Hi,
I don't think I have to give my personal reasons for wanting to say this, but I know we all feel the same way for wanting world peace.
After reading some of the seasons greatings all this became clear, WE, want to do something. So lets show the world how we feel. How? Simple. If every forum member was to submit a maximum of three images that symbolise peace, we would produce a members AV and show our message to all Nations. ( not graphic images of violence but every-day living, culture and human kindness etc. etc).
Lets have some "chocolate box" landscapes etc, its up to you use your imagination and creativity.
this is just an idea for now but one that WILL come to fruition very soon, as soon as all the logistics and web hosting are sorted. Al has already offered his site. So come on guys and gals get the dust of your camera and your **** (Butt) out of that computer chair, Then give us a commitment here. and watch this space.


Dave.

Hi Dave,
Sounds like a good idea. Lets have the image size ect and I will submit. We could also submit sound bite mp3s which could be the basis of the soundtrack. We did a sequence here in Ireland a few years back about diversity and used public voices to support the images.
count me in,
Alan

Dave,
Count me in too. I would suggest the usual image size of 1024x768, but if someone else prefers a different format, please let us know.

And if anyone has any ideas about how to go about putting the whole show together, please let's have your suggestions.

IMO, this should be a cooperative effort, to demonstrate how people of different nations can work togather on a project, towards the ultimate goal of world peace.

Thanks, Dave, for coming up with this idea and getting it off the ground.

damor says
Al has already offered his site.

What are supposed to do fwd picts to alrobin with some background data

damor says
Lets have some "chocolate box" landscapes etc,

would a larger version of my sun shot avatar qualify

ken

I will be happy to provide three images in whatever size at whatever website you designate, just give me the link. I think this a wonderful idea, and it is more meaningful to me than the competitive things that are run with AV (I have numerous and major issues with the whole concept of competition in photography or in any other art form which I won't inflict on you here).

I would also be happy to contribute to a collective effort to pull the show together. Our photo club has an annual show in which all members are welcome to contribute a limited number of their favourite images they took in the past year, then three-five "old AV hands" pull it together. I've participated in pulling several such shows together, and I know JRR also has some experience and ideas in doing this. No doubt there are others. Perhaps a group of people can produce different segments.

At minimum, my three images will be a sequence and will have a short sound clip to go with them, so even if I don't get involved in producing the end-product, whoever does can just insert the segment wherever it fits, with my permission to doctor (within reason) the first and last images in the sequence to make them blend better with the segments in which they're imbedded, or to use copies of same to produce composite images with copies of images from the other segments, to ease a transition from or into a new segment, if that seems to work better than doing a "straight" transition. (We've done this lots of different ways in the above-mentioned shows.)

Obviously the main wrinkle will be using a sound track that works with the images, sort of, and for which we don't have copyright issues. My sound clip (which I won't insist on being used if it's a problem) will be something I've recorded myself (waves breaking on a beach), so that won't be an issue with my part of it. However picking music for a "composite" show such as this can be challenging.

Maybe there's a famous recording artist out there (even one who monitors this forum?) who might be inspired by this idea to donate his/her/their piece of music for us. I know, for example, one of our club members (a professional AV producer) who did an excellent production for fund-raising for a local hospice, who got a famous folk singer (whose name I won't mention because I don't have permission) to grant permission to use one of his songs off a CD at no cost, and the recording studio also agreed. There actually are artists and companies out there who aren't greedy about wanting royalties for worthy causes ... maybe this could be one such project that might inspire such generosity. If anyone reading this forum personally knows a likely candidate (alas, I don't) and is inspired by this project, maybe they could pursue that for us ... just a thought.

I would be happy to contribute three (or more if required) pictures. Living and walking in Northumberland I have quite a large section including coast, towns and villages and the wild moors.

Count me in!

Once you have the logistics sorted out (where to upload etc) I will respond.

DaveG

WOW !
I'm over the moon with this response, However there is so much to be done,
1, Al have you got the space to upload the images to? if not, where and how?
2, I'm certainly not experienced enough to compile the AV myself, I would be grateful if one or more of the experienced members could have the honour.
3 There is a "not" insurmountable glitch with copyright on audio. Eds suggestion on his music friend sounds good, can you speak to him Ed? or how about our national anthems? surely they are roalty free?
Ken, I love your avatar, images like that are so hard to find over here. I would say anything goes as long as it reflects peace in any shape or form, Be it animal, vegitable or mineral, institutional, international, national Costume, domestic or industrial, rural or urban, natural history or human history. its not my show guys. BUT SOMEONE HAS TO CO-ORDINATE No committee or Boss Its OUR show so....Ideas please.
THANKS everyone.
Dave

Though national anthems (the words and music) are probably in the public domain, the specific recordings of them aren't usually Maybe we could all submit recordings of one or more of us singing a few phrases of our respective national anthems, if the viewers of this show don't mind the less-than-on-tune singing that will result (at least in my case)

On "sober second thought" (my fellow Canadians will recognize from whence that comes ) I'm not over-keen on national anthems for something like this. National anthems, at least some of them, strike me as rather nationalistic, which is sort of counter to the thrust of this idea -- it's hard to have world peace with everyone waving national flags and singing national anthems, if you get my point. Maybe Alan's idea of individual voices saying something peace-like is a better one; or maybe we can find a royalty-free recording of the music/words to the last movement Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which I think is pretty-well-internationally recognized as an anthem to world person-hood ("brotherhood" back in Beethoven and Schiller's politically-incorrect days). That music has had international connotations for me ever since I heard it sung during the televised memorial service at the UN when Dag Hammarskjold died (boy am I dating myself ). Also the music is long enough, yet structured with sonata-form theme, development, recapitulation etc, that we would have the option of either using the whole thing or truncating it, depending on how many images we get, without the music sounding butchered or cut off (I'm a big fan of using pieces of music relatively intact in AV, but that's obviously a matter of taste).

maybe Barry or Guido wll donate the music from their royalty free collection
ken

and as always, I will be happy to provide hosting space and send out email notifications from my site if it would be useful to the group.

Bill

Bill are you saying that we could send you individual pictures for this project, note's music etc [ in a zip of course] and when same was all collected the "put together crew" could download the package, put the show together and send it back to your site for access by all ??

ken

You can count me in on this wonderful extravaganza. There might be an image on my website which the nominated editor(s) may find suitable.

On the composite theme music I might even sing a few bars, such as

"Bring me up a nail and a hammer
And a picture to hang on the wall.
Someone to bring up the ladder
And another in case I might fall.
Someone to bring up the beer
And another to drink to my health,
And I bet you I'll hang up that picture
If someone will drive in the nail"

Sorry about that

Ron [UK]

Bill
is the Cottage upload facility working again ?

ken

I suggested to Dave that it might be a good idea to open up a temporary membership with Kodak's free image upload facility to avoid having to send a lot of images through the mail. My site is available too, so if Kodak's site was not suitable for longer term storage, then I could offload them periodically onto my site for members to view and access. We could give anyone interested the password to the Kodak site to facilitate uploading.

Bill (cottage) has also volunteered Beechbrook. Zipped files could be uploaded to Beechbrook in the usual manner, containing images instead of shows, and I could offload them onto my site and display them as images if necessary. However, uploading actual images to a site like Kodak's or PBase (someone would have to pay to set up an account if we choose the latter) would be more convenient. Maybe it's possible to get a free temporary PBase account??

Regarding the music, perhaps someone would be able to contribute some royalty-free music to go with the images. Or, perhaps it would be possible to cover the music under the present UK arrangement with their local licencing organizations?? There has never been a problem in the past in getting popular music artists interested in projects such as this in promotion of a good cause. Any ideas here?

As to what we do with all the images, there are several possibilities. One would be to have everyone who is interested in participating create a slideshow of all the images submitted and post it on Beechbrook or their own site for people to download. Then we could all vote to determine the most popular show and this one would be selected as the culmination of our efforts.

Or, we could nominate one or a few producers to come up with a compilation of all of our images in the form of a slideshow.

Or, we could have many different shows, all promoting peace, and leave them as created by the individual Forum members. Which ever method is selected, the objective of having AV creators in many different countries, all thinking and working on a project promoting peace in the world, would be accomplished.

I'm interested in contributing, but at the moment I don't have time to do any coordination. Maybe someone could get in touch with Dave and help him out with the coordination role.

Since it was Dave's idea originally, perhaps he could give some direction as to which way he thinks the project should go, given the ideas already suggested.

Personally I would vote against the idea of everyone downloading the submitted pics and making their own shows. I have seen that idea elsewhere and have not been over-enthusiastic about the results.

DaveG

Hi,
my original intent was for a combined Av that included at least 3 images from each contributor.
As I have preveiously mentioned, I dont think I am experienced enough to put it together myself so I hope that two more experienced users would have the honour. however, I could put a somewhat basic presentation together, but would need someone to "do the text work for me. it would consist of a music theme and peaceful scenes. Personaly, I wouldn't like to see a form of competition take place, but rather everyone who contributed have pride in seeing thier images displayed in noble gesture for world peace.
I dont live very far from Davegee, so perhaps I could liase with him over the phone and the rest of you over the forum pages for any help I will certainly need (technical) and anyone else UK based via the phone.
As I see it The main object is to keep it simple, Music and and images plus text are needed. a place to upload the images ( Al has aready given me a lead and beechbrooke will host the presentation).
As soon as I have opened an account I will notify everyone and you will be informed via e-mail how to upload. and given the information, i.e, username and password.
Thankyou, all, for your valued support and encouragement to date.
Dave

Just a comment amongst all the ideas for a show. I think there should be some thought given to what we are going to do with the finished article, i.e. where would we post it and how (and to whom) would we advertise it ? The end location and use might have an influence on how the show is put together and what its content might be.

I don't know too much about this, but I have seen presentations in my photo club (which I think are associated with the National Photographic Society) which have slides from many different countries - some type of international competition. Perhaps I could find out a bit more detail about this. Then maybe the final show could be passed to this organisation for international distribution as an example of international co-operation.

Regarding the content, I think the original idea of a few photos from each country (and maybe each region of a country) showing typical scenery is a good idea. Then perhaps a few introductory slides with an accompanying message stating what the show is about. Maybe the first step is for photos to be submitted to a central point and then get the best ones selected (by a member vote for example?)

Jeff Evans

A couple of comments, to reinforce one by damor: I too vote against competition, either among multiple shows or on what images get included. If this is another competition (in either sense), I won't participate. (I stopped participating in photo club single-image and AV competitions a while ago for reasons I won't belabour here.)

As someone who has produced group AV shows, I appreciate there are times when a producer would sometimes prefer not to use a couple of images, but that should be because they don't fit with the other images in the show, not because of some judgment "this is good" and "this is not good" (unless we're talking of matters of public morals and generally-accepted standards of good taste in depicting certain kinds of content). In my experience, if the producer has been given leeway in editing or compositing images for transitions, "it doesn't fit" usually means "the producer isn't imaginative or skilled enough to find a way to make it fit." The last group show I worked on used 250 images (none of which had originally be taken with AV in mind) from 50 photographers on a huge range of topics, and by gosh my colleagues and I found a way to work every single one of them into the show and our audience loved the result.

I think the intent is for this to be a collective show by multiple photographers with multiple viewpoints, not a unified production governed by a monolithic vision or some arbitrary and often specific-culture-bound "standard" of what is "good" photographic composition and technique or "bad" photographic composition and techique. I won't vote on which images are "in" or "out," and if there's going to be a vote, I won't submit images. Sorry for the screed, but this is a very sore point with me.

A couple of other suggestions:

it would be nice to have some credit slides at the end identifying the photographers by name and country; that could be part of the file-naming convention for the JPGs (e.g., "Ed_Overstreet_Canada_sunrise.jpg") which would simplify the logistics;

it would be nice if the title and in any credits the words "photographers" and "music by" were multilingual, either in the official languages of the UN or perhaps more practically in the languages of the photographers who participated, in which case perhaps those photographers who don't speak English as their daily language could provide you the translations of the title and the other words into their own languages;

it would be nice to give people the option of submitting three images intended as a specific sequence, in which case I would hope the producers would respect that sequence and not break it up; an easy way to deal with this option is to ask people to use the numbers 1, 2 and 3 in the file name if (and only if) they firmly want their images displayed together in that sequence; people who don't care whether their images appear in a unitary sequence or are split up at the producers' discretion, can just not use those numbers in the file name. If the file names are numbered, the producers use them together in that sequence (or they don't use them at all), IMO. (If I were the producer, I'd want to know whether the photographer will or won't object if I split the images if I think it makes sense to do so, because my preference would be to reserve the right to split images when I see a really neat transition with someone else's image, but only if I have some assurance that splitting won't put the photographers' noses out of joint.)

[quote name='damor' date='Dec 31 2005, 09:03 PM' post='25053']
Hi,
I don't think I have to give my personal reasons for wanting to say this....

Excellent idea Dave, will try to get some images ready by the coming weekend.

And a very Happy New year to everyone.

John

Further to Ed's comments, I believe that the producers should also have the right to edit images in order to make them fit better with others in a sort of montage if that is considered to be the most effective way to use them. I would also be in favour of allowing them to use all of the images in whatever order seems to be most effective, and should have the sole right to decide on the sequence for all images.

I would go along with having several persons take on the role of producing the show, but I believe that the images (and perhaps the music) should be made available to anyone who wants to try their hand at assembling them into a show of their own, which they should then be free to publish via Beechbrook or their own page if they so wish. I don't favour a competition, either, but sometimes that is one way to get people to submit their work.

IMO, we should definitely have a credit slide or slides at the end with the names of all contributors - not necessarily credits by image, but simply to recognize those who contributed. The emphasis should not be on any one particular person's work, but on the fact that this is a joint effort on behalf of the PTE Forum members.

And, if PTE 5 is out by then, this would be a fitting project on which to launch it.

I agree with Al about letting the producer have some leeway in editing or montaging images if that's the best way to fit them, though I would hope the original image as submitted would eventually find its way onto the screen at some point, if only for a few seconds. For example, the producer might make a duplicate of a particular image and change the copy's colour balance or some other aspect of it to ease the blend from the preceding image in the sequence, bring that edited copy up briefly then fade into the original image, then proceed ... or do the reverse, if editing a copy of one image makes fading into a new one easier.

If people are contributing what they think peace means to them visually, I'd be reluctant to take many liberties with their images, certainly not the liberties I sometimes take with my own images, hence my suggestion that if liberties are taken, the original image still appears somewhere in the show if only briefly. There's a fine line in a group show between how much the show belongs to the producer and how much the show belongs to the photographers, and I think that line should be crossed very carefully. The show isn't about specific photographers, but neither is it about specific producers. It's about all of us and respecting each others' points of view, which is a big part of what I think peace is all about.

I still think if someone has what they think is a specific sequence it should go in that way, but in my own case it's probably a moot point, as the more I look at what I thought was going to be a three-image sequence entry, the better I like some other slides I'm thinking of putting in which don't need to go in any specific place or order. However I think the option should be there for others if they want to pull together, or better yet shoot specifically for this show, a three-image sequence.

So far the only posts I've seen on this thread are from English-speaking countries; I dearly hope some of our many friends in other parts of the world are seeing this thread and are planning to contribute some images

I echo Ed's comments earlier regarding "competitions" etc.

I have 3 images which I could submit but I'm unsure how the music thing is going to work?

I don't see how a piece of music for each 3 image section is going to be fitted together easily.

PUTTING THE COPYRIGHT ISSUE ASIDE FOR ONE MOMENT (!!!!!) the ideal piece of music for the PROJECT would be something like John Lennon's "IMAGINE".

The various slides would then have some sort of common theme to work to.

We still haven't established:

Image sizes, file sizes, where to upload etc. etc.

Best wishes,

DaveG.

I have contacted Canon uk today and out lined our intentions and needs. and asked if they would kindly host the images for 3-4 months free of charge.
I think it would be wise to hold on to final images sizes untill we know how much space we would get for "docking" the photos. tho I susspect that the usual size will prevail without starting a secondary debate.
I do hope that I will get a respons from them (favourable) ( Canon uk) by the end of the week.
Obviously I will keep you posted.
I have looked around a few places that offer "albums" but am yet to find one that I can understand,as to whether or not the upload and dowload requirements would be available on a shared basis.
importantly, most seem to be money orientated, or work on a refferal system (cookies) and spyware!
advertising.
As they will pay upto, eg 300 dollars, if you refer someone and they open an account. so how do they make money?
Perhaps we could appoint three or four members who woul act as recipients for the images. down load and save to a disc and then post them on to the authors. just a suggestion wot do you think?
Dave

I agree with the general gist of the suggestions made by Al & Ed. In particular, that the project should not evolve into a competition or that National Anthems should provide any component of the music.
With regard to the matter of image "modification", this can be got round by agreeing a format in which images are to be submitted. Personally, I would prefer to leave "order of appearance" and whether, or not, a picture is included, to the judgement of the member/s that we entrust to achieve, for this undertaking, an honourable and artistic end result. In any case, I would be very surprised if the need for sensorship raised it's head. There cannot be amongst us anyone unable to grasp the concept of what is acceptable to people of all ages and of all nations.
I suggest, for the background music, a list of what royalty free stuff is available be posted, upon which members can express personal preferences.

If we get this right, it will be a thouroughly noble achievement.

John

A year ago I embarked on my first joint sequence (with the rest of the world!)
It was to create a "sequence" which would send birthday greetings to a friend who was celebrating his 70th birthday. His name will remain anonymous but many Forum members know about this and took part.

I asked for a birthday message from AV friends around the world.
They could send me images, sound clips, or a complete mini AV (not too long obviously).
These were sent by www.dropload.com or on CD through the post.
I certainly did not anticipate the response or hard work & long hours preparing it all and putting it together.
(especially two weeks before Christmas!)

My main concern was not to make it into one very long sequence as there would be a problem if he started to watch and the phone rang or had an interruption - he would then need to continually restart the sequence and using the navigation options would mean the flow of the work would be spoilt.
I therefore used a "chapter method"
There were four "chapters" eventually.

Those who sent images, words or sound clips were all used to create one AV which finished with a screen shot linking it to several mini AV sequences which had been sent as final exe files. This last screen image also had the option to go on to the next "chapter".
Thus I could work on what was being sent in immediately without waiting to receive it all & then rush to get it done.

I was delighted with the response. I had planned to host the final sequence on my web site (privately) for others who had taken part to download, but the eventual file was 261 mb so it was too large. I then made copies to send to all my fellow "co-authors". As I have a UK licence for music copyright and this work was private not for any commercial purpose we were OK.


It is certainly a great fun thing to do and I will certainly take part in Dave's project ... and happy to give any advice needed. I'm sure my fellow co-author's on "Boyo's Birthday" will be happy to show their CD to others. It was all done using PTE and there are a vast range of Av techniques used on that project.

Hope this gives you some ideas Dave.
I don't think you need to have a massive hosting space at all.
I can offer some space at www.avworld.org and at www.maureenalbright.com

MY New Year's resolution is not to volunteer any more !
I have a major project planned for this year which I'm determined to sit down and complete as soon as possible.

We're also organising the UK part of the new 321 Challenge and at 4am this morning I finished the UK web site at
http://www.maureenalbright.com/321
The official French web site is now at http://www.atelierdiaporama.com/
(did I say I've given up volunteering )
Think I'll turn professional and have a rest & some money !

Happy new Year to you all.
May your sequences be fun to make and enjoyable to you and all who see them.

BW MAureen

I like John/Ebenist's suggestion of posting a list of what music is available free and then vote on the music, or at least express views and let the producer who has to live with the choice make the final decision. I also like "Imagine" if there's any way it could be made available without cost. But I think listing what music is accessible and choosing from that list is a practical way to proceed.

In terms of size of show and whether we need to have chapters or a single big show (good points about length Maureen), maybe the best approach initially is to identify one or more collection points and see how many images we're dealing with (once a reasonable time has elapsed for people to post images; maybe we need a preliminary cut-off date at least to get a reading on numbers, we can always extend it if we want or need to). I say "we" but actually it should be damor since it's his idea, obviously we need one focal point and decision-maker for logistical issues etc. Once we have a ballpark number on images and an idea of what music is practicable, the planning for length, size etc becomes a lot easier for the folks who are doing it.

I agree on further reflection that having many short sound clips is probably not going to work, at least not very elegantly. It's a nice idea in principle, but it could turn into a nightmare for whoever is producing the show and result in something very disjointed. It's probably possible to pull it off, but I think it would take a huge amount of work to do it smoothly. I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to do it.

It sounds like having this hosted/produced in the UK by those of you who have a license makes lots of sense. Alas at the moment such licenses aren't available or affordable for the likes of me here in Canada, and at the moment trying to shift our licensing body's viewpoint has been like trying to nail jelly to the wall, or maybe drawing blood from stone is a better analogy .

when this production starts to roll, and the producers are decided[volunteered] upon
we send them the picts
they pick the music and produce the show
and
if we dont like the end result that is too bad

but judging from the quality of the shows i have reviewed since my indoctrination to this forum i do not feel we will be disappointed

what i would like access to is all the parts so i can make a dvd out of it for my personal pleasure

if we are willing to put our picts up we should be able to trust the producers without voting

ken

As a new member I don’t feel competent to provide any particular image but will give it some thought.

However I am delighted to note that the use of National anthems is unlikely. As a patriotic Scot I don’t believe I just said that! One thought that has occurred to me is that perhaps the use of a quotation from perhaps the most International of all Scots, Robert Burns, may be considered suitable. I have in mind the last verse of “A Man’s A Man For A’ That”.

“Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a’ that,)
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.

The use of the compete poem may even be possible with someone – preferably with a Scots accent (Nationalism creeping in!) reading the poem over appropriate images and even, where necessary, English/French/Spanish/American!!/Russian superimposed translation!!! – I’m now getting carried away (perhaps I should be carried away and be locked up too.)

P.S. As Igor will confirm Burns is big in Russia. I think he is quite well known accross The Pond too!

John

Ken and Al,

I'll be happy to do whatever I can to either provide space for hosting or simply collect items for the overall project. Just keep me in the loop as we go. My server provider is down today, and has been down for some five hours now - hence Beechbrook.Com is totally offline. I'll get moving on ways to accomplish this project once we're back online!

Ken,
In answer to your question, no the upload utility is not online. There is a code difference that has not been resolved with some of the new servers. Emailing project items will have to do for now. I will create a special protected folder and web pages as necessary for those who will need access to the project, giving instructions as necessary.

Looking forward to working together.

BIll

so damor Dave
Bill says he will help
when we are talking picts they will be easily emailed
i would suggest you write to Bill , set up a depositor for the project

and lets start gathering the flock:))
ken

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....st=&#entry25118

Oke, I am in I have to find out some nice pictures for this show to the world.
happy new year to all, greetings from Holland. Giel Rombout

I've created an upload utility for submissions to the 2006 World Peace AV Project. I appreciate Ken Cox working with me during some of the early testing. It will be available soon for those that wish to be part of this project.

I welcome your comments.
Bill
[attachmentid=74]

Hi Bill,

Will the submitted images be available for viewing prior to constructing the show?

DaveG

HI Ken,
Sorry for the delay in getting back, been busy- busy-busy.
I have done as you suggested and e-mailed Bill.
I am currently involved in setting up an exhibition at Swansea, here in Wales, so may be "off line" untill saturday.
If I have any news will make time to make a posting to advise. Thanks and regards to every one.

Dave
(damor)

DaveG,

I will be happy to set things up so that everyone involved with this project has the opportunity to have all resources available to them. I don't see this as a repository for items that are not related to this project, therefore I may impose some restrictions on access to certain areas. Nothing has been finalized and I welcome any suggestions as we move forward.

Bill

Thanks Bill,

I just thought it would be nice to see the sorts of things other people are submitting.

Best wishes,

DaveG

Here’s another technical issue maybe worth kicking around before we go too much farther along: aspect ratio. Do we prefer that everyone’s images fit into a standard aspect ratio, or not?

I can see arguments on both sides, and I can live with either result, but I’d like to know which way we’re going before I finalize my entry. I know a lot of the Supercircuit shows seemed to have all their images in 4:3 aspect ratio, which of course maximizes the amount of screen real-estate you’re using and arguably maximizes the images’ impact. However, the universe doesn’t fit into 4:3 most of the time, and my cameras all shoot in 3:2 which is the way I compose most of my shots. I often crop what I shoot, and my cropping is always based on what I think works best for me aesthetically, without regard to the aspect ratio produced by the cropping. Not a problem for individual images especially when printed, but of course varying the aspect ratio from one image to another raises some issues for AV.

I’ve selected three images. For now, they’re all cropped as 4:3 (though that’s not how I originally conceived any of them). For two of the three images I don’t think it matters much (in fact, in one of those two the 4:3 cropping arguably is better than what I’d done originally), but I think the third looks better in more of a panorama format, which is how I had originally cropped the 3:2 slide from which it was scanned. I can live with the 4:3 cropping, but if feels a touch claustrophobic to me, perhaps it wouldn’t to someone else who hadn’t seen the original image (or who hadn’t been in the original location, which is anything but claustrophobic).

Any views on this? There are all sorts of ways of sequencing images that don’t have the same aspect ratio, by softening the image edges, using non-fade transitions, compositing images so they don't overlap or only partially overlap (but that means reducing the image size on the canvas and hence also reducing its impact), or other ways of reducing the discordance that can result when the image boundaries shift from one frame to the next. I know some producers and viewers like those effects and some don’t. Forcing everything into one aspect ratio eliminates the “shifting image boundaries” problem, though there can still be situations where you might prefer not to centre two images on each other because certain elements in the two images blend in the dissolve better if they aren’t centred. But that makes the producer’s life more complex; certainly production is simpler if everything is in the same aspect ratio and at the same size. However, simplicity isn't always a virtue.

So, when we are saying “make your images 1024x768 in size” are we saying “crop everything 4:3 and resize to 1024x768" or are we saying “make sure the image is no wider than 1024 and no higher than 768, but if you want 1024x681 or 520x768 or whatever else, that’s OK?” Obviously, if we go with a fixed 4:3 ratio we're telling everyone "no portrait orientations, only landscape orientations" which is how a number of Supercircuit shows ran, sometimes to their disadvantage I thought.

I can live with the consensus, I’d just like to know if there is a consensus and what it might be.

As it happens, I’m giving a presentation Monday night to our photo club’s AV group which addresses the aspect ratio issues in some detail, with examples of how I’ve dealt with it in one particular group show I was involved in a couple of years ago. I’d be interested in hearing your views on this before Monday night (-5 hours Zulu), not that it will change my presentation or how I normally do my own shows, but it might provide some grist for the mill of our discussions Monday night if we have time for discussions (it’s a full program).

I have mixed feelings about raising this issue in this particular forum thread; while it's sparked specifically by this forum AV show, the issue is much broader than that and might deserve a separate thread. But I'll leave that to the forum moderators and the rest of you; if someone wants to start a separate thread on this issue I monitor the forum daily and will spot it.

Thanks.

Ed,

In order to encourage maximum participation by Forum members, I suggest we stay with 1024x768 for this project.

I, too, am using a wider aspect ratio now as it more readily fits my 3/2 originals. However, as you mentioned, there are pros and cons. I find I am often wanting to crop some images horizontally in order to retain maximum vertical information, and avoid some of the distracting details near the left and/or right edges. Guess that's why we sometimes used to use the vertical format. I doubt if we'll ever convince projector and monitor mfrs to go to a 1/1 format, though.

What a wonderful response - 39 comments and we still have a peaceful approach to world peace!

I was absent a few days and this idea has blossomed wonderfully. I guess this is what I would expect from the members of this forum, but it is still inspiring. Every idea expressed is great. Rather than jump in with comment on the ideas, I will just say "I'm with you."

Afterthought - If any of us are submitting photos of people of languages other than our own, perhaps some sound clips of the relevant language could be included. This might make for a little (lot) more work but could bolster the international tone of our presentation.

Onward

Phew! what a week this has been.
Good news and bad news.
Bad news..
Canon wont help.
Good news....
Canon wont Help
Better news is as soon as beechbrook is "up" we should start submitting before the imputus slows, however, I dont think thats likely due to the respons.. Fantastic...Im gonna be even more busy over the weekend, up untill Wednesday. Swansea Exhibition. Get there if you can. Opens on tuesday 7.30pm in the Grand.

I should have a list of suggestions for types of images by friday for critique. Music, I'm stuck on. can someone else handle that?
the size seems to have been sorted out and will probably be the default.


damor

Hi again, it’s me your resident gadfly.

I gather from the minimal reply to my earlier post on the subject of aspect ratio for images for this endeavor, that the consensus seems to be that we go with 4:3 (1024x768 completely filling all those pixels with the image). Before throwing in the towel (on this one project) and submitting to that, I thought I’d come at the issue from a philosophical angle which I’d like everyone to think about before finalizing this.

There are different ways of arriving at what one might call “peace.” The grave has been said to be peaceful; I don’t want to live in a graveyard. A police state, at least one with a sufficiently ruthless police force and a sufficiently submissive population, can be said to be peaceful I suppose, but I wouldn’t want to live in one of those, either. A society of conformists where everyone is the same, thinks the same, acts the same (at least within certain boundaries) can also be said to be peaceful, though some of us might also describe it as rather boring. There can also be a peaceful society where everyone is different but everyone also is tolerant and accepts the diversity of others and respects everyone’s rights to be diverse, as long as the diversity doesn’t hurt others. That’s the model that I subscribe to.

Now, where does telling participants in this project that all images should be in the same aspect ratio fit into this philosophical structure? Think about it, please, before you all decide that all the images for this production should be displayed in 4:3 cropping.

I’ve never (as far as I can remember) produced a digital AV show (and very few 35mm AV shows) in which every image had the same aspect ratio, and I probably never will produce such a show on my own in future. Having said that, I will also say that I want to participate in this particular project badly enough that I’ll crop all my images to 4:3 if that’s what I have to do to participate. But I would find it more-than-a-little ironic (and perhaps even a little scary) that a project on world peace would go that route. Yes, I know there are some technical things that we need to standardize, but I really don’t think that image aspect ratio is one of them.

There, I’ve said it; the gadfly will now retire to his nest for a while and shut up.

PS Al, I have some trouble understanding your statement that standardizing on 1024x768 (if by that you also mean standardizing on 4:3 cropping of the image) will maximize participation in this project. I'd have thought it might constrain participation in this project, but maybe I'm overlooking something.

Hi all,

My vote goes to - 1024x768 full screen 4:3 ratio.

There's nothing worse than aspect ratios changing during a show....

....and this is an attempt to be unified is it not?

Just my thoughts,

DaveG

Ed,
I basically agree with you. I thought (or, should I say "assumed") that you were asking if we should create the AV production itself around a different format than 1024x768 - so, I was suggesting that (if we did), it should perhaps be the one most used in the 500 or so shows I've watched so far.

However, I would be happy not having any restrictions at all on individual image size or aspect ratio - as long as the contributors are equally happy with having the producer(s) crop and/or otherwise edit their work in order to adapt it to the overall production.

Hi Al. I was in the midst of drafting a clarification on the matter of image aspect ratio (which can be totally different from the canvas aspect ratio, as you of course know) when I saw your reply. Glad we clarified the misunderstanding; and I agree that in spite of how the photographer chooses to present his/her image on the canvas, the producers may have to make some (hopefully not too extreme) changes to it so it blends more smoothly with another image in the specific show. I have no problem with a 1024x768 canvas as long as I can place an image at some other aspect ratio onto that canvas, and fill the empty canvas space with whatever makes sense to me. Also, I'm a lot less concerned about producers changing what I did to that empty space than I'd be if they changed what I did in the actual image; in fact, I don't care what the empty space is filled with as long as it looks good with my image, though of course were I to submit a non-4:3 image on the canvas I'd fill the blank space with something that I thought worked, as a suggested starting point for the producers.

I don't agree that nothing looks worse than aspect ratios changing on the screen through a show -- I can think of lots of things that look worse, I guess I have different tastes. However I agree that if the aspect ratios change, one often needs to make some accommodations to the canvas content underneath the images, to the edges of some images (sometimes with layer styles, sometimes by rendering them less linear), or in terms of what transition effects one uses in going from one aspect ratio to another, to make things look less jarring than they might look otherwise. This is particularly necessary when going from landscape-format to portrait-format images, and I've always thought it ridiculous to contend that AV should never include portrait-format images, even back in 35mm days we evolved several ways of going smoothly between those orientations. Also, one doesn't have to centre all the images in the middle of the canvas, one on top of the other; one way of dealing with variable aspect ratios is to shrink the images somewhat and place them on the canvas so they don't centre or fully overlap or don't even touch each other. It's all a matter of taste, judgment, and trade-offs. Coming up with pleasing and creative ways to blend varying aspect ratios can make life more challenging for the producers, but that challenge is part of the fun for me as a producer -- otherwise, the process becomes pretty mundane IMO. Again, a personal taste.

As I suggested earlier, peace to me doesn't necessarily mean unified. Unified has a lot of connotations that don't strike me as particularly peaceful, depending on how the unity is achieved and at what price or prices. I think we can be peaceful without being unified and by being diversified; I realize that's a cultural value that perhaps not everyone shares, but it's value that I hold to. Peace at the price of ramrodding everyone into one mold isn't worth having, in my view, and failure to accept and respect diversity is often what causes peace to break down.

Maybe I'm waxing over-philosophical here, but it seems to me that in a show like the one we're contemplating, it makes sense to be philosophical and to mold the technology to the concept and not the other way around. I think more flexibility and less rigidity is what's called for.

Awright, so I didn't shut up ...

Ed,
Well, things are starting to flow. If by suggesting that the image size be restricted to the default was final, I set the record straight in that, I was ( foolisly perhaps ) only trying to follow the posts on the forum, being so busy I have only had time to quickly read through the notes. I assumed that due to scant comment on the subject that it would be the chosen path. Philosophical, I am not, an expert at AV I too, am certainly not. Human, unfortunately, I am. And we are all prone to making mistakes.
Not being such a deep philosophical thinker, I'm more a philosophical ludite, I think, I get the gist of Eds comments and agree with them ( I think ) . Quite a bit of what you said went way over my head, but understand that there should be chance for individuals and the more creative AV producer/s. as wll as the less experienced.
I must admit that your forsight tends to inspire me and to that end wait in anticipation to see the finished result It sounds much more adventureous. certainly more democratic, and hopfuly more peaceful!
Well Said Ed. the air needed that.
all in good spirit.
Dave.

With many thanks to my testers, Ralph McDermott and Ken Cox, I am pleased to announce that the 2006 World Peace AV Project upload site is now online. Those that wish to submit items to this project may do so here: 2006 World Peace AV Project. The upload link requires that all submissions include the senders name, email address and a single zipped file which contains all images, music, voice-overs and text files.

Beechbrook.Com will serve only as the repository for project submissions. No modifications will be made to items submitted to Beechbrook.Com. All submissions will be held until forum members develop further project guidelines and plans.

Please use a single file name continually for all your submissions. If modifications of previous submissions are necessary, the upload script will not overwrite your previous submissions. All files received will be uniquely numerically identified so they are not overwritten if an exact file name already exists on the server.

A suggested naming convention might be: "first initial, last name-country.zip" (example: rsmith-usa.zip for Roger Smith USA). However I will retain all submissions as they are received regardless of their file name.

I look forward to working on this wonderful project with each of you !

Kind regards,
Bill Hines

OK, do the comments-to-here mean each submission should be a file of 1024 x 768? This image size would be the uniform size for the "canvas". In some of the submissions, the canvas may be only partially occupied, as with a vertical format image.

I believe that there are still some differences of opinion with regard to "image size". At this point the items I have received have been of various sizes and of various image quality. But as I said in the outset, I am only 'holding' the project pieces on beechbrook.com as further plans and discussions take place both on and off the forum. However, what I am most impressed with is the fact that folks are taking this project so seriously. That's encouraging!

Bill

Hi Bill,

Going back to Jan 5 in reply to my query about everyone concerned with the project being able to see (if not download) all that has been submitted, you said:

"DaveG,

I will be happy to set things up so that everyone involved with this project has the opportunity to have all resources available to them. I don't see this as a repository for items that are not related to this project, therefore I may impose some restrictions on access to certain areas. Nothing has been finalized and I welcome any suggestions as we move forward.

Bill"

Will you still be able to do this?

Best wishes,

DaveG