A Day in Oxford

[davedare]

A little Christmas present to remind us of warmer times, at least here in Britain (what the weather is like in Australia I envy to think). It is a slideshow about a warm spring day I spent in Oxford earlier this year (in fact it was that summer day we had at the end of March, it was all down hill after that).

Initially I created the show to be seen on my TV at home, but as I shoot with a dslr with an aspect ratio of 3:2, and I cropped the images in camera, I put it inside a 16:9 frame with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 which I thought seemed to work quite well.

The slides were created in Photoshop Elements 6 (if it works why replace it) with images that were all taken on my very out of date Pentax K-m (K2000 in America) with Pentax SMC 50mm and 135mm manual prime lenses that are about thirty years old but still give really good quality (shame the same can't be said for the photographer ).

The show can be found on my web site in PC and MAC formats

Constructive criticism welcome.

Dave

[deskjet1uk]

Hello Dave,

Did we really have cloud free days like that this year? I wish we had had more of them.

It was certainly a lovely day and I remember oxford as I spent time at Wadham and Keeble way back in the seventies.

You managed some good compositions and nice focus and the show was really informative regarding the architecture of this beautiful city.

I noticed the way you focused on row the cycles and Its really good, ive been taking photos this last couple of years like that but have started

photo stacking and that would have been a good one to stack.

Lets hope the weather shines on us all next year but im looking forward to the snow and taking photos with my new lenses that (hopefully) santa is delivering.

All the best for christmas and the new year Dave and I look forward to seeing more work from that Pentax of yours.

regards

ralph

[davedare]

Hello Dave,

Did we really have cloud free days like that this year? I wish we had had more of them.

It was certainly a lovely day and I remember oxford as I spent time at Wadham and Keeble way back in the seventies.

You managed some good compositions and nice focus and the show was really informative regarding the architecture of this beautiful city.

I noticed the way you focused on row the cycles and Its really good, ive been taking photos this last couple of years like that but have started

photo stacking and that would have been a good one to stack.

Lets hope the weather shines on us all next year but im looking forward to the snow and taking photos with my new lenses that (hopefully) santa is delivering.

All the best for christmas and the new year Dave and I look forward to seeing more work from that Pentax of yours.

regards

ralph

Thanks for the comment Ralph, I wish we had more days like that this year too, maybe next year ...

Thanks for the comment about the bikes too, it was one of my favourites of the day. Bikes are a definitive part of Oxford, and focusing on just the one set of handlebars with the rest disappearing into infinity seemed to sum up the masses you see everywhere.

Funny you should also mention stacking as I have done a lot of that with extreme close ups of insects with 40 or 50 images in each (you can see some in the Gallery section of my web site). It takes many images to make one composite image, but I have not got enough of those one's to make a slide show yet!

Dave.

[fh1805]

Dave,

Firstly, let me say how much I enjoyed your interpretation of the architecture of Oxford. There was much about your sequence that was excellent: especially the quality of the individual images. The primary objectives of any audio-visual sequence should be that it flows (with the images and music working together in harmony) and that it has variety (of image content, of image style, of pace and, if appropriate, of transition types - although this last needs handling with great care). It is in the area of "flow" where I think you need to focus most attention.

The use of both landscape and portrait orientation can be a major pitfall for breaking the flow - and that is how I found it. Each change into a set of verticals and then back out again was an interruption. Can I suggest the following technique may work with the sort of images you had:

To go into a set of verticals:

Make a soft focus version of the preceding horizontal and set the verticals within that as a background. You will end up with the soft focus image as a background on your existing background image. I find that 10-20 pixels of gaussian blur works nicely most of the time.

To exit from a run of verticals:

Try and find a horizontal with a strong vertical element offset to the appropriate side, make a soft focus version of that and also a vertical crop of the relevant part. Then, at some point during the run of verticals, change the background soft focus image. Your actual exit happens when you place your last vertical on it - in register of course! - and then fade through to the sharp focus version (I hope you can follow what I mean)

You and Ralph have discussed the bicycle handlebars image (I liked it, too!). However, I think it comes in the wrong place. To me, it should have been introduced with the wider angle shots of students with their bikes around the colleges that came towards the end of the sequence.

On the subject of transitions, the sequence seemed a bit one-paced, in terms of both slide duration and transition times. I accept, however, that it can be difficult to get change of pace when the music has a slow and even tempo.

One final point on "flow": I didn't see any necessity for the town centre shot with crowds of people and the double decker buses. That shot was not in keeping with the rest of the sequence - which was about the architecture of the colleges and similar buildings.

And one final point about the presentation of the images: I loved the bevel edges. I presume it was done in Photoshop?

regards,

Peter

[davedare]

Peter, thanks for your input, much appreciated.

I am glad that you liked the individual images, but I understand what you said about the flow. The original idea was to bore entertain my family and friends with my pics of the day trip so it was basically a hotch-potch of images of my impression of the city (bicycle handlebars and crowd scenes included!). I will pin a copy of your initial paragraph to the wall as a reference until it sinks in.

I understand what you said about changing landscape to portrait using the soft focus and I did use it on an earlier show I tried and I agree that it works very well. I did not use it on this show because I wanted the portrait format images to change first one side, then the other but keeping it within the same window size as the landscape images, i.e. I was trying to be clever. I also interspersed them between the landscape images so that they were not all clumped at one end or the other. I have heard others say similar to what you said, so I will keep an eye on my verticals, but I won't promise that I will not use the same technique again in the future!

I kind of half understand what you said about exiting from the vertical format, I shall spend the Christmas working the rest out . No, actually I think I recall seeing some shows where this has been used, I will study them and apply where appropriate.

On the subject of transitions I thought that the pace of the slides fitted with the 'Dreaming Spires' view we have of Oxford, kind of slow and peaceful, not changing at a very fast pace throughout the centuries (although I suspect that it is probably just as crime and drug ridden as anywhere else).

Thanks for the comment about the bevel edges. I wanted to give the impression of an almost cushion-like effect so that they seemed to be raised in the middle and then rounded off at the edges. I used a bevel function in Photoshop Elements, first on the frame, then on the individual images exporting each layer plus the frame as a JPG via a script I wrote (it would have been very labourious to do it by hand one at a time).

Dave