Ken Burns effect

[Caezar]

I have been creating many slideshows in iPhoto lately and so far I have always chosen to apply the Ken Burns effect automatically to all photos. The start and end frames would be chosen by the application, not always to my liking.

I now would like to chose the start and end points. Is there any "rule" to follow? For example, for a portrait, would the best effect be attained by zooming into the subject or out of it? Are there some types of photos that do not lend themselves to the Ken Burns effect, such as group pictures, landscape, etc?

Thanks for the advice.

Caezar

 

[TheAnswer]

I would think that zooming into a portrait would be to add emphasis to the emotional connection with the subject...while zooming out would be effective if there is something surprising about the surroundings (like say zooming out from a child's eyes to show him surrounding by a pack of wild dogs). Zooming in to group photos would work to show a particular person in the group, while zooming out from a particular person would show that they were not alone in what they did or show the diversity (or lack of) their companions (like for example an old photo of an african american high school student then zooming out to reveal he/she is the only minority student).

Good luck