Victoria Camera Club - Members' Nights Guidelines

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Members' Nights Preparation Guidelines

Club members are invited to stake out a 10-minute time slots (one or more during the year) during which they will be given the floor to present work of their choosing including prints, slides and/or digital images. Perhaps you'd like to host a group discussion about some aspect of photography or a question and answer session.We would also like to encourage members to present short learning sessions (e.g. How I did this). Longer shows may be accepted depending on subject matter and time available.

The default setup for presentations is the club laptop and digital projector. The club does have film
slide projectors available on request. Our recommendation is to create a Window's based executable file that results in a self-running slide show. ProShow Gold is the club standard. There are workshops on using it from time to time, and you can try a demo version for free. Other programs can also create an executable slide show or a digital video of your slide show. 

We'd like to avoid having to set up and switch between other computers during the show. We have had problems getting other laptops to display properly, or at all in some cases. The club projector is set up to display from the club laptop and we generally don't have time to adjust the projector during the evening. 

The new projector has a resolution of 1400 wide by 1050 high. Some care may be needed in saving files, either to embed a colour profile or save them as sRGB. Ideally images would have been prepared on a display that has been calibrated and profiled, but this is not essential. The club laptop and projector have been calibrated and profiled. Photocentric.net has a PDF on How to Prepare Images for Electronic Presentation.

If the presentation includes a digital slide show it should be sent to the the Member's Night coordinator at least two weeks prior to Member's Night. (i.e. the first club meeting of a month). For shows where the file size is under 10MB it should be possible to just email them as an attachment to showcase@victoriacameraclub.org. Larger files can be put on CD or USB drive and brought to meetings.Slide shows will be checked for technical problems. This will hopefully avoid issues we've had in the past where we've been unable to play the show at the meeting. 

Please view the Producing a Slide Show PDF, specifically the Mistakes to Avoid section. It recommends editing of slides to include only quality images that are relevant. It also suggests
“How can you present a travelogue without the 'and on Monday we got up and boarded the bus and ...'
format? One way is to reorganize your slides according to specific themes – for instance English
Churches – in lieu of talking of your visit to England day by day.”

A second recommended reference, linked here, is How to Create Photo Essays, also from
Photocentric.net. This is a bit more detailed and is newer so it includes digital references.

Here's a link to a short helpful article: Five Things Every Slideshow Should Have.

Slides shows will also be previewed for content. If you'd like help with your show, please discuss with
the coordinator and send the show in early so that there will be time to review and get feedback. To
begin with, short shows of up to five minutes are often easier to create. With fewer images, you'll keep
to the story or tone of the show, you might only need one song if you're using music, and having to show
fewer pictures means you'll likely show the best images. That all contributes to an enjoyable experience
for the audience. 

Here's a list of some programs and their ability to create slide shows: 

The club laptop has Irfanview, Powerpoint Viewer, and Quicktime installed to assist in playing shows. Quicktime can handle a large variety of digital video formats.

Member's night can be one the most exciting parts of the club. Let's make it so!


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