Slideshows in 2019

perkeleellinen · Jul 27, 2019

Slideshows in 2019

It all started early last year – APUG had become a gloomy place for me with any post about Fuji inevitably moving into a rant about how they were evil and slowly getting out of film. Any post about Ektachrome inevitably became a post about how stupid Kodak was to move into such a dead end – after all there are huge debts… I decided if this was the end, I’d give slides and projection one last throw. I shot my summer holiday on slide and projected over the winter. Then some great luck – I was given two Ektapro 9010 projectors! I linked them up and did dissolves. I found a really inspiring article called ‘Try Projection’ in the October 1990 issue of Popular Photography. I’ve been having a lot of fun shooting and projecting, here’s some observations:

Keep your slideshows very short – for my family about 6 slides is maximum; You can show a different 6 slides each time .
Kids love projection and like the mechanical nature of the projectors.
Photos of nature get a ‘ooh’ but quick boredom; photos of relatives get much more attention.
Take care to select the right photos for your audience.
I’ve had success with two people shots followed by one landscape and then two more people shots. All done in 60 seconds.
People are so used to seeing photos on a tiny screen that a projection is really something.
Shooting slides highlights your mistakes! There’s no darkroom to fix things let alone a computer. I shot last year’s holidays on an XA , this year I’m using an SLR. I got too many wonky horizons with the XA and some exposure mistakes.
In the dark winter it’s nice to project colourful sunny photos from the summer.
You get to see all the frames on your roll enlarged. Normally I look at a contact sheet before printing. This is a different way of working and can uncover shots that may have been rejected when looking at a contact sheet.
Keep it short and people will find it fun.

Happy Projecting!

AgX · Jul 27, 2019

"6 slides at a maximum"

This actually puzzles me.

BrianShaw · Jul 27, 2019

Good for you... keeping this part of the art alive.

But I’d push back on that too. Seems more important to address both minimum and maximum projection time, as well as the need to carefully curate the presentation as also part of the equation for slide show length/duration.

But that’s picking nits. Your broader message is impressive and good guidance.

etn · Jul 27, 2019

AgX said:
"6 slides at a maximum"

This actually puzzles me.

I generally do 30-60 slides, 1 magazine (80 slides) being the absolute maximum. This makes a 15-30 mins slide show which is an acceptable duration for the audience. Sometimes they are asking for more.

Obviously if your projector is permanently set up and all you have to do is switch it on, it is easier to show “only” a dozen slides to your guests, then move on to something else, another cup of coffee, a new discussion topic, etc. I need 10 minutes to set mine up for projection, I don’t want to do this for only 3 minutes projection

perkeleellinen · Jul 27, 2019

Hi both - my thinking here: we live in an age of instagram and facebook with people scrolling through thousands of photos. My family and friends have such short attention spans because of this. 6 slides maximum means I can show more slides a week later, if I show 36 slides in one sitting no one will come back for more. It's sad, but I can't change my family and friends but I can change how I show photos.

etn · Jul 27, 2019

perkeleellinen said:
People are so used to seeing photos on a tiny screen that a projection is really something.

Shooting slides highlights your mistakes! There’s no darkroom to fix things let alone a computer. I shot last year’s holidays on an XA , this year I’m using an SLR. I got too many wonky horizons with the XA and some exposure mistakes.

In the dark winter it’s nice to project colourful sunny photos from the summer.

Happy Projecting!

Agree with you. Projecting is great. Congrats!
All I can say is, try medium format one day... it will blow your socks off.

etn · Jul 27, 2019

perkeleellinen said:
Hi both - my thinking here: we live in an age of instagram and facebook with people scrolling through thousands of photos. My family and friends have such short attention spans because of this. 6 slides maximum means I can show more slides a week later, if I show 36 slides in one sitting no one will come back for more. It's sad, but I can't change my family and friends but I can change how I show photos.

You are right - there is no right and wrong here. Good that you found the formula which works for you!

BrianShaw · Jul 27, 2019

etn said:
You are right - there is no right and wrong here. Good that you found the formula which works for you!

Some of us are scarred from a past life.

My Dad would set up the projector and show every slide, good or bad, from our past vacation... and then the last years, and the year before... all the way back to my younger brothers’s childhood.

And early in my career I developed content and produced industrial training programs in slide-tape format. Does anyone even remember those?????

So careful curation and attention to “attention span” of the INDIVIDUAL audience is of paramount importance.

AgX · Jul 27, 2019

perkeleellinen said:
Hi both - my thinking here: we live in an age of instagram and facebook with people scrolling through thousands of photos. My family and friends have such short attention spans because of this. 6 slides maximum means I can show more slides a week later, if I show 36 slides in one sitting no one will come back for more. It's sad, but I can't change my family and friends but I can change how I show photos.

But also consider the ceremony of setting up the shebang, darkening the room, the noise of the projector. That all is part of the show too.

Sirius Glass · Jul 27, 2019

I am glad you got out of the funk and are ready to try the new slide films that are coming out from Kodak.

etn · Jul 27, 2019

Sirius Glass said:
I am glad you got out of the funk and are ready to try the new slide films that are coming out from Kodak.

Can’t wait for its availability in 120 format! (later this year if I’m not mistaken...)

CMoore · Jul 28, 2019

perkeleellinen said:
Slideshows in 2019

It all started early last year – APUG had become a gloomy place for me with any post about Fuji inevitably moving into a rant about how they were evil and slowly getting out of film. Any post about Ektachrome inevitably became a post about how stupid Kodak was to move into such a dead end – after all there are huge debts… I decided if this was the end, I’d give slides and projection one last throw. I shot my summer holiday on slide and projected over the winter. Then some great luck – I was given two Ektapro 9010 projectors! I linked them up and did dissolves. I found a really inspiring article called ‘Try Projection’ in the October 1990 issue of Popular Photography. I’ve been having a lot of fun shooting and projecting, here’s some observations:

Keep your slideshows very short – for my family about 6 slides is maximum; You can show a different 6 slides each time .

Kids love projection and like the mechanical nature of the projectors.

Photos of nature get a ‘ooh’ but quick boredom; photos of relatives get much more attention.

Take care to select the right photos for your audience.

I’ve had success with two people shots followed by one landscape and then two more people shots. All done in 60 seconds.

People are so used to seeing photos on a tiny screen that a projection is really something.

Shooting slides highlights your mistakes! There’s no darkroom to fix things let alone a computer. I shot last year’s holidays on an XA , this year I’m using an SLR. I got too many wonky horizons with the XA and some exposure mistakes.

In the dark winter it’s nice to project colourful sunny photos from the summer.

You get to see all the frames on your roll enlarged. Normally I look at a contact sheet before printing. This is a different way of working and can uncover shots that may have been rejected when looking at a contact sheet.

Keep it short and people will find it fun.

Happy Projecting!

Really..... just 6 slides.?
I am not saying you are "wrong" but it is kind of hard for me to understand.
I realize people do not want to sit for an hour and watch a Whole Bunch of my slides.....but i would think they would be more interested by seeing 40-50-60 slides than they would just 6.?
If you know what i mean.....it seems like 6 would not be enough to hold their interest..... but maybe you have found 6 to be a good number.

Sirius Glass · Jul 28, 2019

perkeleellinen said:
You can show a different 6 slides each time .

Come on! How are you going to bore them to sleep with only six slides.

perkeleellinen · Jul 28, 2019

I'm envious of all of you with audiences able to watch shows with 60 slides!

My background: I come from a non-artistic, working class family. My audiences don't have tolerance for what I do so showing a little often is better than a lot once.

I'm not sure if my family and friends are unusual - in my day job I find students have very short attention spans during lectures and even at conferences everyone is scrolling emails whilst sitting through presentations. An experiment a colleague and me conducted at a conference in Berlin a few years ago: when she spoke I watched the audience and when I spoke she watched the audience. What we discovered was that people switched off after more than one slide of text but photos held attentions for longer. At the next conference round we both presented pure photo slides and got a lot more interest! Those were ten minute presentations with around 15 slides (all power point).

railwayman3 · Jul 28, 2019

BrianShaw said:
Some of us are scarred from a past life.

My Dad would set up the projector and show every slide, good or bad, from our past vacation... and then the last years, and the year before... all the way back to my younger brothers’s childhood.

And early in my career I developed content and produced industrial training programs in slide-tape format. Does anyone even remember those?????

So careful curation and attention to “attention span” of the INDIVIDUAL audience is of paramount importance.

That made me smile.....I can remember 2-hour slide shows from friends' vacations using every single shot taken and with long verbal explanations of each slide. Some even from fellow-members of the local Photographic Club, who really should have known better ! OTOH, there's nothing wrong with a well-prepared short slide show, but a good one should leave the audience "wanting more".

And, yes, I remember the business training programs. But, again OTOH, I still remember seeing a short professionally-prepared dissolving-slide/tape/music show on the unpromising topic of pottery manufacture; it lasted less than 10 minutes, but the quality and imagination of the images and matching to the music was amazing.

AgX · Jul 28, 2019

To be fair, in those days people were much less informed of foreign countries than today (just by media alone) and a lengthy vacancy slide show may have had its benefits beyond showing the family or beyond phototographic esthetics.

CMoore · Jul 29, 2019

AgX said:
To be fair, in those days people were much less informed of foreign countries than today (just by media alone) and a lengthy vacancy slide show may have had its benefits beyond showing the family or beyond phototographic esthetics.

Touche`

George Mann · Jul 31, 2019

Sirius Glass said:
I am glad you got out of the funk and are ready to try the new slide films that are coming out from Kodak.

They are going to have to come up with a replacement for Kodachrome!

jrhilton · Jul 31, 2019

I'm in the camp that is thankful these are a thing of the past i'm afraid. Nothing worse than having to sit through someone else's slides, unless it is a formal presentation by a subject matter expert you are wanting to see. Having an album to flip though at your own pace is better.

mshchem · Jul 31, 2019

I shoot 35mm and 6x6 medium format slides only for projection.
Last year the wife and I did a grand western tour of Yellowstone, Tetons, Black Hills etc. I used a F5 auto bracket 1/2 stop. Shot 6 36 exposure rolls. Developed myself, edited and mounted the best 50 or so slides.

Usual medium format show is 20 to 30 slides, all tend to be oohh ahh shots of colorful scenes. Medium format Fujichrome projected is beautiful.

Family get togethers anymore tend to be digital.

AgX · Jul 31, 2019

jrhilton said:
I'm in the camp that is thankful these are a thing of the past i'm afraid. Nothing worse than having to sit through someone else's slides, unless it is a formal presentation by a subject matter expert you are wanting to see. Having an album to flip though at your own pace is better.

We are living in a time of individualisation, nearly everyone is clinged to his smatphone, chosing his own program at own pace.
The thing of the slide show just is the contrary to this !

(Of course one must take care that smartphones are disabled as much as possible. But building a Faraday cage or a jammer is plain sailing for the average slide projectionist...)

Agulliver · Jul 31, 2019

I shoot for two audiences.....my immediate family and for my friends - many of whom inhabit the book of face.

I last did a slide show in 2008, when my dad was still around. I'd been to Barcelona and shot some K200 inside Sagrada Familia and Tura E6 film around the city. 72 slides which I whittled down to probably 40 really good/interesting ones. The problem now is that my immediate family is my wife and my mother, who aren't at all into me digging out a slide projector and putting on a show. I can see how young people, who genuinely do have the attention span of a gnat these days, might find very short slide shows acceptable. Hey, it's better than PowerPoint!

What a slide show does is give everyone the opportunity to talk about the photographs together. Though one can, of course, digitally project a Facebook album or present it on the TV (indeed I do this regularly)....it's not the same.

CMoore · Jul 31, 2019

#20
#21
#22
,,,,,,,,, Great Stuff.!

railwayman3 · Jul 31, 2019

jrhilton said:
I'm in the camp that is thankful these are a thing of the past i'm afraid. Nothing worse than having to sit through someone else's slides, unless it is a formal presentation by a subject matter expert you are wanting to see. Having an album to flip though at your own pace is better.

What is worse than any half-decent slide show is having to endure someone's holiday or family shots, comprising about 500 digital pictures, flicked through for about 3 seconds each on a tiny smartphone screen or a digital camera viewfinder.

perkeleellinen · Jul 31, 2019

I bought a remote control for my projector and I often give it to a family member / friend to decide the pace of the action.

Slideshows in 2019

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency