T.S.S. Earnslaw - Presentation

[ADB]

Hello all

I have just submitted a new show to Beechbrook, not online there yet but can be downloaded here:-

http://www.imagescapes.co.nz/DL/Earnslaw.zip

Show features the iconic T.S.S. Earnslaw coal powered steamboat against a variety of backdrops and in various weather conditions.

The Earnslaw has been plying the shores of Lake Wakatipu for almost 100 years.

Hope you enjoy.

Cheers

Andrew

[fh1805]

Hi Andrew,

You had the good grace to comment on my Holy Island sequence; it's only right that I should return you the favour.

I enjoyed the sequence but was left with a feeling that something just wasn't quite right. Eventually I realised that, for me, the use of panning and/or zooming on every image created in my mind a sense of restlessness that was totally at odds with the serene tranquility of the lakeside scenery. Did you consider letting some of the pans and/or zooms settle, if only for a second or so, before starting the next transition/animation? I don't know whether or not it would have worked. It might simply have resulted in a sequence that felt "jerky".

The pan/zooms that really worked for me were the head on shot and, to a lesser extent, the triple of the vessel leaving the dockside. Although here the sequence would definitely have benefitted from a lot more images - more of a quickish timelapse effect rather than just the three images presented.

Thanks for sharing this with us.

Is this one of your local locations that you go back to time after time? If so, you're very lucky to live amongst such marvellous scenery; I envy you!

[d67]

Hello Andrew

I will use your slideshow grading ... that makes it much more easier for me to give comments.

PHOTOGRAPHY/GRAPHICS

Great sceneries and a lot of superb shots.

Some photos could be paintings !

SOUNDTRACK

No particular comment... not sure the multiplicity of music extracts brings a plus to the sequence.

TIMING

The marked steps with a black slide breaks a little bit the charm

PTE MASTERY

Comments of "fh1805" could be mine !

The ever moving images are in contradiction with the mood and the quality of your shots.

Very difficult just relax and admire the photos.

Very frustrating .... without counting the fact that the pans/zooms don't behave smoothly in many cases, particularly the one ending with the life-buoy.

These continuous pan/zooms are most of time completely inadapted and makes this slideshow more or less just a test slideshow for some new features of PTE !

WATCHABILITY

Very boring pans !!!

OVERALL SCORE AND COMMENT

Damage that so beautifull photos are "destroyed" by inadequate effects !

If not a test slideshow then it is a real misuse of the software : effects must enhance or give a plus to the "story" ... here the superb photos are supposed to enhance the greatness of the pans !!!!

Thank you very much for sharing your photos.

Patrick

[jfa]

Andrew, let me start by saying this is one of my favourite places in the world. I have a print, (taken and printed by one of my fellow camera club members), hanging on my wall of the Earnslaw on Lake Wakatipu . Two visits there and I plan to come back.

Beautiful images, appropriate music, I liked the breaking of the sections with a black screen. Timing was very good. Also your ID sequence, (Imagescapes Production), at the start is very professional. But I also must agree with the other comments about your use of pan/zoom effects.

Let me break it down a little:

The opening slide with a zoom into the funnel followed by the pan across the vast area, marvellous! You used the audio with these to good effect as well. I could live with the next couple of images moving but then I did want to rest my eyes and relax with the wonderful scenery. Then in the next section I did so want to just look at the wonderful scenery, the vertical pan down the smoke to the ferry was OK but hold still on the rest. The series with the ferry leaving the dock was well done and again clever use of the backing music. By the end of the AV I felt a little seasick, and this is not the sea.

Summing up - Great images, creative use of the sound track, some interesting ideas in the presentation with to much use of the pan/zoom. As I have said elsewhere "As a general rule for any effect subtlety is the key word, where a little will have much more impact than a lot".

Thanks for sharing and don't be put off by the odd criticism Andrew, you are showing a lot of originality and skill.

[ADB]

Peter & Patrick

Thank you for your comments, nice to be on the receiving end of the critique system certainly puts into a very clear perspective for me! :-)

There are two areas of your comments that do cause me some concern and they are...

PANNING

I appreciate that not everybody is into the whole panning and zooming thing but when you have a presentation that incorporates a lot of panoramas as soon as you pan or zoom some but just have others as stills you do start to get a stop/start or jerky feel to the presentation, its almost as though you break up that ever important flow. Patrick in particular you mentioned that some pans were "jerky" this is of real concern as on my PC they are velvet smooth. This possibly highlights that some viewers will struggle to see your presentation as the author intended if their hardware doesn't at least match the authors.

I try to give my presentations "cinematic" quality and when you display a panorama as a thin strip across the middle of the screen this can break that feeling.

SOUNDTRACK

I'm a little saddened by Patrick's comments about the soundtrack. I'm being totally honest when I say I have spent more time in choosing the soundtrack for this presentation than any other, I was hoping the initial steam whistle type sound of the first track would mimick the whistle of the steam boat, with the second peice suggesting the swepping magestic landscape the Earnslaw operates in and the third peice sounds just like the chugging of a steam engine, the fourth peice then brings in a sadness to mark the time when the Earnslaw is hauled out of the water and put up on a dry dock for maintenance. Did any of that register with you or did I fail in my mission miserably? :-)

Thanks again both for your comments. has really got me thinking.

P.S. Peter, this is where I live so yes I do go back time and time again and do have that chance of capturing that special moment.

Cheers

[Ken Cox]

Andrew

my complaint is

i would fire the engineroom crew and captain for not properly tending the fires -- 'tis a wonder the EPA does not fine them for emmissions

ken

[d67]

Thanks again both for your comments. has really got me thinking.

I hope my comments are not too harsh ! Some of your photos are really fantastic and I have only one regret .... screenshots are difficult to obtain as one must be extremely vigilant when to hit PrintScreen key ... as still images are very rare

Your are lucky living nearby such beauties

[ADB]

John - Thanks for your comments and do look us up when you come back to see the Earnslaw just ask for me at the National Bank in Queenstown. I think I'll do a second version of the show with some of the pans, zooms taken out or reduced and maybe post to see what others think.

Ken - EPA - Environmental Protection Agency? We call it something different here, there has actually been some murmurs in the past about the smoke but I think its accepted its not the Earnslaw we need to worry about causing Global Warming, the fires actually burn quit clean normally but I think they choke it with coal to get that effect on purpose.

Patrick - I don't think its generally possible to be too harsh when talking about a show as viewers are only stating how it felt to them and if authors don't want to know they should possibly say so when posting shows here. The great thing is that I guess we all appreciate different things from these productions and as an author you become very biased about your work. As a result of your's and others comments I plan to tweak some pans and zooms and re post in the neare future to see how the show sat with viewers with the "flow" reduced but longer focus on the images themselves.

Cheers

Andrew

[Ken Cox]

EPA - Environmental Protection Agency? yes

am not worrying about global warming - just the wasted energy

watch your email - sending a note for Tom

ken

[dpeterso]

Hello all

I have just submitted a new show to Beechbrook, not online there yet but can be downloaded here:-

http://www.imagescapes.co.nz/DL/Earnslaw.zip

Show features the iconic T.S.S. Earnslaw coal powered steamboat against a variety of backdrops and in various weather conditions.

The Earnslaw has been plying the shores of Lake Wakatipu for almost 100 years.

Hope you enjoy.

Cheers

Andrew

Hello Andrew -

I just finished viewing your presentation and would like to offer some comments. You have some great photographs to use in telling your story, however I couldn't fully appreciate them because of the pans and zooms. You have done the very thing I did with my first post of "Flinthills". I was so enamored by the tools that I over used them. I think you have some scenes that would lend themselves well to panning, but when you do it, slow down so we can enjoy the view. Like I said, you have some great pictures that are worth spending some time with. Also, the panning was out of tempo with the music (which I liked). It would have helped to get all the movement and animation better timed with the beat of the music. I did like the professional look of your opening slides.

You had some "jerking" happening in a place I'd never seen before. Mine occurred at the end of the transition; your's was occurring further into the slide. I don't know what was going on there????

Once I regained my composure from people's complaints about my excessing panning and zooming, I sort of came up with some new guidelines for myself:

1. Only pan or zoom if doing so will add to or enhance what I'm are trying to communicate.

2. Zoom aways work well when I need to give a context to the subject, especially people.

3. Pans work well when I have a panorama. (you had several in your show)

4. Don't pan or zoom during a transition. Get the audience to my next slide, let them enjoy it for a second, then tell them the rest of the story of the slide with my animation.

5. Stop the motion before tranitioning on to the next slide.

6. Zoom in's work well if I want to isolate someone or something from it's surroundings. A different slide with a closer view is really a better way to do this.

7. Only pan from left to right, the way we read.

8. Never use back to back pans or zooms. Give people's eyes a moment to rest with just the pictures and music.

I really hope you don't take offense with my comments Andrew. I was temporarily insulted by the negative reaction I received, but boy am I glad they had the courage to render some comments. I really learned from their frankness. I hope you'll feel the same. I look forward to more of your work; you obviously know how to use a camera.

Regards,

Dave

[ADB]

Dave

Thanks for your comments, and I actually agree with most of them (but not all).

Something has dawned on me with a clarity similar to having a bright light switched on in a totally dark room with regards to this show.

I have rewatched it time and time again but can honestly not see why other people don't enjoy the show like I do, infact if I just do stationery fades with no panning or zooming I honestly think the show is inferior from my perspective.

Now I'm not ignorant and certainly can't ignore the fact that several viewers have said they don't like the pans and zooms because they can't clearly see the full image, or the pans too quick etc etc.

So what's going on here?

This is my theory...

I know each and every one of these images intimitely I obviously took the original images but more importantly have looked at these images many many times in the past (they span over 8 years!) I think what is happening is that I know these images so well that if I just run a straight show with limited pans and full images with tonnes of time to watch them in their entireity that I am just, well, bored! By presenting in the way I have I have completely changed the original feel and emphasis of the images, in some cases I'm only revealling bits of images and this all seems quite natural as I "know" from countless prior viewings what the whole image is like.

So this brings me to a point Maureen Albright made when she said something along the lines of "Make your show for yourself not everybody else" I kinda of like doing that but in this case if I'm honest I was actually making this show for others enjoyment or at least trying to make a show that would have general appeal. If you are in business its probably VERY important you have general appeal.

So what have I learnt? Well if this show is going to play quietly away in my living room as an almost background artpeice I wouldn't change a thing because it feels "right" to me and puts a bit of mystery back into something that is "old hat" for ME , however if I want to show this to a viewer that has never seen these images as "whole" images before I need to tweak the show and understand that the viewer will want time to absorb the totally new images they are viewing not doing so is a little like having subtitles in a movie displayed far too quickly so that viewers don't get a chance to read them.

Dave I don't think its a good idea to apply all those rules you mentioned to all your shows or you could end up with the "all your photographs are taken using the rule of thirds type syndrome". Watch any motion picture and you will see some of those rules are broken regularly and successfully.

Dave thanks again for your post has really answered some questions for me and maybe others who haven't considered how familiar you can become with your images and the effect that can have on your intended audiance.

Cheers

Andrew

[dpeterso]

Dave

Thanks for your comments, and I actually agree with most of them (but not all).

Something has dawned on me with a clarity similar to having a bright light switched on in a totally dark room with regards to this show.

I have rewatched it time and time again but can honestly not see why other people don't enjoy the show like I do, infact if I just do stationery fades with no panning or zooming I honestly think the show is inferior from my perspective.

Now I'm not ignorant and certainly can't ignore the fact that several viewers have said they don't like the pans and zooms because they can't clearly see the full image, or the pans too quick etc etc.

So what's going on here?

This is my theory...

I know each and every one of these images intimitely I obviously took the original images but more importantly have looked at these images many many times in the past (they span over 8 years!) I think what is happening is that I know these images so well that if I just run a straight show with limited pans and full images with tonnes of time to watch them in their entireity that I am just, well, bored! By presenting in the way I have I have completely changed the original feel and emphasis of the images, in some cases I'm only revealling bits of images and this all seems quite natural as I "know" from countless prior viewings what the whole image is like.

So this brings me to a point Maureen Albright made when she said something along the lines of "Make your show for yourself not everybody else" I kinda of like doing that but in this case if I'm honest I was actually making this show for others enjoyment or at least trying to make a show that would have general appeal. If you are in business its probably VERY important you have general appeal.

So what have I learnt? Well if this show is going to play quietly away in my living room as an almost background artpeice I wouldn't change a thing because it feels "right" to me and puts a bit of mystery back into something that is "old hat" for ME , however if I want to show this to a viewer that has never seen these images as "whole" images before I need to tweak the show and understand that the viewer will want time to absorb the totally new images they are viewing not doing so is a little like having subtitles in a movie displayed far too quickly so that viewers don't get a chance to read them.

Dave I don't think its a good idea to apply all those rules you mentioned to all your shows or you could end up with the "all your photographs are taken using the rule of thirds type syndrome". Watch any motion picture and you will see some of those rules are broken regularly and successfully.

Dave thanks again for your post has really answered some questions for me and maybe others who haven't considered how familiar you can become with your images and the effect that can have on your intended audiance.

Cheers

Andrew

Hello again Andrew,

Your response has some good points. I like your assessment of why it works for you but not for "some", me included. I too have become so familiar with my own shows that I try to hurry through them. I personally don't like shows with no animation. They are too mechanical, too regimented, too much like "slideshows". (I've now just offended about 5000 people.) I try to get it to flow, to have some fluidity to it, and perhaps try to make it more movie-like. Generally the music is my director, and not the pictures. I try to move with the mood and tempo of the music. And if the music is moving my soul, the pictures should follow suit in support of what's happening. When I can get the lap/disolve, the motion of the connecting slides, and the music all working together, it becomes art for me. But, as I have learned, it's disturbing to many others. I don't feel like I'm wrong here, especially in terms of what's possible with slideshows, it's just that I'm like a chip with a paint brush and canvas trying to express what I feel without knowing how to do it artistically and pleasingly.

I feel that I can identify with your intentions with the use of pans and zooms, as they seem similar to mine. And I agree, there is more than one audience. We shouldn't violate our personal sense of what's good and not good. But we can also please more than just ourselves by have multiple versions.

Have a nice day Andrew,

Dave

[d67]

I have rewatched it time and time again but can honestly not see why other people don't enjoy the show like I do, infact if I just do stationery fades with no panning or zooming I honestly think the show is inferior from my perspective.

Oh no !!!!!

I find that your slideshow would be much more "stricking" with just fade in and out transitions (apart start and end sequences).

Your photos are superb and absolutely self explanatory ... gadgets and spangles are superfluous and disturbing !

During your trials, did you perhaps create your slideshow with PTE 4.48 or with PTE 5 but only with fade in and out transitions (or without any zoom or pan) ?

If so I would be very very interested !!

Patrick

[dpeterso]

Oh no !!!!!

I find that your slideshow would be much more "stricking" with just fade in and out transitions (apart start and end sequences).

Your photos are superb and absolutely self explanatory ... gadgets and spangles are superfluous and disturbing !

During your trials, did you perhaps create your slideshow with PTE 4.48 or with PTE 5 but only with fade in and out transitions (or without any zoom or pan) ?

If so I would be very very interested !!

Patrick

Patrick -

I began my slideshow making hobby with PTE/V5.

Dave

[davegee]

This is one of the best PTE 5 shows that I have seen so far. It played without glitch from a USB 2 Memory Key. I didn’t have to transfer to my HDD.

Beautiful photography and no sign of over-zooming or any resolution problems whatsoever. A couple of instances of shimmering but only slight. Subject matter was first class.

A couple of points aimed as CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and just MY opinion.

1. Tell the viewer the optimum resolution for viewing.

2. Slow down SOME of the faster pans.

DaveG

[ADB]

Generally the music is my director, and not the pictures. I try to move with the mood and tempo of the music. And if the music is moving my soul, the pictures should follow suit in support of what's happening. When I can get the lap/disolve, the motion of the connecting slides, and the music all working together, it becomes art for me.

We shouldn't violate our personal sense of what's good and not good. But we can also please more than just ourselves by have multiple versions.

Dave your above comments re the soundtrack ring very true for me too, I think the music is sometimes just as important as the images and sometimes more. Just watching a movie without sound proves that. I think in some cases multiple versions could be a good thing and in particulat with this show I will do another version. I am showing it as part of a bigger presentation at a Photography Society Convention in November so the feeedback received on this thread has been invaluable to tweak the show for a wider audience.

Oh no !!!!!

I find that your slideshow would be much more "stricking" with just fade in and out transitions (apart start and end sequences).

Your photos are superb and absolutely self explanatory ... gadgets and spangles are superfluous and disturbing !

Ah Patrick I think you and I are on the opposite ends of the scale in determining what makes an interesting presentation, and of course that is fine :-) When I get a chance (later this month) I will post a more "record" type portrail of this show as opposed to "art" portrail and you (and others) may be good enough to let me know how the two compare.

This is one of the best PTE 5 shows that I have seen so far. It played without glitch from a USB 2 Memory Key. I didn’t have to transfer to my HDD.

Beautiful photography and no sign of over-zooming or any resolution problems whatsoever. A couple of instances of shimmering but only slight. Subject matter was first class.

Dave nice to have a solid supporter out there :-) but more importantly your comments show that these presentations are viewed differently by different people and there is no difinitive right or wrong way of presenting a show. Thank goodness we have these variances in the world otherwise it could all be a bit boring really :-)

Thank you ALL for your comments and thoughts on what I have found to be fascinating topic.

Regards