Forgive me for putting a damper on this. I have an inherent dislike of panning and scanning still photos. If I watch a documentary, and the director has decided that he will have any still photos shot so the camera moves around and pics out detail, it puts me off. Especially when there isn't even an overall wide shot of the still image, or it is so short as to be pointless.
I have my screensaver set to randomly display pictures from a specified folder, and it can be done either static full frame, or with pans and scans. You can guess which I prefer. There is an argument that the human eye pans and scans an image when (say) viewing a hanging print, so seeing this translated to a (computer or TV) screen is fair. I disagree - when a print is viewed hanging on a wall, the human eye sees the whole image (including peripheral vision) but it is the brain that does the panning and the scanning. A photograph is presented by the photographer in a finished form - it is viewed the way the photographer wanted it to be viewed, so he/she has cropped it accordingly, or not at all. If the picture is then further manipulated by re-presenting it in an altered form, including moving the viewable area around the presented image, either by zooming or panning about etc, then it has gone beyond what the original intention was, and has effectively been changed - to the extent that it is a totally different thing (IMO). The same argument could also be made by film directors who produce a finished piece of work in a format suitable for the cinema (say with an aspect ratio of 16:9 - 'letterbox' width) and then when it is shown on television (old-style - and there are plenty still around with an aspect ratio of 4:3) - what happens then? There are several solutions. One is to show the full frame, but obviously have dark areas top and bottom with no picture (my preference) - but TV bosses hate that because the picture is smaller as a result. Or to zoom in a small amount, reducing the dark areas top and bottom, but losing some picture area at either side (a reasonable compromise). Or finally to 'pan and scan'. This means that when a film is transferred to video (using old-fashioned terms here, as it has traditionally been done up to the late 80's) an operator zooms right in so there are no dark areas anywhere on the screen, and literally pans back and forth depending on where (in his or her opinion!) the main action is taking place. For instance, in a long static shot involving two characters, one either side of the frame - say a pair of gunslingers facing each other in a western - the operator may pan the frame backwards and forwards at will, even cutting between the two 'vantage points'!! Any director worth his or her salt would foam at the mouth with this thought. Obviously the technology is now changing and formats are increasingly widescreen, but my point is made. IMO once an image is effectively published, only the originator of the image should be responsible for allowing changes to the way it is viewed. If anyone asked to use my pictures in such a way, I would decline. It does draw up some interesting thoughts though (as oddly enough I am fully in favour of innovative and creative technique) - imagine a gallery where there are 30 LCD screens hanging on the walls, with one image on each screen, yet on each the frame is changing constantly, panning and scanning, moving around, selecting an area of the photograph to view, never seeing the entire image. Could be interesting. I'm sure it's been done. Saturday morning blither done :-) Mike Johnston, move over! Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ || (O) | People, Places, Pastiche ||=====| http://www.cottysnaps.com _____________________________
