Here’s a creative (and different) way to celebrate conservation.
This year, there have been colourful and creative entries in Digital New Zealand’s GIF It Up competition (in association with the Digital Public Library of America, Europeana and Trove).
The competition has encouraged animators, history lovers and creative thinkers to use copyright-free heritage material and create an ‘innovative and endlessly looping’ graphic (known as a GIF or a graphic interchange format file).
Many entrants have been inspired by New Zealand flora and fauna. Have a look at some of the New Zealand entries:
Conservation High Tea
Christine Manning from Auckland used a previous Conservation Week video featuring Julia Crownshaw as inspiration for this year’s entry.
“High tea, high in the trees of Rotorua, was an unusual way to mark Conservation Week. Julia Crownshaw, cupcakes in hand, was the star of the video but it was the lady at the back who caught my eye. So I made her the star instead.”
Funky fungi
An image of Melampsora hypericorum from Landcare Research was turned into a GIF by Ting Sun of Wellington.
“What a great collection of New Zealand fungi from Landcare Research! I had so much fun with those funny little creatures, though I don’t want any Melampsora hypericorum near my garden.”
Entries from this year’s competition are now in the hands of the judges, but there have been some great previous entries worth noting as well.
Financial Whio
Last year, Jenna Gavin from Auckland submitted this entry of a New Zealand whio pulling ten dollar notes (also featuring the whio) out of its feathers.
Blinking Kaka
Also in 2014, Siobhan Leachman from Wellington entered this creation.
“This is my very first (and as you can see – very simple) attempt at making a GIF. I used a Kaka as I live in Wellington and we have been seeing them more and more recently due to the conservation work going on in Wellington… Thanks for the inspiration and extra push to help me learn a new and fun skill!”
To see this year’s and previous years entries, head to the GIF It Up website or have a look at their Tumblr gallery.
It sure is a unique and creative way to celebrate the nature in our backyards!
