because I could put it in my pocket. It had a pretty good sensor and it was good in low light and I kinda just made that like my samurai sword and I carried it everywhere. Shooting videos and stills with it for three years was what really got me a lot of practice in making the GIFs," he says.

Some of his earliest inspiration came from seeing the work of Jamie Martinez, a photographer in Mexico who had shot Die Antwoord using a lenticular camera. Lenticular cameras take four pictures at the same time, each from a slightly different angle. The animated composite of these alternating vantage points lend a 3-D feel to the GIF.

Marquez's collective, Giffriends, is mostly working on shooting concerts and shows. For Marquez music and GIFs are a natural fit. "The GIF is a super poppy medium and it draws your attention. Going to shows provides you with cool lighting for cheap and someone really cool to shoot."

And while Marquez is always searching for the next epic moment, he still finds that digging through and re-editing his archive is just as important.

"I'm always kind of hunting for that motion that's going to make a really cool GIF," he says. "But sometimes while hunting through my old images you find something and you're like, holy shit, how did I not think to make this a GIF before. and that's why you'll see a stream of consciousness on my blog and then all of a sudden it jumps to something completely different content wise. That's usually when I have just found something [in my archive] and I was like, "Oh my god.'"

Marquez says he's very aware of the final look of his images and that awareness informs his gear selection. His most recent black & white work is an exercise in creative vision. Instead of the Olympus PEN which has him thinking mostly in color, he's moving on to black & white film, Yashica T4's and Leicas. "Back to basics" as he calls it.

Marquez admits he can be a little heavy handed when working in color and likes the freedom of monotone image making. "When I'm shooting black & white it really frees me up to see how I think I learned to see through a lens to begin with."