This Audio – Visual compilation is intended to capture some of the atmosphere associated with the live performance of Electric Blues music and other creative genres, and was recorded in many Bars and Clubs in the USA, travelling a number of times to cities between Chicago and New Orleans.  The material obtained comprises still Images, taken on a Canon PowerShot S30 Digital Camera, plus a small number of Video Clips, and live Audio Clips taken with the same camera. 

For visual relief, some of the music is presented against daytime images in the same location.  For example Elvis Presley's Graceland, in Memphis TN, is set against live present day electric blues on Beale Street of that city.  The house itself is a photographic challenge, since only non-flash photos are allowed.  The buildings of Chicago, and the river in New Orleans could also not be missed.  Bourbon Street at night is however something else.

Since the source audio clips from the camera are in mono, stereo conversion is performed, together with level normalisation.  Considerable use of editing software is used to prepare the still images.  This is particularly important since it is fundamental to the project that flash photography is banned, and the types of venue concerned are always dark and tend to use lighting with violent colour changes as part of the performance.  The tracks were produced on a PC, combining two sets of visual images, either still or movie, with two audio tracks and a caption channel.  Video transition effects are added in software, as are audio mixes and fades.  The resultant tracks were produced to DVD quality, with a resolution of 720 x 576 pixels, using the PAL 50 fps standard.  Further compression to around 400 x 300 pixels in 240kbps Windows Media format just supports Full Screen progressive download to a broadband connection.