Seeing Dalian
Four local photographers have work on display right now in Heping Guangchang. The exhibition, called “I love Dalian” (they didn’t get to choose the name) runs until Oct. 15, after which two of them will move to their own show. Details aren’t available for that one yet. Directions to the current show are at DalianDalian.com.
All four studied photography in Dalian over the past year, three completing masters degrees from Bolton U./Dalian Medical University. Much of what they photograph is the same, or follows similar themes: beaches, migrant workers, strange food, blue skies. Yet they see it very differently from each other.
Curious about their perspectives, I interviewed each one and built audio slide shows with their photos. The result is here.
Production notes:
This started as one slide show but became four when the interviews got too long. I figure anything over two minutes better be damn important, so I gave each photog their own piece. Doing that meant I needed a launch page of some kind. There are ways to do that in Flash (tutorial at Multimedia Shooter) but I neither know nor own Flash. And considering that I really just started learning web design for real, I figured that was a bit out of my league anyway, so I did it in html.
I did two of the interviews—Gavin and Kerrilee—in my apartment, and I caught Dave outside the exhibition, hence the bit of background sound. With all three, I put my USB headset on them, then watched the recording waveforms on GarageBand. Christine is back in the US, so we spoke over Skype. If I were to do it over again, I’d just call her (still using Skype) on her fixed line and pay the 40 cents or so for better sound quality and avoid the computer mic noise. I’m still in the market for some better audio gear.