chrisleighphotography.com

I’m writing this on a Sunday, and this morning it was my turn to do the visuals at my church.  I’m part of an active and technically quite “with it” church which uses a Mac (old Power Mac G4) for Keynotes and a PC for words and recording.  There are separate Keynotes (presentations like Powerpoints) for the welcome (displaying notices and information), for the sermon and sometimes for the children’s talk.  The words for worship songs are on a PC using “Words for Worship” software which helps to make sure everything is licenced properly and allows easy searching for songs.  We also record the sermon using Goldwave.  There is also a camera trained on the platform and a dvd player.  Output is sent to two projectors at the front of the building and to six balcony monitors as well as the creche.  All this can be rather complicated especially if you’re not quite sure what happens next or you have no script to follow for the sermon or the worship leader changes the songs during proceedings!  Next to me is the sound desk whose operator usually has his own problems – like recalcitrant microphones and the imminent danger of feedback at any stage.  Fortunately, my turn only comes round roughly once a month, so although I generally enjoy doing the visuals, it does mean I can relax on the other Sundays.  Of course, when we put on a big production or use the Racecourse Centaur building things are even more complicated.  You can see more by searching my flickr for trinity visuals.  The photo was taken with an Olympus u740 with an horrendous amount of noise, reduced by the excellent Noise Ninja software.

• Rupert Maspero January 26, 2009

  I know that those camera’s are noisy, but you can really see the noise reduction; but it is good software.