On May 10, 4:16 pm, "TheBreeze" wrote:
"One4All" wrote in message

oups.com...

The problem is not knowing which photos will
interest these people.

Of course, they all interest *me*. It's almost impossible to separate
photos for each interest group.

Think in terms of "memories." Don't just "document" what people looked like
or where the went...go for great memories. That's the difference between a
shot showing family members in front of something, and some of those same
people enjoying that something. I'm thinking about a kid talking to Mickey
Mouse at Disneyland vs. everyone posing in front of the entrance gates.
(Although, those gates might be a good rememberance as well.)

Points well taken. I've come to realize there are documentary family
photos (This is how we all looked like then, when we were together.)
and family photos that show an experience, a kind of environmental
portrait & after all, isn't this what we're talking about?
Portraiture? I guess it's how that portrait is taken, whether as a
group or as an individual.

And, it gets to your audience and its sensitivity to your efforts as a
photographer, and that's where the difficulty in selecting photos
lies. You can have a great portrait of a group or person, but if the
audience doesn't care about the people in it, what's the use?
Conversely, if your photo
shows Mom & Dad standing outside the farm house in 1938, it's a
keeper, as Breeze indicated. If a photo is a technical or
compositional disaster, all bets are off.

I think the best route is to intermingle documentaries and
environmentals where possible, and above all, avoid unnecessary
repetition of portraits within a short period of time. Individual
portraits should be a year apart, unless the person is with a group
whose members have not already appeared, or unless the person is
involved in some interesting activity. Birthday parties, etc., should
have no more than four photos, if that.

Anyone putting together a program for others has to recognize viewers
are accustomed to professional TV ads and programs, which are directed
to specific audiences and that attention spans are short because of
this. It should matter that they consider it's you producing the
program, but, hey, they can't help it. Well, they can, but up to a
point.

Most of us cannot compete with the professional media. The best we can
do is present our programs as amateurs, which our audiences
understand, in a simple way that appeals to them. All the bells and
whistles will not put Humpty Dumpty together. In short, I'm finding
making DVDs for family a real *labor* of love.