What GIF-related photo technique was coined by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck?

The GIF-related photo technique coined by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck is the cinemagraph.

Burg and Beck developed the form in 2011 while working in fashion photography and documenting New York Fashion Week. A cinemagraph combines a mostly still photograph with a small, repeating area of motion—such as hair moving, steam rising, or a person blinking. The result is usually presented as a looping animated image.

The name blends “cinema” and “photograph,” emphasizing its hybrid character. Unlike a conventional animated GIF, which often changes across the whole frame, a cinemagraph carefully masks most of the image so that only selected details move. That restraint creates the illusion that a still photograph has briefly come alive.

Cinemagraphs are often confused with stop motion, time-lapse photography, or ordinary video. Those formats may animate an entire scene, whereas a cinemagraph’s defining visual effect is the contrast between stillness and localized motion.