>>>> Challenge 72: Found Abstracts <<<<

....Pro Show Gold? I've been playing around with it, creating slide shows from my photos and it's great fun! And a really nice way to do a more personal and interesting presentation for someone. Set the show to music, add a few motion effects and it really brings the photos to life.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else is doing anything like this.

Cheers,

Gayle

--

'We don't make a photograph with just a camera. We bring to the act of photography all the books we have read, the movies we have seen, the music we have heard and the people we have loved.' Ansel Adams



http://www.shot2shot.com
http://www.pbase.com/gayleknowles/

Hi Gayle,

I do a lot of photo montage, but I use Adobe's Premiere Pro. It isn't just for slideshows. It is a full video editing package so it would be a bit overkill if you only plan to do slideshows. Video work is another passion/hobby of mine.

I do a lot of volunteer work for our church. Here's some examples of my work (mostly photo montages here):
http://theburlygroup.com/montages.shtml

Over the last year, I have spent most of my time volunteering with our PTA (since I'm now on the board). I made promo videos & photo montages that were shown before & during our PTA meetings. You can watch those videos here (at the bottom of this page):
http://wcepta.com/Galleries/index.html

I know this isn't what you originally asked, but I really enjoy working on montages!! They are so much fun!! Hope you enjoy viewing some.

Jeannie

Nice job on shrinking that one down but not losing the overall feel of the photo. To me, that one's just a perfect exposure.

jb

--

--Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
--Albert Einstein

Once in a blue moon (meaning every 3 months I have a weekend free to just devote to whatever I want. This is one of those, but I just can't get inspired. It's 100 degrees (fahrenheit) here in Chicago, and my desire to go out and find abstracts is pretty low. So I'm putzing about the house, index fingers and thumbs-framing things, trying to find something that moves me.

jb

--

--Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
--Albert Einstein

It's a great topic Michael! As Jason mentioned, it's hotter than blazes in the Midwest and the high humidity zaps the creative juices. I actually have taken a few pictures but don't have the energy to edit them right now. We don't have air conditioning so we're waiting for the weather to cool down to do anything..... It's either that or I had too much wine last night! I feel like a slug.
--
CJ
Please visit my gallery - comments, critiques always appreciated
http://www.pbase.com/cj_in_ca



'But I don’t want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can’t help that,' said the Cat. 'We’re all mad here'
Lewis Carroll - Author, Mathematician, Photographer

I just realized the appropriate subject for a response.

Excuse the slow me...too much going on in this ol' head
--

Galleries:
http://www.pbase.com/mtpuff

...for the responses.

I don't mind if the subject is tough and I don't mind if we see fewer images. My goal was just to make sure y'all were good with the topic. Very creative images are appearing in both of the galleries.

CJ - Sorry to hear about the heat. It was warm in the SF Bay Area today but not where I am directly on the coast. The fog finally burned off about 3:30 pm and the thermostat hit a wopping 68F...not too shabby for a summer day on the northern CA coast.

Michael
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Galleries:
http://www.pbase.com/mtpuff

There just isn't a better song out there so here are the full lyrics.

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky

But till that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With daddy and mamma standing by

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

(Don't you just wish it were true for everybody...or somebody...lol)

Best Wishes,

Traveller

I use it for my kids stuff (not that I'm doing much of that at the moment) to provide a DVD of all the images (there's only so many you can fit on one 24x20 composite!)

In the early part of last year it was somewhat buggy, but their support is very good and very responsive. I think I went through about 5 "upgrades" in 2 months, but once they fixed all the problems it's been solid and reliable.

I'd like a little more speed, but then I suspect most of that problem lays with my now aging (relatively speaking) PC.

They have a "bigger" version called Produced but while Hold is around $79 (US), Producer is more like $300 and I couldn't justify the differences (though some are nice features).

Personally, I can't recommend it highly enough, it's an excellent program.

Phil
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://tot-shots.co.uk



'Old photographers don't retire, they just lost their focus.' - Patrick Litchfield

I've had a number of ideas for things I've found that would make great abstracts.

But I'm tempted to move them from their original resting places to photograph them. And that seems to violate the spirit of things.

So I'm going to try my best to shoot things only "in place, as found" for this challenge. I don't have a "studio", but I do sometimes like to arrange things. And that seems like it might not be true to the theme this time.

So I guess I'm forcing myself to wait until I've got the time to go on a good shooting expedition.

I've been a bit busy lately too with home and work projects.

But darn it, I'm going to load my stuff up into it's bag and take it with me to work today and when I get off, I'm going to go out hunting for good subjects. A challenge should be a challenge! I think we're up to it.

And it is a theme that I really like. It offers so many possibilities. It really is one of those themes that's got me thinking.

So for me, at least, I think this is a great challenge even if I'm taking my sweet time about it

--
Jim H.

--
Please visit my gallery at http://pbase.com/lonnit

and offer your comments. Tell me what you like and what you don't, and why. I welcome all opinions.

All righty...some of you have been "bad to the bone". I really dislike this part of the hosting job so y'all that aren't paying attention are kinda irritating me. This time 'round I'll move images to pending in the next 12 hours rather than PBase compressing them. These images must be below 153600 bytes...this is published information and easily available information. Here are the oversize images to date:

Eligible:

iPOD Generation by LaMouche
Life Cycle by Jorge Elguera
Self Abstraction by Lonnit Rysher
I N K by LaMouche
On the Rocks by mlynn

Exhibition:

Arrow & Dot by Lonnit Rysher
Lantern by Ori
Leaf by Yigal Ismakov
Sea of Tranqulity by JudiB
Pipes by JudiB
Pier by JudiB
Windowed by MCsaba

PLEASE take care of this folks. These are wonderful submissions and deserve to be in the galleries but they really must be in line with the rules and, more importantly, other folks submissions.

Michael
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Galleries:
http://www.pbase.com/mtpuff

...Mikey and db have taken objection to, Background Abstract.

And truth be told, I'm with them...just off the top of my head, CJ, Pops and Mikey himself have entered such fine abstracts that I have had to banish myself to Pending. The Galleries are gorgeous! (at least I am an honest man)

BTW, Bayou Blue as a paint color did not work...so I'm moving to a much darker blue and white for the bedroom...or yellow.

However, I have decided on Yellow for the study upstairs and hallways, so how much yellow can one house take? I'm even considering yellow and white for downstairs.

Hey! Nice luck, I went back to see what the house looked like in '00, and found a nice abstract before I went Digital. Cool. Let's see what I can do with up-rezing that view from the weird upstairs window.

For various unaccountable reasons, when I bought this wreck of a house, I had to be done with it quickly, (to open the office and because people were bitching at me to finish and I was largely working alone), and so, while I did it acceptably...I really had no time to play or decide what I might want...hence all this current hesitation on paint color, styles of cabinets, God, all the decisions it takes to make a house. I never had any idea how much goes into a house.

Don't get me wrong, my current house is the best thing that has ever happened to me...but it was a disaster starting out. See Here:



Yellow, yes, yellow makes me happy....lol

Best Wishes,

Traveller

Michael, appears that I am one the main culprits, it was an oversight, not intentional. I will do it when I get back home from work, but that will only be some 8 hours from now! Please bear with me!
--
Judi

Oversized picture (damn PaintShopPro!!!!) and that lunacy of a new name... wanted to change screen name but thought better of it

--
Matt

http://www.pbase.com/mattBphoto

It's my experience from long term involvement in the CTF Challenges that the BEST way to get people to fix their fat files was to move them to pending and post a courtesy notice in the thread.

Nothing else works as well.

I support you actions totally.

Pops

--
flickr.com/photos/atl_pops
'Remember, The wind is your friend.'
Charter member of Atlanta CSLR Challengers Society

I tried and tried and tried to get that critter to the proper size. I finally had to reduce the dimensions to 500 pixels on the longest side, and saved it at level 7 (if I went to 6 it actually jumped up again in size). It told me it was 139000 or so when I saved it so I thought it was okay. Apparently not though.

At larger dimensions, I couldn't even go as low as level 3 compression and have it be within the size criteria. I can't get to it now, but will try again after work.

Melanie

Yup, so much detail that puppy would be tough. I took a try at it using "save for web" since the EXIF was already uploaded. After several tries at "dialing it in", I got it to 151,104 bytes. Comparing yours and mine, I didn't see any difference. I went ahead and uploaded my reduced version but feel free to replace it with your own if you choose.

Michael
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Galleries:
http://www.pbase.com/mtpuff

I didn't think it was intentional I won't move the images to pending since I know you are working on it. Give a holler if you need help on techniques to get them into the size limitation. It can be a bit tough sometimes.

Michael
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Galleries:
http://www.pbase.com/mtpuff

...I wondered if you were trying out a new name. Those images certainly have your style to them.

Thanks for taking care of IPOD Generation. When you get a moment, can you reduce I N K as well? (Love I N K, by the way. I'll get around to comments later today, I hope.)

Thanks,

Michael
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Galleries:
http://www.pbase.com/mtpuff