New App Lets iPad Users ‘Paint’ with Time

Red Hill Studios launched an iPad app today (Dec. 30) that lets people add the effects of passing time to images of faces and other photos. Based on the “Exploring Time” documentary series, the “Painting with Time” app subjects photographic images to the effects of time-lapse photography in novel ways determined by the user. 

 

"People cannot perceive the immense amount of slow change taking place all around us – our brains are not wired that way," Bob Hone, creative director for Red Hill Studios, said in a statement. "Our visual system evolved to see dangers and avoid being eaten – not detect slow-moving events like the tide rising, the passing of seasons, people aging, or changes in climate.”

 

The app includes a gallery of photos, including city scenes, landscapes and people. Users can select slices of the photos and apply time effects or use their fingers to paint changes in free form. For instance, people can apply layers of "time" to watch a woman age over 60 years or apply the effect just to her eyes for a strange age composite.

 

“The 'Painting with Time' app is a small window into a vast and growing field of time-scale explorations from trillionths of seconds to billions of years,” Hone said.

 

“Painting with Time” is the first of what Red Hill Studios says will be a series of educational time apps. Future titles will zero in on people, cities, climate change and natural disasters. The app is available for free in the Apple App Store.