This was not one of our usual meetings. We did a review of shows to be presented at the Pacific Digital Photo Club in February. We saw some old favorites, in some cases, updated shows that had been improved after feedback at previous meetings. We look forward to presenting our shows to PDPC.

Minutes by Shona

Eight attended our final meeting of the year, all bringing snacks for the Christmas social part of the meeting.

Derek opened the meeting with a show on Vandusen Christmas light photos taken by him and his son, Daniel. Set to Christmas music, it was a great opener and, never to disappoint, included more "how did you do that" techniques.

Shona'scompletely CGI Christmas story featuring expressive Gingerbreads and cellphone addicted Santa's helpers decorating a tree was also in the spirit, as was Helmi's fast-moving ladder setting up the Christmas lights. That looked like a workout. What we'll do for art.

Jonathan's work in progress of swans in Lost Lagoon contained beautiful images and Jonathan's signature animations well-matched to the images.

Christmas to many means family, and Jim and Helmi both demonstrated how to concentrate shoebox photographs into entertaining and touching shows for families - Jim with his 3 years' of his two grandsons' lives together, and Helmi's tribute to her brother's 60th birthday, which had fun and creative ideas for getting away from the same old chronological presentation.

Joe, who wasn't able to make the meeting, submitted a re-work of an earlier show, combining close-up images of crystal with some voice and sound effects, and a fun ending. Jim also reworked his "Anatomy Lesson" show to add fun animation to the skeleton images.

Jonathan's second show featured beautiful big-horn sheep through Jasper, and included some animations.

Everyone brought plenty of food, and with great coffee from Derek, we had beginning, middle and end opportunities to sample the goodies, socialize and share ideas.

• Helmi's "Footloose" which looked at the world of 'shrooms on the forest floor.
• Jim's "The Anatomy Lesson" which sliced and diced his grandchildren to the beat of "Dem Bones"
• Joe's "Close Up's" which explored views of back lit crystalware.
• Peter's "Small world" which explored a variety of small subjects.
• Shona's "Close Look at the Garden" -- with some nice close-ups of flowers, revealing hidden fairies. This was Shona's first venture into "augmented reality" photography.
• Jonathan's "The Spider Web" got us up close and personal with these 8 legged web spinners.

• Derek's "Harrisand" (now posted on site) -- an example of "music math" approach to timing slides to music tracks.
• (guest) Dee's "Alburquerque Balloons" with spectacular views of this famous balloon festival set to a very lively music that suited the subject well.
• Jonathan's "Riding the Rapids" -- a new attempt at a show making use of timelapse elements of kayakers on the Ottawa river
• Joe's "Oregon Coast" -- at look at this scenic coastline, but making interesting use of providing motion in some elements of otherwise static images.
• Hank's "It's About..." -- an exploration of the critical importance of choosing the light for your subjects in photography.

• when you have a gallery type show with many images of relatively unrelated images, you need to work carefully on the story that will bind these images together
• when you have a single subject show that is extremely focused on one topic, you need to carefully consider every non-topiuc image as to how it holds the others together, lest those extra images become a distraction
• Also when you have shows that are extremely focused on one subject, you need to carefully consider your audience and balance the length of your show vs. their passion for the subject you are showing them. If you're unsure, err on the side of "leave them wanting more"
• Your first few slides in a show often set the pattern for the whole show, and the audience starts to have certain expectations of what's to come. When you break those expectations, the audience WILL notice. This can detract from the impact of a show, but you can also use it to good effect (ironic or unexpected twists in a show's ending, or changes in constrasting messages within a show can add emotional impact).

• a short look at producing videos from ProShow with consideration given to the final projection resolution to get best results on display. Rendering to video is often the cure for issues that come from trying to run EXE versions on machines that can't keep up with the pace of the show.
• during discussion of Harrisand, we also talked a little about "music math" and using the structure of your show's music to re-enforce the transitions between the images.

Minutes by Shona

With eight members attending and 3 visitors we had a good-sized group to view and evaluate our shows.

The monthly theme was “sound effects” and many members were up for the challenge. Theme shows screened were:

• Joe’s “Oregon Coast” with shutter clicks, birdsong, humorous effects and its own laugh track
• Helmi’s documentary of “Occupy Vancouver” emphasizing crowds and signs, with harmony of images and lyrics
• Derek’s spooky “Rapping Cache” with birdsong, creaks, raps, narration and dialogue, CGI scenes (who could telll?) and a little video
• Jonathan’s naturalist’s view of Osoyoos with great bird photographs and associated bird sounds.
• Jim’s “Trains in my Backyard” with steam, diesel and Skytrain sounds and time-lapse photography
• Peter’s work in progress “Taunton to Minehead by West Somerset Railway” with great nostalgic music, sounds and photographs

Non-challenge, work in progress and second shows were:

• Shona’s “Many Moods of Main Street” with lots of animation and lively music
• Keith’s “October Hike” with humorous captioning
• Helmi’s “Salt spring Apple Festival” documenting the various farm stops and some of the 260 varieties of apples
• Work in progress from Jonathan on panoramas, with some great ideas
• Keith’s star trails time-lapse with 600 30-second shots
• Shona’s Fall in Lillooet with painterly effects
• A 2004 show from Joe’s on the Cariboo – fun sound effects and a variety of dissolves (he says he “knows better” now).

There was specific technical discussion this evening, but discussion and useful comments through the evening included tips on:

• timing of slides with captions: read it aloud and add a few seconds more to be sure slower readers can catch all the words and still see the images
• vertical panoramas vs. wide angle: the former allows more detail
• timing images to the beat of the music
• reminders to maintain a cohesive story or theme and not “jump around”

Most of this meeting's shows screened were in response to the summer challenge: "Create a visual poem".

We saw interesting contributions:

• Derek's philosophical question "What is photography?"
• Shona's look at the state of the modern condo market and a world living in cookie cutter homes
• Peter's "Afterthoughts", using archival imagery to remember back to WWII and the death of his mother in the bombing raids (and he did his poem as a live performance! always a difficult task!)
• Helmi's "Miracles", a photographic expression of Walt Whitman's poem of the same name
• Joe's "My World", a look at the world of the homeless and poverty-stricken

The challenge showed that it can be difficult to find imagery to go with the "textual imagery" of a poem and the timing involved to emotionally link the audience's eye on the images to the ear's hearing of the poem. In some ways a harder task than "just" finding music for a show.

I found it personally interesting that 3 of the 4 entries featured verse written by the show artists ... hmmm, maybe we should be a slideshow and poetry group!

So far, no one has tackled the idea of a written poem as opposed to a spoken one, but we still have a few more members to hear from.

We also saw a couple of non-challenge shows:

• Joe's continuing light-hearted saga of a photo-club's trip down the Oregon coast
• Jonathan's excursion to Beaver Lake (hope I remembered that correctly!) showing many views of wildlife and flowers.

For our technical discussion, since people had questions about doing narratives, we looked at PSG's concept of "slide sounds" and discussed how you would use them to attach narratives and foley (sound effects) to a show.

Shona has volunteered to create a little "adding sounds" article that we will distribute on our website for members and guests. A reminder that anyone can contribute source material for our "library" ... in the form of "how to" articles, videos, or whatever way you want to share your knowledge with the rest of the world.

Our meeting chair was Shona

The discussion topic was "slide consistency" - — should you mix "straight" and "over the top manipulated" images in the same show?

The general consensus seemed to the inconclusive "it depends"! But most agreed that wildly differing styles in the same show would usually weaken it. Best to think carefully about the message of the show and go with styles that best emphasize that message. Imagery that is in radical contrast to the majority images could be used for highlights or to draw attention to certain details.

This month's challenge was "Anything goes" and we saw everything from a show with no photos (pure abstracts made in PhotoShop), to travelogues and cloudscapes.

Six members took up the “Springtime” theme challenge and, although blossoms prevailed, every show was unique, from Jonathan’s constantly moving style and transition show, to Derek’s time-lapse to Shona’s “painterly” images of Lillooet. Helmi took a different path and showed a delightful few minutes of newborn calves and lambs.

As always, impressions and constructive comments were provided by the members present.

During the break we discussed possible summer themes and themes in general, including “a show using a poem”, “travel” and “theme challenge” (similar to last summer’s music challenge).

There was no pre-assigned tech topic, but, after the break, Jonathan gave a short demonstration of his experiences with the audio editor “Audacity” and we also discussed differences between wav and mp3.

Joe had brought an extra couple of shows so we watched “The Gambler”, another great “stuffies” show, and another show using lyrics he had prepared as a thank you to a host club.

This month's theme was "Urban Life". We saw a wide variety of interpretations of the theme, from city street scenes, to "urban dogs", to neighbourhood parties and festivals.

Our technical discussion focused on ideas for finding music (local libraries, online radio stations, and stock music sites) and some of the licensing issues with those choices.

We had 4 challenge shows this meeting.

2 shows for the PSA challenge: Shona's delightful "Save A Stuffie" cause and Derek's "real" PSA for the Royal City Humane Society

2 for the "Take a Hike" challenge: Helmi's dog's eye view of a hike and Joe's stroll through the Vancouver zoo.

All had interesting ideas and all got useful feedback on how to make them even better.

We also had 3 non-challenge shows:

• Helmi's impression piece of the activities at Yaletown's Illuminate festival,
• Joe's interesting "Little Man" (showing that with the right choice of music, lyrics can be used to re-enforce the message behind the images),
• and Peter's work in progress of "Cloudscapes" (set to the very demanding Mars movement from Holst's Planet Suite).

Some tips/ideas we took away from reviewing the shows?

When panning over images with strong leading lines or a strong feeling of perspective, try to move the pan along those lines, the pan will be more effective (for those who took the AN101 course, that's the "perspective zoom" technique that was taught)

If you establish a pattern in a show, you have to stick to that pattern lest you impair the flow of your show -- whether it be changes of light over a static subject (don't move the tripod, or you have to re-align and crop the images so they match again), or establishing the premise of a show's point of view (the main context/approach to how images were shot).

Derek gave a brief techie tip on the benefit of keeping your digital music collection organized so you can leverage the search capabilities built into the Windows OS and Windows Media Player to aid in finding prospective music pieces for a show.

For reference sake, the challenge details for this month are listed here:

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Challenge #1 - "Take a hike!"

This is the easier of the two challenges. Remember the "progression" theme chosen by Shona back in October? This is a specific version of that idea: Create a story in images that takes you from Point A to Point B. (how you get from A to B is up to you, it might be a walk, a car ride, train, or aircraft) Point B should be fairly different from Point A (i.e. don't just wander around a single small garden, or walk from the front of your house to the back).

The challenge here is to go beyond just a bunch of snapshots taken walking down a path. Take your audience with you ... share the walk with them, what are the sights you see along the way that made this walk "interesting". (that's where your photographer's eye comes back into play!)

Music choice for these kinds of shows can be interesting too, since you're trying to establish a mood that goes with your journey -- was it happy? creepy? mysterious? rainy?

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Challenge #2 - "Create a PSA"

We sometimes talk about show or story archetypes. One of them is the "debating" or "persuasive arguement" type show. You can find source material by watching PBS channels during pledge season, or sprinkled through prime time in the evenings. Your challenge is to create a "public service announcement". It can be a real or fictional organization (fictional might be easier, you can have some fun with that).

You're looking for images that can add emotion to verbal/textual points you are giving to your audience. The idea here is usually the commentary explains a situation, and the images re-enforce that commentary adding emotion to it; so that by the time you get to end and ask them to help, they're scrambling to find their cheque book. Network time is expensive, so your show MUST BE LESS THAN 5 MINUTES. You can try for fast get-in-and-get-out heartstring pulling (e.g. punchy but only around a minute to make your case, these share many points in common with the "impression piece" archetype) — or a more thoughtful/rationally persuasive argument (build your case so they can't refuse you --- those often run about 3 minutes).

Another part of this challenge is I'm hoping some people might try voice narratives. Text is fine, but voices can carry more information in a much more emotional manner. Most of us don't like hearing our recorded voices (myself included!) ... but it's something to really consider when creating these kinds of shows.

This is a significant challenge, since you have to plan your argument and find supporting images. Music here is also key, since it really has to drive home your point. Again, it can be real, or it can be fictional (e.g. the "Spring Flower Amputee Society" — every year spring flowers face the harsh Canadian winter with little support from the community. Often outcast from the garden, they struggle to survive alone in the lawn wastelands. This year, as always, many will suffer frost-related loss of limbs. We need your help! give today! (a daffodil with a popsicle-splint holding up a leaf? dew-drop tears falling off the bloom? with text caption "Help us stand with dignity" ). If you do a PSA for a real organization, consider making the show available to them afterwards (do your job well, and you're giving them something that today is easily worth $5000 to $10,000 in production costs!), or post it on our site!

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Joe's chosen theme was Water, and we saw a wide variety of interpretations, from Jonathan's (educational -- I'd never seen angel hair ice before) presentation of the various colours and forms for water in nature, to Helmi's views of life on the Fraser River & minter garden water features, to Joe's look at children interacting with water, to Dick's day at a beach (making the best of less than optimal shooting weather).

We actually had more shows than time this time around. (we're not complaining!). So we already have some shows ready for the next meeting! Always nice to have "content in the queue" as it were.

Dick gave us a quick overview of Audacity, a free sound editing application. You can find the link to Audacity's download site on our Resources page (under audio resources). For those who have audio needs that go beyond the simple capabilities in ProShow. He's also pointed out a couple of other good reference materials available on the web.

Derek gave a quick overview of the web site's latest features designed to make it easier for members to share shows with the world.

This meeting's chair is Helmi This month's show challenge statement is: "A Time For Reflection": No other hint or guidance, so we will see how members interpret it! Helmi has chosen "Slide Styles" as her techie-tip and discussion topic.

Minutes:

Helmi was chair -- thanks! I know she was nervous about the idea ... now that didn't hurt a bit, right Helmi? most show submissions were in answer to Helmi's chosen challenge this month: A Time for Reflection. We saw several thoughtful interpretations: Rick's Shiny Bean show (I really got to get to Chicago again one of these days, I keep seeing photographs of that sculpture!) Joe's "Reflections of the Past" -- a nice B&W look at fading-from-memory buildings and landscapes. Shona's thought provoking grave-side show dedicated to her father who died in WWII Helmi's somewhat humourous look back at her childhood years Derek's contemplation of his past year's worth of photography Graydon's look at the moody Oregon coast (not a challenge show, but was his first debut show to the group, testing the waters as it were) All shows generated healthy discussion of appropriateness of photographic style, "story" elements, pacing, music choices, etc. all the things that the group strives to do: give good feedback that lets you go on improving your storytelling skills. Helmi chose to lead the discussion that was part technical & part aesthetics -- on Slide Styles in ProShow, giving us an overview of the variety available now in the Proshow 4.5 product line, and led us into dicussion on appropriateness of some styles, transitions, and their use and abuse. We had two new faces from Pacific Digital club, Dick and Elfi ... thanks for coming and I hope you liked what you saw and will return (ok, they gave me their email addresses to join our list, so they must have liked something! :-) )

This month's show challenge is: "Something Special": that's a way of saying there is no specific challenge. This is to be a social meeting, so almost anything goes for a show!

Agenda:

This month is our equivalent of the club Christmas party. It's an evening of shows and socializing. Members are encouraged to come up with a show or six to share "something special" with the group, and with guests. There are no set dicussion or tech topics this evening. We'll screen our shows and have a quiet social time (it is a library afterall!). Members are encouraged to bring some guests with them, a chance for anyone to come and see what we're up to. Unlike photo-club slideshow nights, the shows are not pre-judged or selected. So you never know what you're going to get at a WCAG meeting! If you're reading this and are not a member, feel free to drop by and see our members' shows. We'll also be re-screening some shows from the past year, so newer members can see what has gone before.

Thanks to Peter for chairing the meeting. His choice of topics got people talking.

• Shows:
• Shona came up with another "music challenge" entry (she's beating everyone in that category!), as well as her monthly challenge ("flow") show, both showing interpretations of our urban landscape
• Joe submitted two shows, his monthly challenge show on the local cranberry harvest (definitely red!), and a general city shots show with a different approach to unifying mis-matched skiesl
• Helmi's show on the release of an Eagle from a wildlife shelter/recovery organization
• Derek's act of "last minute desparation", a quick look at a "Flat Stanley" experience
• the two challenge shows submitted were definitely very different interpretations of the monthly theme ("going with the flow")
• Techie Tidbits: a review of captioning concepts, some key points for ProShow users:
• the difference between being "above" and "below" transitions, the effect it has on caption timing and appearance between slides
• captions spanning multiple slides will usually be below transitions, the fly-out/fly-in of adjoining slides should be "none", use a transition that doesn't break up the text, and of course the text should be in the same location! we also looked at some fun with matching caption animation across multiple slides. (Producer users can do a lot of this within a single slide by using multiple pairs of key frames).
• some discussion on font usage ... titles can get away with artistic fonts, but sub-titles that convey information and that need to be read quickly, should be clean, simple fonts.
• it's hard to control the entrance of a caption on the very first slide of a show, in such cases, consider adding a blank slide as the first slide, then you have more control on how the caption enters the scene. (some like a blank slide anyway as a "crowd-settling" mechanism, to give the audience a chance to quiet down.
• Discussion: ideas on effective use of transitions:
• crossfades are bread & butter transition of slideshows, but not always the best choice
• look at using a different transition when changing image aspects (horizonal to vertical) to avoid ugly intersection of frame edges, we saw some of that in tonight's shows
• long crossfades can add a reflective/pensive feeling to some images, but keep an eye on how things will look at the midpoint when the two images are super-imposed on each other ... is it still pleasing? are you creating a monster?
• many show creaters often use a "dip to black" to show a break between distinct subjects in a longer show, but sometimes you can replace that blackness with a snazzier transition. if used judiciously, they give that same "break" to a show's flow to let the audience know you're shifting gears (subjects).
• overuse of those "fancy" transitions can be tiring on the eyes, and can actually take your show DOWN a notch or two! (given apparent general aversion to ProShow 4.5's new "Show Wizard" !! yuch! )

Minutes:

• several fun shows, we screened 3 music challenge shows, from Dave's artery clogging deep fried show to Shona's moody Enya piece. Also 3 theme/challenge shows for "Progression", Helmi's fun dogs, Shona's seasons of water, Jonathan's "crane" work in progress, and Derek's bizarre nature/halloween piece
• tech tip: we reviewed what's new for ProShow Gold 4.5 ... is it worth the upgrade? yes if you want more styles and transitions that are better managed, otherwise maybe save your pennies for 5.0? It does add support for FaceBook (I don't use it so I don't think it was there in 4.1?!) Though remember if you got 4.1 within the last 12 months, it's a free upgrade.
• discussion: use of layers, when do you show multiple images on the screen at once? Some suggestions: stacks/grids of images as a starting point in exploring a variety of subjects, several images at once when there is similarity of subject allowing audience to see more images in shorter time span. For traditional diptych and triptych type displays. Also a classic treatment is a larger "master image" shot and then smaller supporting images along a side or surrounding the master that might provide context for the master or perhaps alternate view of the same subject. Layers can also be used for different kinds of background treatments to serve as a unifying theme for a series of slides.
• we have the auditorium for December's meeting, so we may have a quiet Christmas celebratory meeting. We'll invite our friends for an couple of hours of shows and socializing. Those that were around last year for the December traveloque night will remember we had a fun time with an audience of about 25.

Our first meeting of a new season. We had a new member show up, Helmi from Langley. She took Derek's slideshow course last spring and is eager to learn more and improve her style. Welcome aboard Helmi!

Music challenge: 3 members had shows ready from this summer's challenge, so we reviewed them. Both Shona and Jonathan had the "whistling tune", so it was interesting to compare the two approaches. Jonathan had a briskly paced nature show of birds, animals, and insects. Lots of colour and interest there! Shona's covered a country fair, using the brisk pace of the music to re-enforce the many sights to see at such events. The same tune, but one for a travelogue, one for a documentary type show. Derek's was the "modern harp music" that generates a lot of discussion whenever it's heard. In his case he applied the frantic style to a series of fast paced images of the overwhelming stream of sights at the PNE.

Helmi also brought in one of her shows, showing that she's an accomplished flower photographer! Her style of presentation was quite well done for someone who says she's still learning. We look forward to seeing more from her!

Techie Tips: we looked at ProShow's timeline tool and reminded members to think about the keyboard modifiers when dragging transition points, especially when you want to change the timing of one set of images without affecting the (carefully timed!) section that follows. We also looked an a fun trick that allows you to stack up audio clips in a show, more than the 2 that PSG would normally want you to use (show soundtrack, and slide sound clip). This allows you to do things like have your music sound track, add your commentary for a travelogue, then still be able to add in sound effects that would enhance images.

Shona has volunteered to be the first chairperson under the new "Share the Chair" approach! She will be coming up with our monthly challenge for the coming meeting, and picking some discussion topics to get us thinking more about improving our shows, etc. Those should come out in the next day or so. she also gets to pick a "techie topic", if there's a technical area she wants to see discussed (these can be Proshow, but also anything that relates to getting our shows together, so could be sound editing software, camera settings, photoshop filters, video editing, web sharing questions, etc. etc. etc. together we'll try and find someone who can answer the questions and get them to tell all of us at the meeting) And of course as chair, she will help run the next meeting.

At each meeting, we would like to see members taking turns running the meetings and guiding the discussions, so this is your chance to provide that kind of input. I hope to see more people eager to "share the chair".

• Show reviews: we took a look at some works in progress from Nancy and Derek. Noted that when it comes to projecting a show, the colours on a monitor may not match what you see on projector, especially data projectors which are more common in the home and workplace than those specifically for photography.
• Discussion: Filtered images -- we looked at some "play" images from Shona and Keith, typical of images you might use in a show, either in their filtered form, or perhaps transitioning
• Technical discussions: Derek will present a solution to one common ProShow headache that many people have, matching motion in images during transitions. (sample here). This solution stems from a proper understanding of Proshow's slide timings and transitions. and, ironically, slides of zero time.

• Show Reviews: Keith submitted 3 shows, 2 dealing with southern alberta, and one of a rainy camping trip, demonstrated interesting use of the Topaz Simplify photoshop plug-in. The painterly effects definitely added emotional impact to the images of iconic prarie landscapes.
• Discussion: topic - Music Choices &emdash; Derek reviewed his favorite stock music site, how their search engine can make it easy to find just the right mood piece (and cheaply if you don't get carried away trying to buy most of their library), and some tidbits on how he finds music for shows these days. But there are music sources all around you: public libraries, indie music sites (many small time artists give away copies of their work for free online), an inexpensive sound analog/digital convertor can give you access to your "old fashioned" music, if you were a vinylphile. Even some online sources like CBC for their online concerts, etc. Peter explained his comments from a previous meeting about avoiding piano and guitar music in a show ... it's mainly a concern when the music might compete for attention over any voice narratives being given during the show (from the way he describe the problem, it would be any musical instruments that have a fast attack in their sound structure ... this would be mostly seen in plucked or percussive instruments then(??)). We all seem to agree that music should enhance the show, not compete with it. Some feel you should enjoy the show, but not remember the music, others are happy with the idea of the music leading you through the images, different opinions, we'll see how it influences their shows perhaps in the future? ... finding the right music can make or break a show sometimes.
• Derek showed some excerpts from a couple of shows he found on the web, illustrating some interesting ideas behind using transitions effectively with the right kind of subject matter, and the idea of building up a composition from a series of layers ... then transitioning the layers in separately, or animating them. something to think about when looking for new ideas to try in your own shows.
• there seems to be some support for the challenge idea over the summer, that members contribute that piece or two of music they've always felt would be perfect for a show, but have never done it. We would draw music pieces "from the hat", key thing being you don't get to do your own piece. This would be a summer project with the shows being screened when we restart next september.
• Dave demonstrated a fun little stand-alone photo effects editor ... SageLight, and his favorite effect (for now) seems to be the one that emulates a stained glass feeling to a photo. Photo effects are just another tool in the toolbelt for making fun shows.

• The "challenge" this month was "Time and tide wait for no slide", looking for entries where the time element influences the sequencing of images. 2 entries were submitted.
  Peter's show following the budding and flowering of his (massive!) amaryllis, and Derek's evening shots of Vancouver's skyline showing the progression of the darkening skies.
• We also looked at a work in progress, scenes from aerial routines at an airshow. One tip suggested there was the use of a matching background to hide the edges of the image frame when the image background is already fairly uniform (i.e. clear skies).
• technical tip talk, we looked a better ways of "scrubbing" the timeline to better match your images when there is motion during the transitions

• we reviewed some "professional" work, a wedding portrait video and a "behind the scenes" slideshow on the making of that video. the first video showing an event documentary style where the intent is emotional/celebratory, and "intimate" to the indented audience ... for those doing pro work, developing strong slideshow skills is bread and butter to that industry now. The show also made good use of short video clips mixed in with the stills to help add to the emotion of the setting. The second slideshow showed how a completely different style was used for a different intent. The second video was aimed at prospective customers, very up-beat, and showing more a "how" rather than a "what/who". the videos can be seen at: http://www.artagepictures.com/, click on "A Day After" ... the page that comes up has the main video. On the left is a scrolling list of other videos, near bottom of that list (entry #2 I think) is the second  "street promo" version
• looked at some of a show put together by 2nd graders. The concept there was that slideshows don't have to be "just stand-back-from-subject photographs" .. in this case they used scans of children's crayon pictures that illustrated a story written and narrated by the children themselves. Something for painters or other medium artists to consider when creating a "portfolio show" for websites? ... or for those that work with children ... PSG is simple enough that with a little adult guidance at the helm, children can tell their own stories.
• Challenge Member show review:  "Celebration" ... one entry from Derek, two entries from Dave ... both artists used olympic themed shows, but going in completely different directions. both artists admit that the shows are still somewhat "in progress". we discussed effectiveness of the image treatments so far.  We may see them again in the future if the artists go on to polish them.
• Technical discussions:  talked about sound mixing, doing effective crossfades in PSG, how to line up images and transitions to the rhythms of the music. Looked at the early stages of a project with architectural images on which Peter is working and key thing there is his use of curtain transitions when changing aspect ratio of images during a show. Going from horizontal frames to verticals sometimes yields some not-so-pretty areas during a crossfade. Peter's solution is to instead use a curtain transition that mirrors the aspect of the upcoming image in the show .. we saw that this works well in this case and maybe a bit more aesthetically pleasing way to move to next image.  Cross-fades may be a staple to slideshow transitions, but others can be effective too when you take time to consider how they affect the overall impression to your audience.

• The "challenge" this month was "Winter fun". 1 entry was submitted.
• shows were reviewed, and were well received. we saw a "fun" entry with views of Whiskey Jacks that resulted when the photos were just dropped into PSG and transitions set to Random.
• "Work Smarter" - a show about a rather intelligent cat, was submitted, and illustrated the power of using voice narrative over text when it comes to telling a story
• CAPA Shows -- we reviewed entries submitted to CAPA's AV competitions, looking to see what techniques helped a slideshow, and what transitions are better left in the toolbox.
• One member had some questions regarding laying down music tracks to a show when it's important that the images line up with the start and end of the music, we reviewed PSG's offerings in that area.
• Derek demonstrated his "map line" techinque that he used to great effect in his "Faded Memories" show in December, a ProShow Gold version of the "traveling line" you see popularized in the Indiana Jones (and similar) movies

• The "challenge" this month was to create a Traveloque style show. 3 entries were submitted.
• shows were reviewed, and were well received. Some suggestions were offered regarding music choices, panning and pacing, which is what these review sessions are all about, making the shows better
• one member brought in some images and music candidates for a show they are considering, and the group considers what story threads might be possible with those images. Which music choices seem to work better (and since these were images from another country, that using "local" music may not work with a non-local audience. The old mantra "know your audience" comes into play in that you'll want music that "suggests" that location to them, it may not necessarily be authentic to that region.

• one member is looking at creating a series of shows as a showcase of their work. We discussed how shows that are not only "art" but also "marketing" material might be structured.
• technical discussions: we reviewed some of the technique for using simple cross fades for a "morph"-like feeling when transition between related subjects
• shows without bounds: derek bounced ideas for "shows without boundaries", using non-standard shapes to show formats to try and blur the hard edges of the projection screen.

• during show review, we looked at one show in progress where the member was struggling with music choice, we looked at a variety of musical accompaniements and how it affected the interpretation of the images in the show
• documenting family events: we looked at one member's developing show from a recent wedding they photographed. How do you create a show, especially when you are working with photos from different photographers, and a "customer" who might have very specific ideas on what they want to see in the final show.

In the middle of summer, so many of our members are busy, there were just a few out tonight, so we turned this into a working session on two different shows. Nancy's wedding video, and Derek's "1 Camera, 2-lips" (which can now be seen in our shows area.

A guest showed up! So we welcomed Ted. He's done shows for a fews years now and seems interested in finding people with similar enthusiasm for this format.

Nancy's show:

This is a case where there are a lot of similar photos to be shown that are picked by your clients as well as the music. So the challenge here is to find the story hidden in the photos and work out a story thread that winds through the music well.

In cases where there are a lot of photos dealing with similar subjects, possible representing a sequence in an action, we look at the possibility of layering the images, viewing them in groups almost scrap-book style. In some cases you might find one image in a sequence that makes a good background for the others.

Derek's show:

This is a case where it's good to get a second pair of eyes, or in this case ears, when creating a show that you plan to share with others. In this case the music chosen was meant to be full, bright, but a little pensive. But when the others heard the show, it was thought to be a bit too "mournful". Often when working for an extended period on a show, we fall in love with our own work and don't always see and hear things objectively.

So we looked at an online stock music service that allows you to search on mood and topic keywords and listened to various pieces to see if we could find something a little more cheerful for that show. Always an interesting exercise since music is such a strong evoker of emotion and can radically change how your story is interpreted! A hopefully "lighter" piece was chosen and used for the version that's on this site.

So we had an interesting session for the few brave souls who braved the heat (Dave's popsicles and blueberry cobbler helped!).

Layers Tutorial/discussion:

A quick review by Derek of how layers can be used in ProShow, the main purpose being for layout, obscuring images underneath, and animation. As variations on those basic principles layers can:

• be used for layout
• be used for framing (aka vignetting)
• be used to hide edges
• be used for single subject animation ("pan and scan" term from film industry, "Ken Burns Effect" from those with more photographic background)
• be used in animation to simulate perspective depth ("looking out car window" and "Flintstones animation" approaches)

In terms of framing and edge hiding we got into a discussion how this could be used for bridging shots between scenes (potentially a "walk through" type transition shot, and consider how perspective changes as you walk through an element) and again a reminder to look for elements that could be used for this when shooting on location (to paraphrase Nancy ... now you don't have to just shoot the bride and groom, you're also looking for doorways, gates, keyholes, puddles, mirrors, picture frames,... !!!!)

Image discussion:

Dave discussed the fading technique we saw in his shows at the last meeting, reducing an image to a line-drawing to start, creating a series of images filling in more detail... then use these images in a quick series of crossfade transitions in ProShow to build up the image on the screen. There was some discussion on various ways to get that initial line-drawing look in the different photo applications that people use. Other filter effects in photo-editing software could just as easily be applied to this approach (e.g. solarized or "stained glass" filtered images?)

Audio discussion:

Dave reviewed a little freeware/open-source audio-editor: Audacity, that can be used to mix your audio tracks and create that one track that's then used to time your images. We also took a quick look at ProShow's audio editing that can be done in the timeline view for basic crossfades)

Show Review:

We saw 4 shows from the Burnaby Village Museum outing. As with photo club outing, it was interesting to see the same location from very different points of view... from Dave's disturbing, creepy look at household objects in "The Curious Case" :-), to Desmond's walkabout to nostalgic music, to my little pieces playing with some ideas (including my failed experiment at a "reality flash" ... will have to keep working on that!)

A final show "Wake Up!"  from Dave illustrating his "philosophy on life" was a fun life-retrospective piece that definitely ended the meeting on a happy note.

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Next Meeting: we may try again at end of August (hopefully heat wave is over by then), or wait until September when we may try to shift things up a bit and recruit more members ... if we can get 8 to 10 people meeting reliably, then I think it's time to find a more "club-like" meeting venue ... once we start down that path, we have to look at things like member-dues, executives positions, planning a program, etc. I'd be happy to see that happen ... if people are up for that -- this group is an avenue for photographic expression that goes down a slightly different path from what you'll get at "regular" photography clubs.

Next Shooting:give some thought to where we might try in August. I tossed out my suggestion last night of "Canada Place to Stanley Park" ... walking along the waterfront area ... there's parkland, harbor views, street side cafes, marinas, the park itself, so lots of places with people interacting, many potential subjects -- lots of threads to look at for a "story".  But would like to hear from others as well... if you have an idea, throw it into the pot.

News: as most of you already know, I'm going to take the course I've been developing public this fall (starting Oct 24th in particular). If you have friends who have expressed interest in what you've done in slideshows (animatographs? ;-) ) ... send them to courses.photoclans.net for more information (Animatography 101).  this would be a good time to attend, since I'm doing my "introductory" pricing.  Next spring it will be at it's regular price of probably $125 to $150. Seating is limited to 20 students, having your own laptop is highly recommended.

we saw some interesting, creative ideas last night, quick "meeting minutes"/summary:

• Nancy's very effective video scrap book approach (and I see a budding children's photographer in her? a career change?) showing good use of backgrounds and the "postcard" look rather than filling the frame ... and a great choice of music with the subject
• Dave's "test footage" showed a very effective use of his Photoshop wizardry and transitions between treated images (I wanna try that!) . This is something to explore .... creating little 10 or 30 second shows that are just about testing an idea or technique.
• Dave's travelogue shorts were also well done, as Nancy put it: capturing a real "sense of place" for the exotic locations.
• Derek's Park show ... it was my first time doing a 16:9 format (widescreen) though going back to my more leisurely "traditional" pace. Verticals take up a lot less of the frame in that format, so I found myself looking for different ways of integrating them. My attempt at "racking focus" also seemed to generate some interest as well, something I will have to try more deliberately next time. :-)
• Derek's "dragon boats" show was aimed more at families who know well the people being seen, but it was also a demonstration (!!?) of the use of a "hook" (sometimes called a "teaser", though that term's used more when there's a significant break (i.e. commercials) between the hook and the main content). It also showed his "stop motion" animation technique, something to try when you have rapid sequence of images ... so crank up your "motor drive" :-)
• Keith's interesting "concept show" with the Hudson Express ... it was well done assembling a final image from "puzzle pieces"
• Special thanks to "guest judges" Keith and Shona ... they both have a wealth of knowledge in photography as well as slideshow productions, so their insight is welcomed.

tip wise:We saw that use of "zero-length cut transitions" are helpful in matching the movement of objects across several "slides". the "match next/previous" feature (in ProShow) can also aid in this process. I showed my little technique for "stop motion" type work, which is also useful in aligning a key cross-fade when you have a definite idea for where the objects need to be in relation to each other before and after the transition.

There seemed to be some interest in the idea of having our own "outings" specifically to practice photography for slideshows (hmm ... call them "story quests" ??? :-) ). I'll give that some thought (and you should too) for something we might try in july. In addition to being interesting photographically, I would look for something that would engage you in "story telling" ... so either an event with a chronology to it, or a (historical?) site where the images will build up a story you want to tell (even if it's a "walk down a path" type sequence). a site with a variety of subject matter would be fun as well, since then with 5 people, you'll probably get 5 radically different stories. So if you have ideas in that area for a couple of hours on a weekend, please speak up ... a "story" is quite an abstract concept, so there's lots of ways to tell a story about a scene.

In derek's QE park show, we saw an example (adapted to slideshow format) of "racking focus" -- you can read a brief blurb on the technique and it's history on Wikipedia
Keep your eyes/ears open for video production techniques ... while most of our shows are static images, we are still creating a "video" production ... so always be on the look out for what we can adapt from the "experts" in those areas. See an interested effect in a movie? turn on the commentary track on the DVD !!! (look for tracks from the director, they talk more about technique; actor and producer commentaries tend to dwell more on personal trivia of what went on behind the scenes )