B-TIER art
Change Capture — a camera that records only what moves between frames
100k ft — What is this?
Change Capture — a camera that records only what moves between frames
50k ft — Why care?
Anna Zhang's browser camera filters out every pixel that stays the same between frames, leaving traces of motion like a butterfly leaving, rain hitting pavement, branches swaying. A creative-coding piece about slowing down attention, and you can try it live at change-capture.anna-zhang.com.
10k ft — Key takeaways
• Easy to rebuild with a webcam, canvas and a per-pixel diff threshold
• Live demo runs in the browser
• Masking unchanged pixels across frames turns video into a trace of motion over time
• link: https://change-capture.anna-zhang.com
5k ft — Tools & techniques
(no tools tagged)
arbitrage, frame differencing, mean reversion, stochastic modeling, temporal motion filtering
1k ft — Deep-dive / try it
creative coding to rethink what a camera can be… beyond a device that records a scene literally but one that changes the way you notice what’s happening around you 📹
Change Capture filters out anything that stays the same between frames. What’s left is not a traditional photograph, but a trace of movement and time. A butterfly leaving the frame, rain hitting the pavement, branches swaying in the wind… small moments that usually disappear into the background become the subject.
I wanted to make a camera that resists the quick snapshot. One that asks you to slow down, stay with what’s in front of you, and notice the tiny changes unfolding in your environment.
Try it out: 🔗 change-capture.anna-zhang.com (link also in bio!)
Original videos:
Dandelions gently sway in a peaceful field during…
Transcript excerpt
I made Change Capture, a camera that only captures what changes. It ignores everything still, so the image becomes less about what a place looks like and more about what happened there. A butterfly flying away, raindrops falling onto the ground, a tree swaying in the wind. The tiny things you only notice when you stay with the scene for a little longer. Interested in cameras not just as tools for documenting, but as tools for changing how we pay attention. Change Capture slows the act of taking a photo down. Instead of instantly grabbing a perfect image, I wanted to create something that would make you wait and watch, and notice what the world is doing in between moments.