Purton

[morturn]

The Hamlet of Purton sits next to the Sharpness Canal and (river) Severn in Gloucestershire UK.

The Severn had started to erode the banks of the Sharpness Canal, so in 1960 about 88 boats were beached on a high spring tide.

There are a number of boats from Concrete Lighters, to Wooden Trows, some of which are over 100 years old, which in its self is a testament to long dead shipbuilders.

The only monument to the lives of these shipbuilders are these remains.

Like most monuments to people’s lives, we have a habit of vandalising them, just like we allow our cemeteries to get vandalised too.

Purton is my way of saying; let the boats, along with the shipbuilders rest in peace

All images taken on an EOS10D, I wanted grey stark images so I converted to Black and White in Photoshop using the blue channel, to give a slight infrared look, then curves to lift the contrast.

Your comments would be most welcome

[alrobin]

morturn,

I like this show very much - the haunting music and lovely B&W images, nicely synchronized, work very well with the subject. The misty backgrounds are also very effective as are the "cut-aways" to the closeups of the local flora.

[ronwil]

Morturn

I have not seen your Purton sequence as yet. I started to download it last evening but it was taking so long that I abandoned the attempt. I have just begun another attempt and, although I am on superfast Broadband, after 10 minutes only 9% has downloaded. But this time I will persevere and go and have my breakfast.

I had a brief look at your website but that too was taking time to materialise. I don't know if Al or others have had similar problems.

Anyway I am looking forward to seeing your sequence. Best wishes.

Ron [uK]

P.S. As I am about to click the Add Reply button 18 minutes has passed and 17% has downloaded.

[morturn]

Thanks for the comments AL, appreciated

Ron

Sorry about the slow down load times, looks like everyone’s downloading off my site at the moment, which is giving my server a bit of a bending, and although Blueyonder offer 2mg down load, the upload speed is only 256kb

Dave

[ronwil]

I have had my breakfast Dave and the download has just finished taking 1 hour 20 minutes. In a recent Forum test my download time for a test piece was one of the fastest. Since then my Broadband download speed has increased from 2Mb to 10Mb. "Strasbourg" which I downloaded off the Beechbrook site, whilst I was trying to download "Purton" last evening, came through in rapid time even though it was a bigger file, 25.7Mb as against 17.1Mb.

I have unzipped and opened your sequence briefly and I can see that I am going to enjoy it when I get more time. I did notice that you have used some heavy framing which may account for the slowness of the download.

Ron [uK]

[ronwil]

That was well worth the wait. I have now viewed "Purton" in full. It was pure enjoyment with, as Al has said "the haunting music and lovely B&W images, nicely synchronized, work very well with the subject". Each image a masterpiece in itself, cropped to perfection within each frame and with the fades and holds carefully arranged for each to be appreciated. Whilst I seldom use framing myself, yours complimented the presentation. Thank you.

Ron [uK]

[ronwil]

Although nearly three hundred members have downloaded Purton from the Beechbrook site only Al and myself have responded to Dave's asked for comments. This is an excellent sequence and worthy of praise. Anyway - HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

Ron [uK]

[jbohland]

This is beautiful. This should win an award.

[ContaxMan]

A wonderful experience - thanks for sharing it with us. It was more than worth the long wait for download.

As you've asked for comments, here are a few points that strike me as I watch the show:

1. The quality of the images is stunning! I'd be more than happy if I'd taken one or two of these to print.

2. The soundtrack and the mono presentation of images work wonderfully together to instill a sense of intrigue as one watches the show. I found myself thinking - what is this place? Why is it there? What is the music telling me about it? Mystery and a gentle sadness are the emotions the show invokes for me. Is this what you intended? If so, then you've succeeded wonderfully.

The closing text sequence was just what was needed to answer the tension set up by watching the show!

3. Ron comments on the framing. I'm afraid that, for me, this is counter-productive as my eyes tended to wander occasionally out of the image and into the noisy border. I wonder what the show would be like with a neutral background (mid to dark grey, with no texture) and a simple thin key line of 2 or three pixels (probably black but perhaps white) to hold in each image.

4. I don't think the title font & text effects are sympathetic with the rest of the show. Something much more subdued, perhaps using the font from the end text slides over a faded version of one of the images?

5. The simple word "Purton" at the start doesn't do the show justice. Perhaps a subtitle might help or, my preference, a short "voice over" with the title saying what the show is about.

Well - those are my comments and they are not meant to be critical in a negative sense but simply suggestions about alternative approaches that may (or may not) enhance an already superb presentation (I wish I'd done it).

Thanks again.

[stonemason]

Hi morturn

Thought this was a very evocative AV super images, and a soundtrack that fitted perfectly. It gets across the message that you intended very well, a well crafted and executed presentation. My only slight critisism from a personal view point is that I am not very keen on frames. I think your images are more than powerfull enough to occupy the whole screen. That said however this is an excellent piece of Audio Visual, one I'm sure I will enjoy again in the future.

Geoff