Travelogue

[Almark]

A travelogue: Hong Kong, New Zealand, and LA.

The CDROM version was 228MB, this version has been compressed to a mere 48MB!

Just photos and music.

[cjdnzl]

Hello Mark,

My wife and I have just viewed your show; all the more interesting to us because we know Hong Kong well, and we are New Zealanders to boot!

We are familiar with HK, as we have a daughter who is an associate professor at the Hong Kong University (HKU) in Pokfulam on HK Island, and lives in Discovery Bay on Lantau Island, an ex-pat community. We have stayed there for as long as four months on occasion, and from there have been to Macau, a fascinating place rich with Portuguese history; and to Bali for a week. These trips have been the highlight of our overseas experience. We have not been into China as yet but that's also on the drawing board for the next trip.

HK is a photographer's dream, and I have a thousand or so images from there that I am slowly sorting into some sort of order with a show in mind sometime ...

Macau has a romantic history, the site of the famous St. Paul's cathedral façade and the Jesuit monastery fortifications (now a weather station). In 1622 (I think), a Dutch war fleet sailed into Macau harbour intent on capturing the colony for Holland. The Jesuits in their fort atop the central hill loaded their cannon, and fired at the Dutch. Their very first shot hit the Dutch magazine ship, which blew up with a huge explosion, and forced the Dutch to abandon their invasion attempt. Although there are tall buildings everywhere now in Macau, the path of that cannon shot has never been built out, and standing by the very cannon that did the job you have a clear view of the harbour. I really want to do a show about that, but I need more images which hopefully I might get next year when we again go to HK.

But, I am digressing from the point somewhat.

I like your photography, but I can't say I really like verticals mixed with horizontal images - but if you have only verticals they are better than nothing. When I shoot with a show in mind I always try to shoot landscape mode, but of course if you have the shots before you think of making a show then ...

I think my major concern is your choice of music. Mixing European music with oriental images just clashes in my mind - but I imagine that finding Oriental music that isn't too way out for our ears might be somewhat of a mission, but that's part of the challenge of making a show I guess.

My final nitpick is the rather rapid slide changes and the abrupt ending, no credits, no fade out, just a wipe across the screen. The show could be slowed down a bit, and it begs for a credit screen, IMHO.

I am in two minds about comments on each image, to give viewers some idea abou the image, where, what, why etc. I tend to identify the scene with a comment so viewers have a better idea of what they're looking at, but opinions vary on this.

For what it's worth,

Best,

Colin

[Almark]

Thanks Colin for your detailed feedback. I recently bought one of Barry's DVD's and that will prepare me to think more about AV's while on holiday - rather than thinking about an AV when I get home ;-) I think I will have another go at this with just horizontals only.

[Almark]

Just landscapes of NZ

here