Background for photo loop

[smilesds]

Our pastor is retiring and I've been asked to create a loop for his retirement celebration showcasing photos from his life and ministry. There will be some slides with just words on them so I'll need a background for behind those slides. Plus to tie the photos together better I'd like to keep that background behind all the photos as well. I've been looking at images all night trying to get an idea or spark for what to use for the background, but I'm still drawing a blank. Any ideas???

[[Admin] osborn4]

Could you make a collage of the various churches he's served at? Reduce the contrast and blur it a bit, so it would work as a contrast.

Otherwise, knowing your pastor, go with a train motif. create a Gospel train of some sort.

[smilesds]

I like the idea of using the churches he's served at and I do have pictures of each of them. I'll have to play with that and see if I can come up with something I like. I thought about the train idea, but one of the planners wanted too much of a train focus so they have been working hard to minimize the trains and focus on his ministry.

[[Admin] osborn4]

How many churches is that? Perhaps you could run them across the bottom or left side and do some sort of render clouds or gradient background for the rest of it.

Edit: 4 AM! Oh that's right. That's coming up this weekend, isn't it?

[smilesds]

Yup. Has to be ready for Saturday night. It was 3 churches so would be feasible to have variations of placement. In fact we're using pictures from all 3 churches so if they were along the side on the picture slides, I could emphasize the church that the picture is from.

[jksbc]

I prefer black backgrounds for the majority of my photo slideshows. If it's feasible I try to fill the slide with the photo and do a pan/zoom effect to add motion. If you can do that there's no need for a background at all.

[smilesds]

I know lots of people like using black behind photo loops. I've done some in the past and prefer to use a background behind the photos. Works like a frame and ties everything together better. This is going to be a somewhat formal presentation and I think the background helps with that. Besides there will be a few slides with words from church members so I do need a background to go behind those.

Joel, I've been working on your suggestions and have worked up a couple of backgrounds, but could use some helpful critiquing since they're not quite right yet.

[smilesds]

Here are the latest versions...

[[Admin] osborn4]

I like 'em. They don't pop out, but you don't want them to be the star.

[smilesds]

I changed the one with the smaller churches so they are spread out along the bottom and I like it a lot better. So I've actually got to get busy putting it all together.

[jksbc]

I really like them.