I went to visit a friend this evening, and took a CD with some pictures to show. It took a while and a few false starts, so the CD wasn't exactly what I'm after as far as showing pictures, but I learned something about making the CD thing, and I think my friend enjoyed the pictures.
I'm trying to think of a good number of pictures to put on a CD (with labels), and then actually get printed into regular prints (because sometimes you don't have a computer, right?). So, wisdom of the internet, how many pictures would you put on a CD to represent your 5 months away?
I'm thinking of a few from Borneo (orangutans! sunset!), a few of Host University and the apartment (for some folks who would find that interesting), and then the bulk of various places I really loved visiting, people, and cherry-blossom viewing.
But what's a good number. I don't want to bore folks. But there's a LOT to choose from! So how many?
My Sibling got our Mom a digital picture frame thing a couple years ago. You put a flash drive or memory stick or one of a number of other computery things in it with pictures on it, and then when you plug it in and turn it on, the frame shows a slide show of the pictures. I loaded it up with some of the pictures from our trip together, and it was pretty cool. So maybe I should think of doing something like that? (But I'll get some prints made, anyways, since prints are fun.)
You're so polite in your desire not to bore people with too many pictures. I always print the best photos, despite having them all on the computer or the external hard drive. That often means having many more photos than anyone could possibly want to see (except me!).
ReplyDeleteI'd say that filling a good size album (so 200-300 pictures) wouldn't be unreasonable for the printing. You have 5 months worth of pictures -- and travel pictures really are more fun (I think. But I'm also the person who actually enjoyed my great-uncle Ben's slide show of the trip to Africa. I might not be the best person for this question).
I got nothing on the CD front -- actually I would just figure out how many pictures the CD-rom holds and fill it up. You can always organize folders of different pictures -- and maybe have a "greatest hits" sort of folder for showing off to people who just want to see a few.
I admit that much of the reason that I fill the albums is for myself. (And my husband is so nice about the insanely high number of photo albums in our house). But I love travel and I love looking at the photos from my travels.
After 2-1/2 years in the field (Indonesia, Singapore, and Japan, with a side trip to Europe...I know, hard life...), I had thousands of pictures, many of them quite nice. My solution was thematic albums: a food album, a "bizarre modes of transportation" album, etc. This is really easy to do with a CD, much easier than in a real album.
ReplyDeleteFor a real slide show (and you probably know this already, so apologies in advance) a good rule of thumb is 1 minute per picture. Presumably you have something to say about each picture you show, right? So if you have 30 pictures, that's a half-hour slide show right there, with no slop for fumbling, questions, etc.
Rather than aiming for a specific number, my system, using iPhoto, is to go through all the pix and rate the ones that stand out as good in some way. Then I just browse the rated ones, and de-select the ones that are too repetitive. Then I see what I have in that set.
ReplyDeleteI have uploaded the pix to get printed photo books and been very happy with the results. I mostly did family gifts, but I'm about to go back and do some just for me. I've also done webpages, with very brief captions, and family have reacted positively.
I like Richard's thematic idea. Also Greatest Hits (30-60pix) vs albums for yourself.
I don't have a number suggestion, but I think that having an actual album (or two) is the best way to go--at least, that's what I've tried to do. It's harder now that I use a digital camera, but for a couple of recent trips I did actually print out pictures and put them into albums (and I always do fancy albums with writing and the little corners that let you put pictures wherever you want, but maybe that's just me).
ReplyDeleteANYWAY my point is that I think it's easier for a viewer to kind of flip through an album at his/her own pace, rather than feeling like he/she needs to spend the same amount of time on each picture. It also lets you show some context for each image, since you might have several of the same thing. Then you don't need to worry so much about the number of pics, since the viewer can more easily determine the viewing pace.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete