#oneaday, Day 144: Another Multimedia Extravaganza

More pictures with sound for your delectation tonight. This time I thought I’d experiment with some black and white photos. I hadn’t originally intended to take the photos with a particular theme in mind, other than that I knew I wanted to try doing some black and white ones. When I loaded the pics onto my computer, though, it became apparent that I had managed to take pictures with almost no people in them whatsoever. This wasn’t intentional, but it provided a theme for the set anyway. I shouldn’t have told you that, you weren’t to know, were you? Let’s start again.

This is a set based on the theme of being alone.

Whew, got away with that, I think.

I can assure you that Southampton is just fine and has not suffered a 28 Days Later-style zombie apocalypse which emptied the streets. Some may say that’s a shame. But there are a few nice people here, so I don’t wish a zombie apocalypse on the whole place just yet. A few areas, perhaps.

The music for this particular slideshow is “Living with Determination” from Persona 3. It seemed a fittingly melancholy piece for the moody nature of the photos.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with how these pictures came out, and with the overall effect of the slideshow as a whole. It was an interesting day to take photos, actually. You can probably see how the weather changed as my journey progressed – it started dull and cloudy, but the sun eventually came out. The clouds stuck around, though, making for some dramatic, stormy skies. Hence the many pictures of clouds!

I’m definitely going to do more of these, as they’re fun and reasonably easy to put together. Plus it’s yet another means of self-expression, which is always good.

I’ve always enjoyed photography over the years. I remember getting a bit bewildered by an old film-based SLR camera back home with my parents, and later getting my own point-and shoot cameras, taking bajillions of photos and often being complimented for my good composition. Obviously I’m no pro and haven’t had any proper training, so I’m sure there’s all sorts of things technically wrong with them that I can do better. But as I used to tell people who came in wanting to learn about iPhoto and Aperture – if you’re not being paid for the pictures you take, whether or not you like them is the only important thing.

So true – for so many things besides photography, too. Sums up the whole idea of #oneaday, in fact, not to mention the photography-based variant #365. People are doing these things for themselves as a means to express themselves, develop their own skills and perhaps show off just a little bit. When other people end up appreciating your work, it’s always a pleasant surprise. And if they don’t like it, it’s the old artist’s defense – “it wasn’t for them anyway”.

So anyway. I hope you enjoy (or enjoyed) the slideshow. There will be more to come in the future as soon as I get back out there with my camera and get all snap-happy.


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5 thoughts on “#oneaday, Day 144: Another Multimedia Extravaganza

  1. Fanbloodytastic Pete! in fact the pics are fuckn brill and the music parfait! Can I get the sheet music of that online? If so where? Can I get it trho my iPad – I have a couple of sheet music apps. Do I just type in Persona 3 to get the composer?
    I wish you could just pop over here to Perth West Australia and show me how to do that! My you-beaut electonic piano does record things, and could probably transfer it to the puter, but the book for it is a doorstop and I don’t have the confidence to do it. Bugga!
    Where did all my confidence go? It’s gone into hiding lately. And how do I get my pics on like that into a slide show? Can I do it with my WordPress? I spose I’ll have to send their support team ANOTHER email! they’ll be loving me that’s for sure. Probably tossing up between them as to who doesn’t help me. lol
    I noticed that it was on UTube – it said in the corner. I am now going to read/listen to all the other blogs in that series. I think I’m gonna have to start a fan club for you over here. Jud
    PS: I’m a dill. I just spotted your Wasteland Diaries clearly displayed in the side bar!! Sheeesh!

    1. The composer of the Persona 3 and 4 soundtracks is called Shoji Meguro, and the sheet music for both games is available as a book. I forget where I got my copy from, I’m afraid, but I imagine a quick Googling will turn up a few options that will ship to you.

      The slideshow was made using iMovie on my Mac. There’s a handy facility in there where you can insert a music track and then mark “beats” in it where you’d like, say, images to change or footage to cut to another angle/scene. Then it was just a case of inserting the photographs, occasionally fiddling with the Ken Burns effect (that’s the zoomy-panny effect on the pics) and inserting some transitions between each picture. After that, export and upload to YouTube — I believe iMovie even has the facility to upload directly to YouTube from within the program.

      The music was recorded from my electric piano hooked up to my Mac and using a piece of software called Logic Studio. It takes input from a keyboard/electric piano (or notes input by hand/drawn on a stave) and allows you to fiddle with the sounds. I just used a straightforward grand piano sound for this one. After that, you can export the music as a straight audio file, like an MP3 or a WAV, and then that can be brought into something like iMovie to use as a soundtrack.

      Hope that helps 🙂

  2. Thanks for that Pete. I hope I can get hold of them. What about the Final Fantasy pieces? Were they by Shoji Meguro as well? Are they in the Persona 3 & 4 books? Or were they separate?
    Do you think I might be able to find these via my iPad? I have a couple of sheet music apps in that – VSheetMusic, Musicnotes, and Sheet Music. I also have MusicD …gLite, PIY Lite, and Virtuoso, but I don’t know if these have sheet music or not. I think they might just be playing Apps.
    Anyway if you can recommend an iPad App that might be worth a look I’d appreciate it. Thios shows my email address below the comment so I am assuming that it shows up for you. Feel free to email me back with the answer. Love your blogs – and there are few that don’t interest me. Jud

    1. Oh, sorry! No, the vast majority of Final Fantasy pieces are by Nobuo Uematsu. There are specific “piano collections” books you can get with properly-arranged piano versions, which are the ones I played. There are also easy piano score versions of the complete soundtracks to various FF games, though the arrangements aren’t quite as good.

      I doubt you’d find these online or in an app, to be honest, as they’re quite “specialist”. I had to import most of them from Japan at moderate expense. I’ll have a look though, and let you know if there’s any means of getting them electronically.

  3. Thanks for that Pete. I would certainly appreciate it. The Publishers I found on Shoji’s site listed ‘piano collection’ books, but no prices that I could see. I didn’t go any further and open them up as I was online with a girlfriend and we were exploring the music situ together. She is a beginner and I thought that these pieces may be relatively simple for her yet really interesting – and for me as well of course. I’ll try to focus on this page in your RSS comments list if I can find it again. Jud

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