One minute of winter
The drive from Charleston this weekend could have been summed up in one word, rainy. In Charleston, it rained all day from morning until I left. It was one of those rains that you knew would continue throughout the day and it did. Before leaving, I checked the weather map. It showed the entire way, and beyond, from Florida all the way through Virginia covered with rain. When I left, it was 52 degrees and rainy. When I arrived in Charlotte, it was 32 degrees (0 degrees C) and raining. The trip didn’t take as long as I expected, only about 1/2 hour longer than normal, 4 hours.
On Saturday morning when I got up, I looked outside. It was cloudy and cold, but there only appeared to be ice on metal surfaces and tree branches. After a while, the sun started to peak out. I went outside to have a look and saw the sun shining through the branches and highlighting the ice. Where I stood, all was a bit damp, but pretty clear. No more rain. However, only a few yards away, it sounded like quite a downpour as the sun worked to release the trees from the grip of the ice.
This time I was prepared. I had my little digital recorder with me. I recorded a minute or two of this ‘downpour’, the sounds of chickadees, as well as a passing jet. Then, off to the car to get the camera. Unfortunately, at the time, I had no way to put the sound onto the laptop, so I had to make a trip to Radio Shack to get a small cable to connect so that I could record the sound.
I put this little slide show together hastily, just to give you a bit of what I saw and heard. I call it One Minute of Winter because that’s about all that we get every year. It will probably snow again in February, and will add up to two minutes. We’ll see.
Nice! Sounds and photos work together just as intended. Often, I don’t like a “sound carpet” to go with a slideshow. Mainly because I have a different opinion concerning the choice of music – which then starts being a bit annoying. But the natural background that you selected… Works for me!
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Very cool Paul. I love ice storms the best.
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Wow, Paul. I like it a lot,the images and sound in a slideshow. I assume it’s stepping out of a comfort zone, something new. Just thinking how difficult it would be to record a snow fall.
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Paul Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 7:42 am
Ever since I saw 1 in 8 million that mode of expression has stuck with me. I now carry around a digital recorder when I take photos. Some topics really seem to fit this way of expression. It is way out of my comfort zone, but exciting. I’ve been watching some Ken Burns documentaries, too. There is lots to learn.
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Paul, the sound really adds to the beautiful slideshow.
In general, one thing I dislike about most slideshow players is how they handle portrait images — resizing them to fit the vertical height leaving black or blank areas on either side. I would rather see the player boundaries dynamically resize to fit the image, much like the “Lightbox” viewer does. Perhaps someone knows of one that does this?
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I love that idea, recording the background sounds and putting them with your sideshow. That would be cool to do with a selection of casual family photos from a holiday get-together too!
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Ice palaces
Really nice
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How cool. Very creative Paul, totally enjoyable. A shame it was so short
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