 | This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. (August 2020) |
Strip photography, or slit photography, is a photographic technique of capturing a two-dimensional image as a sequence of one-dimensional images over time, in contrast to a normal photo which is a single two-dimensional image (the full field) at one point in time. A moving scene is recorded, over a period of time, using a camera that observes a narrow strip rather than the full field. If the subject is moving through this observed strip at constant speed, they will appear in the finished photo as a visible object. Stationary objects, like the background, will be the same the whole way across the photo and appear as stripes along the time axis; see examples on this page.
The image can be understood as a collection of thin vertical or horizontal strips patched together, hence the name. Digital sensors do produce discrete strips of pixels that are captured and arranged one line at a time. In film photography, the image is instead produced continuously, so there are no discrete strips, just a smooth gradation.