Local History Society Project

[Geoff F]

I have previously mentioned in other posts that my photography time has been rather limited recently due to involvement in a project with my local history group.

Well that project is finally drawing towards finishing.

We made 12 recordings from some of our older residents, some of which were over 2 hours long. I have had to do the editing of audio and digital material and composing a one hour long DVD based on extracts from the recordings.

Another responsibility was taking photographs to catalogue each stage of the project. So here is the full story.

We were awarded a funding grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Some members of the committee at the start of the project.



We attended a training course in oral history recording. I didn't take this image but I did spend quite a bit of time over editing it.



Recordings were made in people's homes. Besides photography, I operated the audio recorder.



Editing the recordings to get extracts and finding suitable accompanying images took a lot of time.



Finally, we held a preview showing of the completed DVD in the local rugby club where those who contributed to the recordings plus a few other guests were invited.



And another view of some of the stars from the show.



The light was reduced during the screening so I had to do what I could with a bit of flash. I did consider bouncing flash off the ceiling to give better coverage but there were some deep beams across the room.

7D with Tamron 24-70 lens. Plus quite a bit of editing.

And now, with the official launch in a couple of days, I have been busy designing, printing and burning the DVD's plus literature for the box covers.

Perhaps I will then get a bit more time for general photography. But I am retired now, so there is always so much to do!

[ShaneS]

What a beautiful project Geoff. My Mom is the journal editor for her local genealogy society and I have been enlisted a number of times to edit images, assist in the preparation of power point presentations and the like so I know how time consuming these 'labors of love' can be. We recently completed a 45 minute presentation/dvd on one of the founders of her small town on Vancouver Island that will be on display in the local museum. I have to say that once it was complete I was very happy to lay General Money (the subject of the presentation) back to rest again!

I hope all of your hard work on this project is well rewarded.

[rpcrowe]

Nice coverage of a very important project.

Unless we record the experiences of the older generations (to which I belong) they will be lost to history. Early in my Navy Photo Career, I was involved with doing audio (pre-video times) recordings of the experiences of retired Navy photographers. I interview one man who had shot some of the most definitive images of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, including U.S.S. Arizona when her magazines exploded. That was really interesting.

[Geoff F]

Just a little bit more of printing and burning discs to be done for the official launch on Thursday.

And now, a little extra job, as some A3 prints, plus captions, are needed for two display boards.

One thing that I have become aware of during this project is that although my computer knowledge, amongst other items, is fairly low I have been amazed by just how little most other people seem to know about this subject.

Few of the other committee members are able to correctly resize photos, leave alone editing them. And I'm the only one with a printer which can print DVD's. Although, after a bit of help one other person has been able to also burn the discs.

Design of the DVD covers was also handed on to me.

This was supposed to be a 'learning experience' for the whole team but hasn't worked out that way. Most of the work has come down to three of us. However, some other members will have to start learning before the next project!

The sad bit about this adventure is that we started a bit too late for a couple of people that we would like to have interviewed.