Keith Loutit

Keith Loutit

Biography
Keith Loutit is from Sydney, Australia. He considers himself himself both a photographer and filmmaker. Although he is not the only photographer to experiment with tilt-shift and time-lapse techniques, his artwork seems to use the techniques in a way that really miniaturize the subject.

Significance
Loutit is one of the first photographers to experiment with the tilt-shift photography from such a great distance so that the subject matter looks like miniatures. He has been hired for commercials and has used the technique on his own, but as of yet, there is still a lot of room for application with this type of photography.

Art Historical or Photographic movement
Loutit works uses time-lapse video to create his stop-motion videos. Stop-motion can be so drastically different, and Loutit has found a way to update what stop-motion can do.

Rievew
I couldn't find an officially published review of his work, but I found several blog and forum critiques, the most official lookingbeing a review by Clay Parker Jones at ExitCreative.net, which is really just an explanation of what tilt-shift means. Other, more casual looking bloggers wrote how they enjoyed Loutit's work. They all said a variety of the same things, including how at first they thought it was miniatures or claymation, but through studying the videos realized it couldn't be and through research discovered these images were of real people and real boats, etc. After that, they all said how it was simply really neat and one must check it out.

Composition
Loutit's composition is dictated by the subject matter, be it a house, boat, or field. In the examle of a boat, the subject matter moves, and he doesn't necessarily know where to, so I think a lot of it is just point and hope for the best. That or the composition is not entirely important to the overall piece.

Concept
Loutit's series Small World's has been his most famous series. He traveled the world to document famous cities, monuments, and people. The people seem so tiny and abstract, so there are very little differences. Loutit is trying to say that today with increasing communication, the world seems smaller, but through Loutit's work we see mankind working together building things and driving and lounging at beaches or going to ballet class.

Method
He shoots several shots a second with a tilt-shift lens on his video camera, which creates the illusion of the subject being a miniature. Using a time-lapse to capture fewer frames per second makes the video seem more like a stop-motion rather than a video, where the "normal" frames/second is 24-30.

My Opinion
I think Loutit's work does a good job of expressing his intention - that mankind works together to create society, which is evident from the perspective that Loutit shoots from. His work is aesthetically unique, which makes it stand out. I think he just simply has fun with it, and that's a great reason to continue doing it.