New Sports Photography Slideshow

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I have a photo website dedicated exclusively to sports photography. It is called Perfect Game Photos and you can view the site here: http://www.perfectgamephotos.com/

One of the new features I added to this sports photography website is a slideshow of my published photos. Initially, I created the slideshow in Adobe InDesign and then exported it as a Flash slideshow. This worked well but had some serious limits. For example, those of you who use a tablet or smart phone were probably not able to view this slideshow.

So, since it was another stormy day in the Poconos on Labor Day, I labored just a little in front of my laptop to create a new version of this slideshow. I wanted to use Javascript so the slideshow can be viewed on just about any device. After some prep and planning, I started working out the script. It did take some time, but I ended up with just about what I was hoping to produce. You can view the end result here: http://www.perfectgamephotos.com/Slideshow.html

This slideshow features my sports photographs that were published in the Pocono Record. I am still amazed that more and more of my work is being found worthy of publication, which was a long-time dream of mine. I continue to learn all the time! I hope the trend continues but I realize that I must keep my personal expectations high. I must also keep working hard.

Sports photography is demanding at times and capturing the winning shot is not always easy. Lousy lighting at Friday night football games and nasty backgrounds at other sporting events are just two of the dilemmas that present problems for sports shooters. Keeping alert and always being ready is absolutely necessary. Nothing beats good preparation and knowing the game. Combining these skills and being the recipient of some good luck isn’t a bad combination either!

I hope to keep adding to my published portfolio. Sports photography is my passion and capturing the exciting action on the field to make lasting memories is my goal. I hope my photographs tell a sports story. More important, I hope they evoke emotion!

 

Elk Slideshow on YouTube

Sometimes I am a bit envious of my photo buddies who shoot video of wildlife. I am a still photographer for better or worse. I believe that videography is a much different skill set than photography. For whatever reason I prefer photography. I also don’t really care for the longer editing time spent on video nor the storage space required. Perhaps it doesn’t hurt that I was taught on black and white film photography back in my college days. I still have that old Minolta film camera and all my darkroom equipment. Some things are just difficult to part with you know! I do enjoy digital photography and Lightroom, but every once in a while I pine for those old darkroom days!

I was talking with a friend of mine, Matt Parton, who is into film photography. In fact, he wrote and is producing a new web series called “Imagine Frank.” He told me that many people have put slideshows up on YouTube so it isn’t exclusively for videos. At the same time I was having trouble establishing a link on website to the mp4 slideshow of the Pennsylvania Elk I recently created. After talking more with Matt I was convinced enough to give it a try.

You can now view my slideshow on YouTube and the link to it from my website works perfectly. This was a great way to show the slideshow featuring the “Pennsylvania Elk Photography Experience” that my good friend and colleague hosts with me twice a year. This photo trip features three solid days of wildlife photography and we get many opportunities to photograph the majestic elk of Pennsylvania. Three photo workshops are included. We also recently added a day-trip option as well.

Here is a slideshow of photographs captured during previous “Pennsylvania Elk Photography Experiences.” I hope you enjoy viewing it. Take a look and leave a comment on what you think of it. Thanks!

Capture photographs like this at our “Pennsylvania Elk Photography Experience!”

Pennsylvania Elk Photo Experience – Fall Rut 2011

There is absolutely no place I would rather be in the fall than in Benezette, Pennsylvania photographing the beautiful and majestic elk of Pennsylvania. The fall colors, the active bugling bull elk, and the excitement of the fall rut bring sounds and sights that are just out of this world! Photographing these amazing sights is high on my list of must-do experiences every year.

My good friend and photography colleague, Dick McCreight, and I enjoy leading photo trips on the elk range each fall. We particularly enjoy sharing how we photograph the elk with those interested in learning helpful photo skills to do the same. We take viewing etiquette very seriously, so our numbers are small so we can both teach outdoor photo skills to you while keeping our impact on the elk range to a minimum.

This fall photo trip will be our 6th trip and we cannot wait to be out with our cameras photographing the elk!

If you enjoy wildlife photography and want to learn how to take better photographs, then this is the perfect trip for you. Our photo trip features three in-depth workshops where we discuss camera set-up & use, wildlife photography, history of the PA elk, and editing photographs in Adobe Lightroom. You will definitely learn new photo skills in these workshops! Then we take what we learn from each other and put it all into use as we take a minimum of six excursions on the elk range to capture the excitement with our cameras. Each evening we share our photographs of the day and enjoy constructive critiques on our five best photos of the day.

Digital photography has come a long way in recent years. The problem is learning how to use this new technology to capture the photos of your dreams. This trip will not only help you learn how to do this, but will put you in a position to capture the magnificent elk of Pennsylvania with your camera!

Click here to find out more info about these photo trips. Click here to see some photos of previous photo trips and click here to view a slideshow of what our trips offer. Feel free to email any questions you may have about these trips. We are confident that you will not only find our photo trip to be educational but also entertaining and filled with loads of photo fun! Try it out this year by attending our PA Photo Elk Experience–it will be an experience of a lifetime!

Bob Shank & Dick McCreight

Slideshows and Flash

Do you like viewing or showing slideshows of your photographs?

I definitely do, but a recent change has caused problems for me. Most all of the slideshows I created in the past were created in flash. This is fine for browsers like FireFox and Explorer to handle, but they cannot be viewed with an iPad or a smartphone. This new development seriously limits how I want to get my photographs out there in front of other people.

So what do you do? I am curious how you present your photos on the web for others to see. Do you still use Flash? Do you use slideshows? How do you like to get your photos in front of other people?

I know that things change all the time, particularly in the computer industry. I have used web galleries for several years and I still like to use slideshows. But now I am wondering if I should still do this on my web site since I will be limiting some viewers who come to my site via an iPad or smartphone.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas?

Here is one of my slideshows, but I wonder if you will be able to view it…