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If there's one thing rarely associated with art photography, it's rigorous physical exertion. But that's exactly what artist Jeff Frost signed himself up for to create his eery, cinematic time-lapses.
In his film Flawed Symmetry of Prediction Frost conjures an analog animation by running around like a mad man. In an abandoned building in the desert, he sets his camera on a one-minute interval between shots. During that time he positions a ladder, climbs up it and then paints until the 10-second warning goes off. He then has 10 seconds to grab the paint, climb down the ladder and move out of frame for the shot. Then he does it all over again before the next shot. Then again. And again. He did this upwards of 1,200 times until the sequence was complete.
“It’s all physical,” he says. “After two days it feels like someone beat you up. If I knew how brutal it would be, I probably wouldn’t have done it.” With computer-generated imagery as the accepted norm of post-production these days, Frost is out there creating physical art one frame at a time.
Frost spent much of his youth exploring canyon country with his grandfather, Alfred, in an "extremely remote" area of southeast Utah. Alfred, a well-known hiker and guide in the region at the time, instilled in him a wanderlust that Frost credits with his path through the art world.
“My grandfather really taught me the value of aimless wandering and the process of discovery,” Frost says. “He was always looking at the next ridge.”
For Frost the next ridge led him to Los Angeles in 2000 when he was 22, where he pursued a music career. For six years he played in bands up and down the Sunset Strip until he "didn’t want to play loud, angry rock music anymore." That's when he went back to school for photography.
When he enrolled he didn’t even know how to use his camera on manual mode. He began hanging out in the desert near the Salton Sea, still playing his guitar. Now he combines his music and photography in unique time-lapse shorts.
Another film, Modern Ruin: Black Hole, is an ongoing project he started in February 2011 based on the idea that creation and destruction are the same thing. Currently it contains roughly 150,000 images and features more than just star trails and cloud formations one would find in the usual time-lapse project – like hand-held POV segments and action shots. The riots he filmed actually took place right outside his apartment in Anaheim, California.
He hopes to complete the project by March 2014 with the help of a recent successful Kickstarter campaign. Until then, Frost is once again going to follow his muse and head out to desert for the winter – do a little wandering, seek out some abandoned buildings and create his art.
“The winters in the California desert are pretty nice. You can’t beat the Yucca Valley. I’m going to go out there and paint my ass off.”
