The Beauty of Slow Motion

Coming home for the holidays, it's really felt like time is passing in slow motion this past week. Without work, school or musical endeavors to keep me busy, the days just go by at a different pace. And I'm hardly complaining.

Slow motion has an unexplainable way of highlighting the simple, hidden beauty in everyday sights like traffic and street scenes. Now add a couple hundred brightly colored bouncy balls, and observe the results:


song: José González - Heartbeats

We've reached a point where flash mobs are more often seen as a guerilla marketing tool than as artistic expression, having been co-opted by commercials and used lazily in television shows. But this footage of a spontaneous mass pillow-fight recently filmed in Manhattan looks great in slow motion, giving it a different kind of emotional feel.

NYC Pillow Fight 2009 in Slow Motion from 9elements on Vimeo.

song: Ida - "Late Blues"

Slow motion even displays the beauty in pure inane silliness and human contortion, as can be seen in this music video by Japanese hip-hop producer Nujabes.


song: Nujabes - "Luv (sic) pt.2"

Simple concepts carried out with visual grace.
Maybe its the feeling of stepping back and appreciating the small details.