AV News 220 August 2020

there was nothing left in my diary to get cancelled!

the Yorkshire RPS AV Days at Leeds Trinity University. As you probably know

The University's Estates department has said that if the Auditorium was used

and I don't think we can risk meeting in November.

Chairman's Chatter

Edgar Gibbs FRPS, MPAGB, AV-AFIAP

Well it’s now over three months since lockdown and in the early days people spoke about the 'new normal'. This is now more of a reality than we had all expected. However, there’s still activity going on as the AV Community is not one to give up their hobby easily. The AV Group Committee met for real just before lock down and held an informal meeting, the rst using Zoom, which went well on 13 May. The next formal meeting will be held in July, using Zoom, which incidentally is saving the Group money.

Over two evenings during the second week in June, Linda and I took part in judging the 2020 Challenge 321 UK Competition, with over 50 other people, again on Zoom. It was very ably organised by Jill Bunting and John Smith. Both evenings went very well but although there were welcome breaks, unfortunately we couldn’t all adjourn to the bar at the end of the sessions so no real opportunity to discuss what we’d seen either! I am taking the opportunity to look and learn as the AGM, due in September, will have to be done using Zoom, as was the recent RPS Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM).

Regrettably, the Royal Photographic Society International AV Festival has been postponed until next year, but the same Judges have agreed to form the Jury in 2021. Following the announcement of the Festival’s postponement I was very touched to receive a number of supportive emails, as this was a very difcult decision.

I am really pleased that the second AV News e-xtra issue has been published and has been well received. Many thanks to Martin Addison for the work he put into its production as well as those who contributed articles. Thanks also to Sheila Haycox for continuing to make our website even better and liaising with RPS Headquarters in dealing with the broadcast side of AV News e-xtra.

Since lockdown, I have written obituaries for two long-standing AV Group Members, Mel Stallworthy and Tony Hill. Although these were not Covid-19 related, the funerals were very restricted as to who could attend and of course a sad time for their families and friends.

As I write I await with baited breath the results of the Fab Four on line AV competition organised by Alastair Taylor, Keith Watson, Malcolm Imhoff, with Judge Robert Albright HonFRPS. For more information see the separate article in the magazine about this competition.

On the RPS Distinctions front, there will be an assessment on 30 July 2020, but as I write I don’t know if there are any AV applications for what is now called 'Film Digital and Multimedia'. I did watch the on line free Royal Photographic Society presentation by Anamaria Leanne Verco on cinematography, hosted by Peter Hayes, Chairman of the Distinctions Committee, which I found very interesting. I have asked Peter Hayes for a presentation about Distinctions based on an audiovisual theme. I’ve received a response in which Peter says that “Of course we will help promote the AV side of the genre whenever we can, but we do need information from the AV Group as to what is the best way to do this. Just let me know. As for Distinction Talks, we have a Distinctions Committee meeting in July to look at speakers for the Autumn season so I will add your idea to the list.”

I will ask the AV Group Committee to discuss this further at our July meeting. Also on the Distinctions front, the Royal Photographic Society Is moving towards a free one-to-one advice service as much as possible. Feedback on this so far has been positive

There are some changes to report at RPS Headquarters. At Council level Simon Hill FRPS, who has been a Trustee since last September, was approved by Members as President Elect at the recent EGM. Additionally, there are two staff changes. Mike Taylor the Chief Operating Ofcer is moving on and Evan Dawson has been appointed Chief Executive Ofcer. He will take up his new post from the end of July Rebecca Lee has been appointed to take on the communications role for the RPS. Challenging times ahead for all and I’ m sure everyone will want to wish them every success for the future.

As the lockdown situation changes I’ve no doubt that, in the words of sadly the late Vera Lynn. “We’ll Meet Again”. I look forward to face-to-face meetings sometime in the future, but in the meantime our communications will continue to be on Zoom or other digital platforms. With best wishes to you and yours, take care, keep safe, and don’t forget please keep making AVs, after all it ’s a hobby we all love.

Alastair Taylor ARPS CPAGB/AV

Awarm welcome to the latest edition of AV News. I hope you like the new expanded format which when combined with the e-xtra ensures you have an AV Group communication at least every two months or so. As always, do please provide feedback on what you like and what you would like to have included.

As always, I could do with a few more articles and particularly those which look at the authors intent when they were planning the AV. In this edition you will nd a couple of articles, one from Malcolm Imhoff of Walking with Grief, and another from Alan Tyrer on A Fishing Trip which help us to understand what the producers was trying to achieve.

Those of us who enter international competitions are asked to write a short synopsis of the AV and anyone who has done this will know how difcult it can be to do that. At the same time, when we apply for a distinction, we are required to help the panel understand what our “intent” is. I think this is a very important part of our work and when ever I start out on a new AV, I always try to think about how I want the end result to look. That’s said, some of my best work has come from moments of serendipity and those types of productions are often the ones which do better in competitions and give more personal satisfaction.

It would be remiss if I didn't mention the circumstances in which we nd ourselves during the awful global pandemic. One can’t help but wonder what the post Covid 19 world will look like and especially for our own hobby which is dependent on groups of people gathering together. When will we ever be able to do that again? What will the “New Normal” look like?

Whilst many hobbies and interests run the risk of folding given the lack of condence people may have to gather in groups, I have observed the AV community coming together in a wonderful way. We have seized the opportunity to nd new ways of working and in doing so, have actually grown the AV movement.

John Smith has written about how the Challenge 321 International Audio Visual Contest was successfully taken on-line with a wonderful level of participation. We did the same for a Beatles themed competition with around 70 people participating; many more than we would ever get at a physical meeting.

However, the email below form Bryan Stubbs epitomises the nature of communications we have all received over the past few months. At one point, there was nothing left in my diary to get cancelled!

Dear All,

Hope you are surviving the weather and the virus.

I thought I would try and bring you up to date with our present thinking on the Yorkshire RPS AV Days at Leeds Trinity University. As you probably know we normally organise meetings in Nov and April each year. There is no way we can organise a meeting this November. I have been in touch with Trinity and there will be no face to face teaching at least in the rst semester. All lectures will be via video.

The University's Estates department has said that if the Auditorium was used then they would only allow people to sit every 3rd seat and in every 3rd row making the maximum occupancy 25!

I have to admit to being relieved when I heard this because with the age prole of our regulars (myself included) we are all in the vulnerable category and I don't think we can risk meeting in November.

Obviously we will see what develops and hope we might meet up again next April, maybe!

So what have you all been doing? Making AVs I hope! I've only made one very short one celebrating our move to this house 25 years ago.

I hope everyone is not too disappointed with this decision about meetings but will recognise the sense of it.

All the best and keep safe, Bryan

However, I am optimistic that out of such a negative period, a sense of good will come. Perhaps we have had time to “get creative”. Maybe we will value the time we spend on our hobby and the wonderful community of people around us. Perhaps out of the ashes of Covid 19 will be a reinvigorated AV community. I hope so. It won’t be for the want of a considerable amount of effort from a number of enthusiasts from across our community.

Perhaps our new focus should be on making a success of the new RPS Distinctions under the auspices of the Film, Digital and Multimedia genre.

In the meantime, keep safe,, keep well, keep sane, and keep AVing

As always, can I express my thanks and appreciation to all of our contributors. Contact the editor at: magazine@avnews.org.uk

Film Digital and Multimedia Distinctions

Max Robinson FRPS

Warmest greetings to all members the Audio-Visual Group of the Royal Photographic Society from the Film, Digital and Multimedia Distinctions Panel!

The Multimedia and Film genres have recently been combined to create the Film, Digital and Multimedia genre and we are looking forward to the rst Distinction panel assessment later this summer. The panel will meet twice this year and the rst deadline for entries is 31st July 2020.

We very much welcome entries from the Audio Visual Group at the levels of Licentiate, Associate and Fellowship which demonstrate high quality, innovative and engaging stories. AV entries will be assessed as Multimedia entries and may consist of sequences of still images only, or combinations of still and moving images which unite to tell a story, and may be enhanced by music, narration and sound effects.

The Film, Digital and Multimedia Distinctions panel comprises six internationally renowned award-winning lm makers, several of whom are trained and experienced stills photographers. A short biography of the panel members can be found at https://rps.org/qualications/lm-distinction/

As with any still photography submission at Associate and Fellowship level, a Statement of Intent of maximum 150 words should be provided which answers the question: “from a visual or cinematic story-telling perspective, what is your intent with this submission?”

The submissions will be evaluated as an integral body of work but with the major emphasis on the quality of the images. Other elements such as music and words are important and should complement the images to the greatest possible extent. Still images must demonstrate consistency of photographic technique, quality and creativity appropriate to the level of Distinction being applied for as described in the Guidelines.

Chair of the RPS Film, Digital and Multimedia Distinctions Panel.

Prior to assessment all AV submissions will be sent to an AV specialist for detailed feedback, which will be taken into account by panel members before arriving at a decision.

As a reminder, original photography must be 100% the work of the applicant but sound recording, mixing and editing can be outsourced. However, the applicant is responsible for the quality of the submitted work. Third party images such as archive footage, stills or animation will be accepted where they are deemed necessary to support the story being told, but may only constitute a maximum of 30% of each element of the submission. For the sake of clarity, if for example 3 separate sequences are submitted, each one of the 3 sequences may only contain a maximum of 30% third party images. Full attribution and copyright consent must be provided for all third-party images and music.

Please download the Film, Digital and Multimedia Guidelines for comprehensive guidance and in case of any questions, please contact Distinctions Manager Andy Moore andy@rps.org in the Distinctions Department.

A link to the Film, Digital and Multimedia Assessment Form is available at: https://rps.org/media/fugaxz2q/lm-digital-and-multimedia-assessment-form -2020.pdf

We are looking forward to seeing your submissions!

General Assessment Criteria for all levels of Distinction in Film, Digital and Multi Media

 Your application must include a Statement of Intent (Word or PDF le) with a maximum of 150 words which answers the question:

“From a cinematic story‐telling perspective, what is your intent with this submission?”

 The cinematography/photography must be 100% the work of the applicant. Joint submissions are not allowed.

 Sound recording, mixing and editing can be outsourced, but the applicant is responsible for the quality of the submitted work.

 Third party images – such as archive footage, stills or animation will be accepted where they are deemed necessary to support the story being told. Full attribution and copyright consent must be provided for all third‐party images and music.

Celebrating (almost) Fifty Years of RPS AV Distinctions

Richard Brown FRPS

The beginning of 2020 marked a watershed in the RPS’s relationship with audio visual. It brought to an end the almost unbroken 49 year existence of a specialist panel devoted to AV distinctions. Practically from the beginning of interest in slide-tape in the UK in the mid 1960s, the RPS was at the forefront. Early pioneer Ray Beaumont-Craggs was awarded a Fellowship in the Kinematography category based on a presentation he made to the RPS Motion Picture Group in December 1968. But it was in 1971 that Sir George Pollock, who did more than anyone else to promote AV in this country, suggested to the RPS that it should have dedicated distinctions available for the burgeoning medium. His proposal was approved by Council in the spring and the rst meeting of the newly-formed Slide-Sound Sequences panel was held in October of that year, with Sir George as Chairman. The rst successful applicants, both for Fellowship, were John Podmore and Richard Tucker. Their distinctions were ratied by Council on 8th November 1971. Richard and John, along with other early AV Fellows such as Michael Tickner and Lady Doreen Pollock later became members of the panel themselves.

Below: left: Lady Doreen Pollock. A great service to distinctions over many years. Dorking 1970s

Below right: John Podmore, the rst ever Fellow in slide-sound sequences, setting up for a show. Birmingham, December 1980.

Panel Chronology

Associateship and Fellowship slide - sound sequences panel (later L, A and F combined). Finally L, A and F Audio Visual 1971-2010

Chairs: Sir George Pollock Hon FRPS; Brian Bower Hon FRPS; Colin Balls FRPS; Peter Coles FRPS; Robert Albright FRPS.

Licentiateship slide - sound sequences panel 1980- c.1990

Chairs: Lady Doreen Pollock FRPS; C. Len Smith FRPS.

Multimedia and Narrative panel (later renamed Multimedia) 2011-2020

Chairs: John Chamberlin FRPS; Peter Hayes FRPS; Nick Scott FRPS.

My rst experience of panel matters was in 1977 when I attended as an audience member an A and F panel meeting at the RPS headquarters in London. That day was particularly notable as a fresh-faced enthusiast named Colin Balls was there to make his successful Fellowship application. I can still recall the impression his sequence Polkemet No. 1 made on me, since documentary sequences were still pretty rare back then. I have fond memories of South Audley Street as I was there again the following year to get my own Associateship in the same room.

Ken Tomlinson tells a tall story. Clive Atkins seems unconvinced.

Northern Ireland 1988

Celebrating (almost) Fifty Years of RPS AV Distinctions continued …

The Slide-Sound Sequences panel was for many years in the vanguard of developments in how assessments were carried out. It was the rst panel to allow an audience, which of course was of great benet for potential applicants, to be able to see the standards required. It was the rst to introduce the idea of announcing the panel’s recommendations on the day. Previously, the applicants would have to pack up their equipment and wait patiently at home for several weeks for the much anticipated letter to arrive in the post. And it was the rst panel to meet outside of RPS headquarters. The inaugural such meeting was held in the spring of 1978 in the lecture theatre of Courtaulds Ltd. in Coventry and was arranged by John Podmore.

Although the popular Licentiateship distinction had been introduced in 1972, it was only available for prints and slides. It was another eight years before applications in AV were allowed and a new panel, quite separate from the existing one, was established. Its rst Chairman, Lady Pollock was determined to bring some new faces into the distinctions process. Some well known names such as Colin Balls, Len Smith and Irene Clarke gained their rst experience of panel membership under her kindly but watchful eye. For the record, the rst two Licentiateships were gained by Billy Williams of Swansea and Ken Tomlinson from Lisburn. Ken, who was the driving force of AV in Northern Ireland, went on to become the rst person to progress through all three distinction levels in slide-sound sequences.

Below: Licentiateship distinction panel meeting, The Octagon, Bath mid 1980s. Left to Right: Len Smith (Chairman); Richard Brown; Dr. Pat Whitehouse; Irene Clarke

Above: Associateship and Fellowship panel meeting, Manchester Sept. 1990. Left to Right: Richard Tucker; Clive Atkins; Peter Coles; Brian Bower (Chairman); Colin Balls; Richard Brown; Ray Brightman

By 1986, Sir George had been Chairman of the A & F panel for fteen years and decided it was time to step down. This was in the era before term limits had been brought in. And so the Chairmanship changed hands for the rst time. The new incumbent was Brian Bower, who took the opportunity to gently retire some of the old stagers on the panel, who were now starting to look somewhat jaded, and bring in several younger and more active members. This period was the high-water mark of activity, with the AV Group’s membership in the high 600s and both panels often having two meetings a year.

Brian was followed in his turn by Colin Balls, Peter Coles and Robert Albright, all of whom brought their own personal and very different approaches to the role. By the time of Robert’s appointment in 2005 digital submissions had become the norm and the term slide-sound sequences was becoming a bit of an anachronism. So around that time the panel, which had long seen the amalgamation of the original L and A & F panels, was re-branded to become Audio Visual. Later in Robert’s Chairmanship the RPS tried a fairly short-lived experiment with Photo Harmony.

Celebrating (almost) Fifty Years of RPS AV Distinctions continued …

Few people remember now that the PH concept started life as a special Licentiateship category under the aegis of the AV panel. Perhaps surprisingly, the rst successful PH applicant was none other than Sir George Pollock. George may well be unique in the history of the RPS as the only person to gain a Licentiateship over forty years after their Fellowship.

Things continued pretty much as they always had until 2008, when the RPS introduced changes to the operation of distinctions with the aim of standardising the assessment process across all of the different panels. This had a negative effect on the AV panel and caused a great deal of consternation and ill feeling. The row culminated in September 2010 when the AV panel was disbanded, pending its replacement with much broader-based distinctions, which it was decided would be called Multimedia and Narrative. A new panel was formed which did contain some members from the previous one plus a couple of people with a background in lm and video production. This operated for almost ten years, but never regained the momentum which the AV panel had once enjoyed.

And so, at the beginning of 2020 the decision was taken to wind up the Multimedia panel, citing the paucity of applicants over a long period of time. AV workers will however continue to be able to apply for distinctions under the umbrella of the newly reconstituted and renamed Film, Digital and Multimedia panel.

On June 1st, as I was nishing this article Richard Tucker, the second ever Fellow in slide-sound sequences celebrated his 90th birthday. It was Richard who kicked off my interest in AV way back in 1975 when I saw one of his Agfasponsored shows. So he has a great deal to answer for! Happily, his remarkable energy and enthusiasm remain unabated and he is still busily engaged in new AV related projects. We look forward to 2021 and the passing of fty years since that rst, dening panel meeting.

Left: First and Last. Sir George Pollock right, with Robert Albright. Bath 2009

AV in Lockdown — 321 Zoom!

John Smith APAGB

Since the revival of the 321 competition in 2018, the North Wales and Wirral AV Group have held the only UK judging at Capel Curig. The rst year, our audience members judged all 108 sequences in a day – but decided that maybe this was just too much.

The following year the number of accepted sequences was reduced – so again we managed the judging over a day. This year we had scheduled the event for Sunday 14th June but of course circumstances overtook us and a physical judging session was not possible - so what could we do?

One thought was to upload all the sequences to WeTransfer and ask all those interested in judging the competition to download them but the total le size was 14gb and in some cases because of the various formats they are difcult to run unless you have had experience of doing this before.

So

what were we to do?

When we were unable to meet at Wilmslow Guild the suggestion was made that we should try and hold our meetings on line. A few of us had looked at a number of the different providers of video conferencing.

We rstly tried Zoom as this seemed to be the most talked about. It was easy to use but at the time there were concerns over certain security aspects and the sequences did not play very well although a big plus was the option to share the computer sound.

Gotomeeting was our second test – we found the picture quality was excellent but the sound was really poor with lots of phasing so we discounted that.

Cisco Webex was classed as a professional product so maybe that would work ok – in fact sadly it was the worst for both sound and picture with a very low picture resolution.

AV in Lockdown - 321 Zoom! Continued ...

What about the people who play games on line – surely, they will have to be using a fast enough stream so we found and tried out Kast. This was great for video and showing the sequences with hardly any problems, but, there had to be a but, it wasn’t really geared for video conferencing and it was difcult for people to join. They all had to sign up to an account and give themselves a nickname and you could not stop people actually ‘joining the party’

What about You Tube – there are plenty of videos shown on there.

CEMRIAC, the Midland’s branch of the IAC held a Lockdown Film Festival on line with the attendees being on Zoom and all the lms being uploaded to You Tube. At the relevant time – each attendee clicked on the provided link and individually watched the lm before returning for a discussion.

This was ok but it was a bit disjointed with everyone returning at different times and all the sequences needed to be uploaded to You Tube prior to the event.

I then decided to see if it would be possible to live stream on You Tube –this is not as easy as it sounds!

You rstly have to download some free software to allow you to make the stream and then get You Tube to allow you to live stream and then get the two to ‘talk’ to each other! I nally got it to work and the picture and sound quality were quite good, but then the doubts started creeping in.

Despite most AV producers having IAC licences You Tube will remove any sound and pictures from videos that they believe infringes someone’s copyright – the onus is then on you to appeal and all this takes time.

Ah – but it is being live streamed ….they have thought of that and their software will remove any copyright sound as it goes out and the person streaming it will get a warning, the second time they will be banned from streaming for a month and on the third occasion they will be banned from streaming forever!!

Not knowing just what music had been used in each of the sequences from around the world – this was something that I dared not risk.

So what were we to do both for Wilmslow and the 321?

With the ease of use and enhanced security that had now been put in – we chose to use Zoom. We had a free trial meeting to see if everybody could get on and that seemed to work ok. Then we successfully held our AGM on line (although it was a bit difcult to see who was sitting on their hands when it came to volunteering to go on the Committee!)

Now was the big step – running the annual competitions live on Zoom with our judge, Keith Leedham a few hundred miles away in Essex. We hedged our bets and sent him the sequences to view before the competition evening but we wanted to able to make it like a club night – show the sequence and then let the judge give his constructive comments.

We found that by hosting the meeting on a laptop with a camera and then running the shared screen of a second machine that was optimised for video and sound – the sequences played quite well. Yes, slow dissolves were not quite as good and the occasional pan might stutter – but it was acceptable.

I suppose we are lucky in that our upload speed is around 20mbs and it is this upload speed that is important when sending out the images.

The competition ran successfully with around 18 watching and so we felt brave enough to suggest that we might run the 321 competition in the same way.

We had learned a bit more about how we might present the evenings and had decided that it would be run over two consecutive nights with 41 sequences being shown each evening.

The show would be run from a menu and as at Capel we allowed a minute between sequences for judging. We included a countdown minute timer with the last few seconds being an audible warning.

AV in Lockdown - 321 Zoom! Continued ...

This did allow us to take part in the judging also. Between the three ‘sessions’ we had two 10 minute comfort breaks – again with a countdown timer to try and ensure that we kept to time.

Through AV Links, invites were sent out to all the UK entrants and different groups across the country – then those who said they were attending were sent the access codes and an Excel spreadsheet for their scores.

On the rst night we had 65 people in the ‘waiting room’ ready to join in. It was quite a good social occasion – people taking the opportunity to catch up on all the news.

So how did it all go?

Well the general consensus was that it seemed to go very well with people maybe sat with a glass of wine enjoying watching the competition taking place on their computers or large screen smart TVs with the sound coming out of their Hi Fi systems. 41 people from all across England and Wales sent in their scores – many more than would have done at Capel.

Will this type of judging of competitions ever become the norm?

Well, we certainly got many more people taking part and we were asked would we consider doing it again this way another year.

This is open to discussion because we felt that there was one important thing missing – the audience reaction to a sequence! There was no atmosphere, no laughter, no muttering, no nothing because all the attendees, of necessity, had to be muted whilst the sequences were being shown and it is this social interaction that makes a Festival or competition what it is.

Circumstances dictated that this year we ran the competition using the available technology and in the best way that we could. In fact we believe that we are the only country to carry out the judging by this means so it will be interesting to see how other countries managed and how our results compare with the ones from abroad.

Postscript

As it turned out the winner chosen by the UK AV Community using the Zoom platform turned out to be the same as for all participating countries so congratulations to Ian Bateman with The Gallery (pictured top right)

The full results for the Challenge 321 International Audio Visual Contest can be found at: https://www.challenge321.org/

A couple of weeks later we used the same approach to show all the AVs from Alastair Taylor’s Beatles themed competition. Around 50 people logged on with many couples so about 70 people were watching. Congratulations to Keith Watson for winning with his AV There's a Place (pictured below). A more detailed write up will appear in the next edition of AV News.

Dear Editor

Lockdown Matters

Ijust want to say how much I have valued the love and friendship, banter and support, that has been a feature of the AV world through this period of lockdown. In particular, the many daily postings of news and views, photographs and funny videos, on the AV News Facebook page, the AV News Ireland Facebook page, and the PTE AV Studio 10 Facebook page, as well as AV Links.

AV workers in this country have clearly been very active. The rst "challenge" we were given was to produce a One Minute AV, something that has been a regular feature of our programme at East Midlands AV Group for many years. Well, I don't think that anybody would have predicted that at the time of writing 133 AVs have been made and published on YouTube and/or the AV News Facebook page. Unbelievable! A few of these are a bit longer than 60 seconds, but thanks to Sheila Haycox they are all there for you to view on the RPS Special Interest Groups Audio-Visual page [rps.org/groups/audio-visual/ one-minute-av/].

The second challenge was to try and identify 20 very small thumbnail photographs of AV people (I don't like to call them celebrities!), a lot of whom were babies when their photo was taken! Not surprisingly Richard Brown won that one.

The latest challenge was to produce an AV using a Beatles tune. At the time of writing 18 AVs have been made and submitted and by the time AV News is published we should have the results. As someone who has actually seen the Beatles I am looking forward to this very much indeed.

We had the 321 competition which thanks to the technical wizardry of Jill and John, took place online as a Zoom video conference, and I think we were all impressed at the quality of the AVs, not quite the same as on the big screen, but very acceptable, and great fun.

I'm a member of Shillington Camera Club and I did an evening there on "Photo Harmony" with lots of examples. At the end I threw out a challenge for members to produce a Photo Harmony AV themselves. This is in the programme for next season, so we will have to see how that pans out. In the meantime, I gave them a challenge to produce a One Minute AV. I expected maybe three of four, but in the end there were fteen AVs submitted, mostly by people who had never made an AV before, and we watched them together via Zoom. We did it by providing everybody with the YouTube links so we had to switch between Zoom and YouTube, but it worked well. I was so pleased and impressed by the AVs produced.

This wasn't a competition, but there was one AV that stood out as being "the winner", and that was "Our Lockdown Story" by Shirley Hollis, a superbly photographed and produced AV which records for posterity what we have been going through during Lockdown. You can see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=lVG4RFwixkA&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR06dUF56z3QNU_mOsQ8kWxT-Us9XlWn-AU1hY9hLWxSSD4ZVDK0KtRU7w

Malcolm Imhoff

Mel Stallworthy LRPS 1925 - 2020

Edgar Gibbs FRPS MPAGB AV-AFIAP

It is with great sadness that I have to report that Mel Stallworthy LRPS passed away in hospital on 2nd March 2020 aged 94. Mel and I started our AV careers around the same time in the early 1980s. Together with his wife, Margaret, he was to be seen at many AV events around the UK, such as the RPS National AV Championship and the RPS International AV Festival, as well as numerous AV Days.

Mel worked in the insurance business for many years and on retirement took up a career in wedding photography, setting up his own business which he called Cameo Photography. He also enjoyed teaching photography and for many years ran a part time photography class in the local arts centre, where he made many friends. Mel was very particular about his photography equipment and was nearly always seen with the latest Canon camera.

Mel Stallworthy LRPS 1925 - 2020. continued …

With Margaret, he regularly attended the AV courses held at Dyffryn House in the Vale of Glamorgan and Urchfont Manor in Wiltshire, run by Richard Tucker FRPS. Until Mel's mobility became a problem a couple of years ago he never missed a South Wales RPS AV Group meeting and was always keen to participate in Member's evenings. One memorable event was when Mel organised a day out for the Group on a minibus trip to the Severn Valley Railway, nishing up with a very sociable evening meal in Ross-on-Wye.

The AV Mel will be most remembered for, was a collaboration with Gwyn Morgans FRPS, which was called 'Out of Sight Out of Mines'. The AV was a portrait of the miners and what it was like working underground in a private drift mine in South Wales. Mel toured the clubs regularly with his AV presentation called “Into The Dissolve”, was an active member of the RPS Digital Imaging Group (DIG) and a founder member of the Cardiff DIG. He was persuaded by Glenys Taylor to organise a very successful rst RPS Digital Day in Cardiff which took place on 10th January 1998.

Mel leaves behind his wife of 74 years, Margaret, who was a professional orist. She is now very frail and is in a care home. After she retired Margaret continued ower arranging at home and Mel enjoyed taking many photographs of her arrangements. There may be a memorial service when circumstances allow. Mel will be sadly missed by all those that knew him, particularly in the South Wales AV and photography community.

Tony Hill ARPS 1930 to 2020

Tony was an AV enthusiast both professionally and during his retirement. He was a gracious man who regularly entered and attended the Nationals, the Internationals and the Great Northern Festivals and was always to be seen in a jacket and tie. I rst met Tony in the late 1980s at one of the Dyffryn House AV events, led by Richard Tucker FRPS. Here, Tony would meticulously set up his multiple Kodak carousels and invariably showed an AV about Fyffe’ s bananas, one of his biggest clients. Having spoken with Tony’s daughter, Liz, she sent me a memoire which runs to 16 pages, setting out his very interesting life. Please let me know if you’d like a copy.

Tony took up photography as a hobby in his early years and not long after National Service, became a photographic assistant at the De Havilland aircraft company. A similar position followed at the Ministry of Supply in Boscombe Down, and in 1955 he became an aerial photographer for Hunting Aerosurveys Ltd. Two years later Tony was appointed to the Mobil Oil Company as Technical Photographer.

On family holidays he would take a lot of photographs and on his return he started making AVs, converting the loft in the family home into an AV workshop and tiny ‘cinema’ . After leaving Mobil, Tony set up his own business called AV Presentations Ltd, where he made numerous commercial slide-tape presentations.

At the very start he made an AV called S outhend Special ,exploring the many different sides of his home town. He entered it into the Epinal Festival in France, where it won the tourism prize, narrowly missing out on the Grand Prix. However, it was a great boost to the start of his new business. A year later Iris, his assistant at Mobil, left the company to work with Tony in Corringham, later moving to Westcliff on Sea. Here Tony continued to rent the ofces and visited daily until 2018, more than a decade after he retired from paid client work. In a “sort of” retirement Tony concentrated on making AVs, usually with a wartime theme, which was one of his great interests. Many will have seen Clara ‘s War, Rocket Man, and Anne Frank to name just a few.

Tony showed his AVs with great pride at the South East Essex Audio Visual Club, which he was involved with for almost three decades, and attended until just 18 months before he died. Tony’s daughter has given me some of Tony’s AVs and the AV Group Committee is looking into a way of putting them on a “cloud” drive so that others will be able to see Tony’s AV legacy.

Going back a good few years, Richard Tucker FRPS, organised a long AV weekend at Urchfont Manor, so we could all take part in the making of an AV called Adieu Adieu!. It was a fun few days, which I remember fondly. Tony was asked to take on the role of a German SS ofcer. He hired the uniform, had a short back and sides, and played the part almost too convincingly. In fact the company that cleared his ofces found some photographs of Tony dressed up in the SS uniform, which they returned to his daughter, not knowing if he was a sympathiser or not. Needless to say his daughter saw the funny side of this.

Tony met his wife Pat at Bournemouth Camera Club, where he was a member of the Committee and used to give lectures on photographing aeroplanes. They were married for over 63 years, spending their nal months together in a warm and supportive care home in Clacton on Sea. Sadly, Pat passed away two weeks after Tony’s funeral. Tony will be missed by all those who knew him and our thoughts are with his family at this time.

Walking with Grief

Malcolm Imhoff FRPS FACI(M

The "Nationals" as it is affectionately known, is the highlight of the UK AV year, and features the very best of what British AV workers are producing at this time. I was very surprised but pleased to be Highly Commended with my AV "Walking with Grief". It clearly touched the hearts of the jury, and, from many comments received, the audience too.

My aim in the AV was to engage the emotions of the audience, especially those who have experienced the pain of losing a loved one, and then to lead them to the hope, which I rmly believe, that one day we will meet again.

It is inevitably a very personal sequence, so I have used photographs of mine and Maggie's most favourite places where we have experienced much joy and happiness over 45 years of marriage, for most of which time we have always been known as "M&M".

Do not hurry as you walk with grief; it does not help the journey. Walk slowly, pausing often. Do not hurry as you walk with grief. Be not disturbed by memories that come unbidden. Swiftly forgive; and let Christ speak for you unspoken words. Unnished conversation will be resolved in him. Be not disturbed. Be gentle with the one who walks with grief. If it is you, be gentle with yourself. Swiftly forgive; walk slowly, pausing often. Take time, be gentle as you walk with grief.

The sequence starts with a series of stark Black and White photographs of the "Dark Hedges" (Above left) in County Antrim. In my original version I used the colour images, but I quickly realised that monochrome ones would be much more appropriate.

Into this I say the prayer given to me by my vicar Rev'd Gary Birchall after my beloved Maggie died. I have found it very helpful and have passed it on to many bereaved friends. I have tried to match the words of the prayer (left) with suitable imagery in the branches of the trees. (above right)

Towards the end of the prayer, I introduce a very slight touch of colour in the ivy growing on one of the trees. (below left) To me the tree has the form of a "heart", and of course ivy, being a perennial, is a symbol of life and immortality, and being a twining plant, wedded love and friendship.

The dark road then morphs into a tree-lined lane, now in colour, a sign of hope, and at the same time we hear the drone of a ddle introducing the song "Somewhere Along The Road" (someone waits for me), written by Rick Kemp from Steeleye Span, and sung most beautifully by the Scottish singer Emily Smith.

In the rst verse we hear that "beyond the present storms" "someone waits for me", and we see stormy skies over Brandon Mountain in Ireland. (below right)

Brandon Mountain (previous page) dissolves nicely into an image of clouds over the Coniston Fells in the Lake District (top left) and I have a wonderful "Third Image" as we move to a scene in the Outer Hebrides (middle left) where the clouds and the bay have exactly the same shapes, as Emily sings about "a spirit that soars over mountains".

In the second verse "a guiding light always shows the way", is illustrated by a series of three images taken in Sutton Park near where I live, with shafts of sunlight piercing the trees and illuminating patches of leaves on the ground. (lower left)

"Tomorrow will bring a new sunrise" has an early morning picture of the Keswick Fells with the early morning sun's rays slanting down through the clouds at the same angle as the previous image. (below

This is followed by a photograph of a rare mountain phenomenon, a Brocken Spectre, complete with a "glory", (top right) taken in the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. (A Brocken Spectre may be seen if you are lucky and the conditions are right, that is when there is a temperature inversion, you are above the clouds, and where your shadow is projected onto the clouds below. It can only be seen by you. You feel blessed).

In the instrumental break I have a pair of images of the "Sleeping Giant", (middle right) one of the Blasket Islands off the West Coast of Ireland and one of Maggie's most favourite places. It is a very spiritual place, "sometimes when winds are still…" as the song goes.

In the words of the last verse we are invited to "Raise your eyes to see my world", and for this nale I have used a number of photographs of rainbows (lower right) including a "double bow" (below) which I have collected over the years, usually in the mountains.

A double rainbow is quite unique and Mark Allen recently told me that he could tell it was a genuine photograph because in the second bow the colours are reversed. Did you know that? I feel rainbows are always a gift, and they have often appeared at unexpected but signicant moments, sometimes even when there has been no rain.

Walking with Grief. Continued ...

"Who do you make AVs for?" is a question sometimes asked. I am not alone in making them primarily for myself. If other people like them that is wonderful, and if they are successful in competitions that is a bonus. So in my rst versions of the AV, in the instrumental passages of the song, I had lots of photographs of Maggie dissolving in and out of the clouds and skies in time with the music. Naturally this is my preferred version, but I have since made another version (the one shown at the Nationals) where I have removed all of Maggie's portraits (apart from one very faint one but only Keith Leedham on the Jury spotted that!), and replaced them with more landscapes and rainbows. I have done that in attempt to make the AV more accessible to other people, especially those who have been through the pain of losing a loved one, husband, wife, child, or soulmate. My hope is that viewers will remember their own loved ones and be uplifted by the sentiments in the song.

The AV has had mixed receptions, some people being brought to tears, and others feeling it is "too personal to the author". Well it is not "too personal" to me and it has cheered my soul when a member of the audience has come up to me afterwards and said "thank you". A number of people have asked if they can a have a copy to help them in their Walk with Grief.

Somewhere along the road

Somewhere along the road, Someone waits for me. Beyond these present storms that blow, Waiting patiently. No secrets held in an open heart, A spirit that soars over mountains.

Somewhere along the road, Someone waits for me.

Somehow a guiding light, Always shows the way.

To those who lose their way by night, Searching for the day.

A day away from happiness, Tomorrow will bring a new sunrise.

Somewhere along the road, Someone waits for me.

Sometime when winds are still, Unexpectedly, Perhaps beyond this silent hill, A voice will call to me.

Raise your eyes to see my world, Raise your voice and sing out. Somewhere along the road, Someone waits for me.

Somewhere along the road, Someone waits for me.

North & East Midlands Photographic Federation AV Championship

David Gibbons

The 3rd Audio Visual and Photo Harmony Competition, organised by the North & East Midlands Photographic Federation, was a strange affair this year. 72 hours before the physical event the Coronavirus lockdown kicked in and all Club meetings were cancelled. However, I had sent the sequences to our judge (Alastair Taylor ARPS CPAGB/AV) for pre-judging. Alastair kindly revisited all sequences and provided written feedback on each sequence. The list of all entries and the results are outlined at the end of the report.

It has not been possible to nd a suitable mechanism for showing all the sequences. A number of the award winners have kindly submitted a few words and some pictures about their sequences.

Narrative Section

For the third year in succession Alan Tyrer (Cleethorpes Camera Club) won the Best Narrative with an absolutely outstanding sequence A Fishing Trip. I worked for White Fish Authority on Hull Fish Docks for a while in the early seventies so could relate to this sequence very well.

“ This AV is based on a personal account of a childhood memory of a fellow camera club member, George Lill, about the Grimsby shing industry ”

This AV idea came from a talk which he had given at the camera club. I arranged for him to come to my house where I recorded his voice. I recorded him for over an hour.

Clearly this was too much so I had to spend a lot of time cutting and editing until I had a manageable amount.

I had to pare down the story to its bare bones in order to limit it to the 8 minute maximum for the N&EMPF AV competition.

North & East Midlands Photographic Federation. Continued ...

Alan added: “I spent some time photographing at the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre and on the Ross Tiger. George was also able to supply some personal archive material. I was particularly pleased to be able to include photos from his childhood.

Music is often overused in AVs but in this sequence I only used music for the start and end. I did use some subtle sound effects for atmosphere but otherwise relied on the voice alone.

For me, the strength of the sequence comes from the relaxed and engaging style in which the story is told.”

Alan also gained a Highly Commended for another very good sequence Bomber. Alastair Taylor stated: “This is a superb AV. Its strength comes from the way in which it builds up over time and portrays the drama of the control tower and the World War Two aireld.

Samantha Ford (RB Lincoln CC) gained a Highly Commended for a very powerful and poignant sequence In Their Memory

“My visit last year to the Old Jewish Cemetery and Pinkas Synagogue in Prague left me intensely moved by its exhibition about the Czech Jewish victims of the Holocaust and so I left compelled to tell the story for others, particularly as 2020 is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It was used as a transit camp en route to Auschwitz. Some deportees set up clandestine education classes for the children of Terezín, such as Austrian-born artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis.

Friedl encouraged the children to express their feelings in artwork as therapy; experiences in the ghetto, memories of home, and dreams for the future. Most of the 15,000 children, as well as Friedl herself, died in Auschwitz. 4,500 drawings survived. Pinkas Synagogue houses a permanent exhibition of some of these pictures.”

David Cudworth (Rolls-Royce (Derby) Photographic Society) gained a commended for a very interesting documentary called The Boxer.

“I approached the boxer with a mind-set of creating a documentary. After a social media search, I found Danny and after our rst meeting he was fully on board with the idea. From start to nish the project took around 10 months to complete. The script was read by Jonathan Millard ‘The Voice of the Vale’ and was recorded in a studio in South Wales. For me this was one amazing journey and I met some interesting people along the way. It was a relief when it all came together and we had all the shots in the bag. Ending with a win for Danny was a bonus. The AV was obviously created for a photographic club competition but what has given me the greatest pleasure is the reaction from the amateur boxing community. At this difcult time it has been a timely reminder of how our photography can reach out and give pleasure to a wider community.”

Di and Mike Burns (Peterborough Photographic Society) also gained a commended for Living Colours.

“A sequence that compares the geothermal activity in Yellowstone, USA with the North Island of New Zealand. The narrators are an American, Adrienne Stone and husband Adrian who was brought up in New Zealand.”

The nal commended certicate awarded in the Narrative section went to Ron Abbott (Pinchbeck Photo Group) for his sequence Salamanca.

“The images for 'Salamanca' were all taken on one day. The images follow the day from bright sunlight to darkness. Locations were rearranged to follow an historical progression from the Roman Bridge to the Cathedrals, the University, and the Plaza Mayor.

North & East Midlands Photographic Federation. Continued ...

Photo Harmony Section

The winner of the Photo Harmony Section this year was David Gibbins (Beeston (Notts) Camera Club) with In Memory of Trees

“I have always loved the beauty of trees, the way they change through the seasons and the patterns the branches make during the winter months. Some of the tree pictures were taken on recent visits to Canada but most were taken near where I live.” The music is Memory of Trees by Enya.

Judge, Alastair Taylor stated “This sequence consisted of some dramatic images of a single theme. The quality of the photography is very good. The slow fades and dissolves and some of the visual effects were very well matched to the music”

Two Highly Commended certicates went to sequences taken in Tuscany.

Autumn in Val d’Orcia is by David Cudworth (Rolls-Royce (Derby) Photographic Society.

“The Val d’Orcia is one of my favourite locations to visit and that’s why I decided to be there to celebrate my 50th Birthday in October 2019. I had never visited in autumn and the contrast of the bare ploughed elds to the ‘typical’ Tuscan landscape images was a pleasant surprise.”.

Ashley Franklin of Derby City Photographic Club gained a Highly Commended with Poppies.

Ashley has been the voice of the N&EMPF Exhibitions for many years. He has also organised annual tours to Tuscany where his poppy sequence was photographed.

Judge Alastair Taylor stated…. “This is a strong storyline and captures the issue of urban decay very well. I liked the use of Black and White images throughout”.

Three sequences were awarded Commended certicates.

Mike Burns (Peterborough Photographic Society) with Radio Africa. The song “Radio Africa” provides the title and story of good times and then bad for people living in such an interesting Continent.

Bryan Hurt (Lincoln Camera Club) gained a Commended at the rst time of entering an A/V in a competition, with his sequence Heroes and Villains.

Brian Gromett (Cleethorpes Camera Club) gained a commended with Natural Beauty. Judge Alastair stated :

“The music used for this sequence was very appropriate to the theme and the photographs used were well chosen and beautifully composed.”

The third Highly Commended sequence went to Roy Moran (Cleethorpes Camera Club) with a sequence called This is Our Town.

A Fishing Trip

Alan Tyrer ARPS

Iwas delighted to win the open section of the Midphot AV competition in January 2020 with a sequence called A Fishing Trip. Like nearly everyone else I nd coming up with an idea to be one of the hardest parts.

The initial idea for the sequence came after a fellow member of my camera club, George Lill, gave a presentation about a personal childhood experience. His father had been a skipper of a deep sea trawler sailing out of Grimsby. I found his account to be warm and entertaining. I decided to ask him if he would allow me to record some of his experiences. I outlined how I thought the sequence would work and what photos I would need to shoot.

He was enthusiastic about the project and he provided a great deal of family archive material.

I think the use of some of his family photos gave authenticity to the project. When he came to my house for the voice recording, I found him to be a very relaxed and natural speaker. He was keen and knowledgeable, and needed little or no prompting.

I have a variety of recording equipment to which I am gradually adding as I learn more about technique. I had set up a couple of microphones feeding two sound recorders so that I thought I had some redundancy. I try to record with levels peaking at between -12db and -6db. You need to try to get as large a signal to noise ratio as possible. Recording at too low a level will allow noise to become a problem.

It is also vitally important to avoid hitting 0db otherwise sound distortion will occur. This is a little like blowing your highlights, once you’ve done it, there is no way to recover the situation. I didn’t blow the limit on either recording but in the end one was clearly superior to the other and that is the one I started work on.

I had set up in the front lounge which has decent sound characteristics and well away from fridges and most background noise. The one weakness was the front window so that cars would occasionally drive past causing us to have to pause until they were gone.

The recording was done as a single take. I asked George to pause and repeat when something didn’t sound quite right or cars passed. There was over an hour of narration recorded. I clearly needed to cut it down to about 10 minutes. George recalled many aspects of his background and included many details about the industry and his trip. These did not always follow in a useful order.

A Fishing Trip. continued ...

The rst thing I did was to get the recording sounding as good as possible in Audacity. I used all of the usual tools including noise reduction, compression, equalization, limiting and normalization. I usually normalize to between -6db and -3db. I have spent quite some time on YouTube trying to improve my skills in this area which is unfamiliar and as complex as image editing.

Below: Screen Shot of Script after intricate editing

Once I was happy with the recording, I cut it into clips of one or several sentences based on the subject (see screen shot). This was very intense work. There had been a lot of “ums and errs” in the narration but I found it was possible to eliminate some of these with some very intricate editing. I ended up with about seventy clips all numbered and labelled with the rst few words of each sentence. Many of these clips ended up being re-edited during production. This work lasted several months since I only occasionally tackled it and found it was very difcult.

A Fishing Trip continued …

I attempted to get a logical progression so that I could get a short story out of a rather long account, deciding as I went along what to include and exclude. I had to carefully sift through all of these clips in order to decide which were the best to use. It’s always difcult parting with favourite photos that don’t work in your sequence, but if they don’t work, they have to go! The same is true with sound clips. It felt very much like a hatchet job. I could probably have made a thirty minute sequence with the material available!

I had been taking some photos at the Fishing Heritage Centre in Grimsby during this time and also on the trawler moored alongside. Photographing the exterior of the trawler presented difculties since I didn’t want to draw particular attention to where it is now. George arranged for us to go on board together and was able to explain some of the features to me. I also needed a few images from the docks but it is nearly impossible to get permission to photograph there now. Luckily I had taken a few photos a few years ago when it was not as difcult.

I decided that the audio would simply feature the voice of George and only used a local folk song as an intro and nale together with a few sound effects. I thought this was sufcient to carry the piece without any background music. Many people create their soundtrack in Audacity or Audition to which they add the images in PTE. I prefer to assemble my sound track in PTE at the same time that I assemble the images. I nd that this enables me to make very many small changes in timings and sometimes creating pauses in narration as I think appropriate.

Eventually the sequence started to take shape. It didn’t do very well on its rst outing but I did get some helpful hints. This did involve some further cutting of the sequence. I have been gradually rening the story by generally tightening it up and lost a couple of minutes of it in the process. A good lesson there!

I am now satised with the structure of the story. It does rely very much on the voice and personal account. This has given me an insight into the possible structuring of other stories. There’s already an idea taking shape in my head!

Coming of Age

Graham Sergeant FRPS

In AV News 219, Graham introduced a series of articles for AV News …

Acelebration of the 'Coming of Age' of audio visual production took place recently at the 21 st National Audio Visual Championship held in Leeds (5th and 6th October, 2019) in Leeds Trinity University. This memorable event gives us a timely opportunity to reect on modern AV production and where it stands today.

In the rst article, we looked at a brief history of Photo Harmony and AV from the early days of the 'Magic Lantern' through to today's Digital Age.

In this article we will look at a selection of productions shown in Leeds, mainly Photo Harmony and song interpretation, to highlight the very wide range and diversity of subjects chosen by Producers.

The End of all our Exploring

by Mark Allen

The story of the Auschwitz death camp shot in dramatic Black & White with haunting music and sound effects. (This won the NAVC Gold Medal)

A Mother's Story by Linda & Edgar Gibbs.

A beautifully crafted and moving account of the Aberfan disaster of 1966. The production uses archival Black & White images together with contemporary colour images shot on the 50th Anniversary of the tragedy. An appropriate song was used as the music track.

Walking with Grief by Malcolm Imhoff

Shot in Black & White and colour in woodland and dramatic land and seascapes, this deeply personal programme no doubt brings back happy memories to the Producer of times and events with his late wife.

Annabel Lee by Raymond Bridges.

Shot entirely in Black & White, this Production tells the well-known romantic story of Annabel Lee and was edited using a series of montages. The soundtrack in many ways, is the highlight of the production thanks to a professionally voiced poem with well chosen music and sound effects.

Circles by Peter Warner

This is a highly original 70th Birthday greeting and is another example of the way in which Photo Harmony or AV can capture human events and special occasions – going beyond 'still' images. The artwork was done by a team in the form of an 'engraving' in the sand on a beach and together with a happy upbeat piece of music.

This a record of one of the most romantic gestures you are ever likely to see and as a slice of family history is a treasured legacy to be passed down the generations. Full marks for originality!

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The Northern Ireland Photographic Association Audio

Visual Festival

Raymond Hughes

The 2020 Northern Ireland Photographic Association Audio Visual Festival and Championship took place 20th /21st February. We were delighted to welcome Richard Brown as Guest Judge. Richard is an old friend having over the years judged on four previous occasions.

In fact, Richard’s many visits both North and South of the border probably qualify him for the Irish passport that we are entitled to here after Brexit.

It is a tradition that Friday evening is given over to the Judge (Richard) to show some of their work and it was a treat to see some Richard’s well known sequences but also to have the opportunity of hearing Richard speak about their conception and production. It was a further treat me to see again an old favourite from many years ago Liquid Gold the facts from which I have referenced in countless conversations over those years.

Saturday was competition day and we had a change of format this year. Formerly NIPA and the Irish Photographic Federation (IPF) had two competitions. This year they have been combined to allow entries from both the IPF and the NIPA to compete together for the Overall Medals.

The NIPA Championship Cup is awarded to the highest placed NIPA entry in the competition. It is hoped that in future the Festival may be opened to even wider participation from our friends in G.B. and wider aeld.

From Saturday morning until dinner on Saturday night Richard gave a critique on every sequence shown and his comments were what can only be described as a masterclass in Audio Visual. I don’t think anyone in the theatre failed to learn something either as a competitor or as an interested observer.

After dinner the evening audience were entertained by the viewing of the award winners.

Top Honours went to a new sequence from Judith Kimber Poems for Girls and as a NIPA member Judith also takes the NIPA Cup and for good measure the Audience vote medal presented by the IPF.

The Silver Medal was awarded to a sequence A Warning to Humanity by Raymond Hughes. A sequence of images from Krakow and Auschwitz without commentary.

Bronze Medal was awarded to ‘The corruption of Innocence’ by IPF member Liam Haines. A documentary about how the modern world is changing the Kingdom of Bhutan.

A Special Photo Harmony section medal was awarded to Water Painting by IPF member Yvonne Acheson. A sequence of landscape reections in the water of lakes and rivers.

Another successful Festival concluded for another year with a big thanks to the organising committee and to our Guest Judge Richard Brown.

Charity continues at homeThe Hailsham P.S. Colour Show

Bob Sherrard LRPS

Hailsham Photographic society held its fty seventh annual Colour Show over the rst weekend in March. So what is a Colour Show? It's entertainment for the public to enjoy photography presented in audio visual productions while, at the same time, supporting a local charity. This year just over four hundred members of the public attended three shows held in the Hailsham Community Civic Hall in East Sussex. Fifteen hundred pounds was donated to The Children With Cancer Fund based in Polegate. The charity raised a further £344.25 from a game that they were encouraged to arrange and public donations.

The show is created from members’ audio visual competition productions, that had been judged earlier in the season, together with miscellanies, a cartoon sequence, a photo harmony of competition winning images and a charity production. This year the play list comprised twenty one titles with a play time of around an hour and forty minutes. A ve minute time limit on productions was introduced a few years ago to avoid losing the audience interest if subjects or production techniques are not to their liking. Competition awards and the charity cheque were presented by the Hailsham Mayor at the end of the rst performance on Friday evening.

Subject variety is one of the keys to the show success. Travel, members experiences, natural history, local places and properties of interest, tting images to popular songs and, more recently, a humorous play with members taking leading roles are typical themes seen in the show. 'The Perfect Husband' produced by Graham Sergeant and Carole Speight started the humorous play trend and is one of the very rare guest productions in the history of the show.

Open subject miscellanies started and closed the show this year. For these, music is chosen to set the pace and mood with images, made by members who do not work in AV, interspersed with humorous images from a variety of sources. The images are chosen and sequenced so that tones blend and subjects relate well through the transitions. A miscellany of members natural history images is another favourite.

A regular feature is the cartoon production. One of the society members has the talent to produce caricatures that he creates to illustrate humorous songs or story narration that this year was from Bernard Wrigley.

It's worth observing that the audio visual productions appreciated and enjoyed by the audiences may be considered lightweight when compared with many of those entered in National and International festivals.

A condition when selecting the charity, is their willingness to attend each of the three shows to explain and promote their contribution and services to the local community. It's rare that a charity has an audio visual production in a form that is suitable for projection. However a member of the organising committee will liaise to obtain images that can be prepared and shown to support their presentation.

A condition when selecting the charity, is their willingness to attend each of the three shows to explain and promote their contribution and services to the local community.

Charity continues at home: The Hailsham P.S. Colour Show Continued ...

Feedback from the audience has highlighted the different things that they take from the shows. One lady said that after watching the show, the cares that she came with had been lifted by the calming inuence of sound and pictures. Another was impressed by the standard of photography and the crafting of images and sound. Yet another thought wasthat a couple of the sequences wouldn't look out of place on the Smithsonian Channel! The number of people we see returning year on year is recognition that the formula works and is a welcome social event early in the year.

The Colour Show has a record of attracting new members to the Society, some of whom have wanted to start producing audio visual work and gone on to have success at The Kent County Photographic Association annual competition. Small group training and ad hoc discussion groups have contributed to these achievements.

One of the Society missions is to integrate photography into the community of Hailsham and surrounding areas. The Colour Show is one way this is achieved while supporting a different local charity each year and broadening members’ photographic interests into AV.

HINTS and Tips 22

Digital Recorders - Mono or Stereo?

Malcolm Imhoff FRPS FACI(M)

If you use a digital portable recorder to record your voiceovers it is best to use a separate microphone rather than the built in mics. The question is, should you set the machine to record in Mono or Stereo? Since you are only recording one source, the voice, the obvious choice is to set your machine to record in Mono. Not necessarily.

I always record in Stereo, even though my microphone will only send the signal to the left track. The reason I do this is that if I were to record in Mono the recorder will take the input from the microphone (left track) and add to it the sound from the right track (in theory nothing, but in practice a lot of hiss which you can't get rid of).

On a Mono recording you won't see this on the waveform. but if you look at the Stereo recording (above) the voice from the microphone is on the left channel but some hiss has appeared on the right channel where it should be completely silent. If we were to use this Stereo waveform as it is, or convert it to Mono, the unwanted hiss will be added to the voice.

By recording in Stereo I can select only the left track, the one with the voice, leave the hiss on the right channel behind, copy and paste it to a new Mono waveform, and this is the one I use (right).

One Thing After Another

Peter Young

In an AV we nd ways to connect one image to the next. We are naturally drawn to forging some link between often disparate images to create a story that makes sense to us. The order in which you present the images in your AV will affect how the viewer understands the story you are telling.

The transition between images also adds meaning. In the twentieth century, transitions were created using a mechanical cross-fade: a physical shutter closed on one of the pair of projectors as a twin shutter opened on the other.

Now that we have software alternatives, far more kinds of transition are possible. The default is the cross-fade or dissolve: one image fades out as the next image fades in. The duration is up to the creator; it can take as many seconds as you choose.

It provides opportunities for your brain to make connections within a sequence of disparate images.

Cuts vs Cross- fades

The majority of the transitions used in movie-making are cuts – one shot cuts to the next instantaneously. This maintains continuity of action within the scene. Cross-fades are occasionally used in movies (one notable example is the opening sequence of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane) although nowadays far less often than in the 20th Century. A movie cross-fade suggests a shift to a different time or space – the dream sequence, the ashback memory.

So why in an AV is the default a cross-fade rather than a cut? A movie inherently shows action. The AV has to create movement in a series of still images, which may or may not have any chronological connection, and it achieves this using a relatively slow transition from one image to the next. This cross-fade implies movement: a shift in point of view. AVs are more about space. Each image is a shift to a different place, a different point of view. We may see the same thing from another angle or in close-up, or shift to somewhere else entirely. An AV does not exhibit the temporal continuity of the movie scene. It provides opportunities for your brain to make connections within a sequence of disparate images.

A Gamut of Transitions

As PowerPoint became popular as a way of presenting lists, diagrams, tables, charts, etc, it was possible to animate the slides using a variety of transitions. Flying stuff in from the side became very popular – and rather tedious – leading to the term ‘death by PowerPoint’.

An example of transition overkill occurs in the trailer for Howard Hawkes’ To Have and Have Not (1944)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=EBM5Bte4ltg

AV software also has many types of transition available, but that doesn’t mean you have to use them. If you stick to the cross fade, it fulls its function without drawing attention to itself.

Choose a different transition with care, because anything unusual will tend to pull the viewer out of the experience. They’ll be paying attention to the technology rather than your content.

One Things After Another continued ...

Here are a few common transitions. When used artistically, they add meaning; used indiscriminately, they scream for attention, and distract the viewer. Of course, they could be used for humorous effect, or simply because they look cool. Fancy wipes should be used sparingly, if at all.

Iris In: A circular mask zooms in on a key character or part of the image (often used in the silent era of cinema). It can suggest an ending or a death. Darkness vignettes in, reducing the image size until it disappears.

Wipes: A wipe has a meaning something like: “meanwhile, back at the ranch”.

Monochrome to Colour: Bringing an old picture to life, or change in context and meaning. Used memorably in Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz, and as a story device in Gary Ross’s Pleasantville

Time Lapse: Exactly the same shot is taken at different times to show change. Some of the original elements disappear to be replaced or changed in quality in the later shot.

Don ’ t follow the lead of Homer Simpson who comments: “ Why eat hamburger when you can have steak? ” (“ Alone Again, Natura - Diddily ”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72bUheqRE5o

The Art of the Third Image

In the few seconds of changeover, two images are visible simultaneously. When this ‘multiple exposure’ exhibits some artistic merit, it is referred to as ‘third image’. (Examples of these intermediate images were published in AV News #210, #211 and #212.) In movie terms, this is called a ‘match-cut’. Think of the famous transition of the bone into the space station in Kubrick’s 2001.

In AV terms, it might be more useful to think of this as intentional sequential image alignment. There has to be some co-incidence of elements between picture #1 and picture #2. And the resulting merged image has to inspire an ‘ah-ha’ moment in the viewer. This could be amusing or aesthetically pleasing.

Zooming and panning also suggest movement, but it may be disconcerting to use a cross-fade transition from a pan to a zoom or vice versa; the intermediate ‘third’ image can look very messy.

Practical suggestions

The secret lies in the registration of the separate images. If you are using the Crop Tool in Photoshop, this comes with a cross marking the centre of the frame. This allows you to align centres easily. Otherwise, you can resort to trial and error, or you can use Layers at 50% opacity to see how the images merge. In PTE you can gently move the slider between the two images to see what the blend looks like.

If you are going to create alignment in post, you need to shoot your images a little wider so that you can crop them in editing. You will be resizing your images anyway, and cropping is part of that process.

One Things After Another continued …

Example 1: I have used the Crop Tool to align the centres of the two images. Note that there is also a partial colour match.

Example 2: When moving from one landscape image to the next it’s better when the horizons line up. Otherwise this results in a visual confusion. If there’s no way of re-cropping the images, then use a cutaway image to mask the misalignment. Here, the horizons are not in the same place. I used the railing in the second image to align with the horizon in the rst.

Example 4: Time-lapse. The two images were taken from the exact same location a month apart, showing the ooding, and the river level at ‘normal’.

Example 3: The Transition reveals a circular pattern emerging from the stylised tree.

File Formats: MP4 or Exe?

Ian Bateman

When the nal tweak to your new project is done, you’re ready to press the Publish Show button if you’re a PTE AV Studio user and export your sequence to the waiting world. You’re faced with two options

executable le or video le?

For many years it was a no-brainer – an executable le would contain the original images and audio, and an instruction set for the host computer to play them all back in the right order with a synchronised soundtrack. So long as the computer was powerful enough, the show would look exactly the same as your original creation, with no compression or rendering to spoil the effect. The only reason to ever export as a video le was if you wanted to upload the sequence to a streaming website, or to share with someone using a Mac.

A couple of years ago though, a few things changed to make the ‘exe’ option no longer the obvious choice. Firstly, Windows 10 had a major update that affected the performance of NVidia video card drivers. High-spec laptops tend to have dual graphics cards - a low-power Intel graphics chip on the motherboard and a high-spec GeForce card for complex graphics. For most uses, the Intel card would normally sufce and hence prolong the battery life.

For AV sequences and games though, the extra power of the GeForce card would a much smoother result. The Windows 10 update inadvertently introduced a conict between the two cards when playing back through a projector. Instead of simply using the faster card, the conict caused stuttering on some sequences, or simply not play them back at all, depending on which version of PTE the sequence was created with.

Switching off the laptop screen and only using the projector usually got around the problem, but not with every sequence. WnSoft are aware of the problem and have been in extensive dialogue with NVidia, but as yet the problem remains unresolved. If you only play back your sequences on a computer with a single graphics card and single monitor/screen, everything will look ne and you may not even know that this problem exists.

At the same time, PTE improved the quality of its video le exports, and the current MP4 les can play back every bit as smoothly as the ‘exe’ version but without the possible problems described above. So does this mean that MP4 les should now be the export format of choice? Sadly, it’s not as clear cut as that would imply, and video les can bring their own set of problems.

To get the best possible quality, choose the “HD and 4K Video” option from the Publish Show menu. This will export an MP4 le using H.264 compression (the codec), which is the current industry standard for high quality output. The frame rate of the video le needs to be set as high as possible - in v10 of PTE AV Studio, this is 60 frames per second.

In real terms this means that the sequence is rendered into 60 still images for every second of the playback time. So a four minute sequence would be made up of 14,400 images at a resolution of (say) 1920 x 1080 pixels. When this plays back, the speed at which the images are shown means that even the most delicate of dissolves and slowest of zooms and pans will be very smooth.

There is of course a downside to this, of which the most obvious is that the le size will be a lot larger than the exe equivalent. For a four minute sequence the le size will typically be 150Mb, which is about three times bigger than the exe version. The other problem is that to play back a 60 fps video le, a computer needs to have a fast processor and high-spec graphics card. Using a lower frame rate – eg 30 fps – will produce a smaller le that can be played back on older computers, but the dissolves and motion effects won’t be as smooth.

File Formats: MP4 or Exe? Continued ...

An earlier version of this article was included in the AV News Extra bulletin, and it prompted a discussion on the AV News Facebook page over the use of the “Hardware Acceleration” checkbox. Ticking this will switch the video rendering from your main processor to your graphics card. If you have an older main processor, then the process will be speeded up considerably by ticking this box. However, there was a debate about whether this would produce a lower quality le than allowing the main processor to do the job. Igor at WnSoft at one time said that for the best quality result the box should be left unticked, which is the reverse of what I’d been doing. So as a test, I exported a four minute AV sequence to two different MP4 les – one with the box ticked and one without. They were both 1920 x 1080 pixels, rendered at 60 frames per second. The ‘ticked’ one took about 18 minutes to do this, and surprisingly the ‘unticked’ version took only a short while longer at 18 minutes 33 seconds. The last time I’d tried this was several years ago with a much slower computer, and then the time difference was huge, but now there is not much to choose between the two. I then uploaded both versions for people on the Facebook page to view themselves and see if anyone could notice any difference in quality. The majority couldn’t tell the difference, but one person thought the ‘unticked’ one was smoother. So ultimately, if you have a fast main processor ticking this checkbox doesn’t make a great deal of difference.

Some festivals – notably the Trophee de Paris - have decided since 2017 to request video le entries despite the massively increased le sizes. In the 2020 event, 85% of entries were in MP4 format and only 15% as ‘exe’ les.

Another problem is that not all video les are created equal. The ones produced by PTE are generally ne, but outside of these the video les, even all those with an “MP4” sufx, can have been made with any one of many different codec systems. I recently judged an AV competition at home, and one video le played back in such poor quality it was unwatchable. I tried it with VLC, Faststone Viewer and Windows Media Player without any success. After more experiments, I discovered that it was suffering from the “two graphics cards conict”, which was a big surprise as I’d thought that this was purely an ‘exe’ problem. I eventually imported it into PTE and re-exported it as a new video le, after which it played back perfectly.

Whereas executable les play back with no other software required, video les need to be played within a media player. The Windows Media Player tends to be a bit clunky, so the best option is to use VLC, a free media player that seems to cope with the biggest variety of le formats. You can download it from https//www.videolan.org

To improve the playback experience, there are a couple of settings that need to be tweaked. First, from the File menu, put a tick in the ‘Quit at End of Playlist’ option. This will avoid the need to close the player at the end of the video.

To avoid having the playback controls and logo appearing before the video starts, from the “Tools” menu, choose “Preferences” (or press ctrl-P). Untick the “Show Controls” option to enable a clean start to the video.

Then click the Video tab and click “Fullscreen” to enable the video to start in full screen mode.

Selecting these options will open and close the video le seamlessly, and it will play back without having to manually ll the screen and close down the program.

Sound for AV

Mixing Two: Music and Voice

Malcolm Imhoff FRPS FACI(M)

This is a big step for a lot of people, recording a voiceover and mixing it into the sound track. However, the principles of mixing a voice recording with your music are very similar to mixing several pieces of music, but with a few more things to think about.

In AV News issues 213 and 214 I dealt with the equipment you need to record a voice and the techniques involved. I'd just like to emphasise a few points from those articles for this issue. Firstly, get a decent microphone. This is the one thing that, used properly, will lift your voice recordings above the average recordings we quite often hear.

Secondly, try to avoid doing it directly on the computer as this is bound to pick up unwanted noise. It's much better to use a separate digital recorder.

I record a voice with a mono mic but in stereo on my digital recorder. This appears as the left channel in my stereo recording. I select and copy just the left channel to a new mono le thus leaving behind all the noise on the right channel (see the "Hints & Tips" article on Page 47). This is what I use. If done properly and under the right conditions it should not need any processing such as noise reduction.

The only adjustment I usually make is to add a tiny amount of reverb. This can be heard on playback when listening to the voice alone, but when mixed with music sounds very natural and gives a nice touch of added "presence".

You may have recorded the voice as a number of separate WAV les (you are recording in the uncompressed lossless WAV format aren't you?), or as a single WAV le with everything. I sometimes do it one way and sometimes the other, but whichever method you use the next stage is to select the best "takes" and edit out any mistakes, "ums" and "ers", and any swear words etc. Do however keep the intake of breath before a sentence as this sounds more natural.

I use Audition so my next step is to insert the voice clip(s) from the Edit interface into the multitrack interface. In Audacity you don't have these two environments, and of course you may be editing your music within PTE. I then split the voice clips from each other and slide them to approximately where I want them in the overall sound track. I nd it helpful to use two adjacent tracks for this (Pictured below).

Open and insert your music track(s) so you can see both. Now comes an organic process of moving bits of voice and bits of music so the voice is in the right place in relation to the music. For example you don't want an important bit of speech to come at the same time as a loud peak in the music as it will get drowned out.

That may be all you need to do. But I usually nd that the music rarely ts my narration throughout the sequence so I have to be a bit creative. My method involves copying and pasting sometimes short sections of the music and sliding these duplicates along the timeline and cross-fading between them in order to t the voice.

Overleaf you can see a multitrack session demonstrating the use range of music and voice clips to create a soundscape

I quite often like a dramatic musical point to come immediately after a word, and for a new sentence to start at the end of a bar or at a pause in the music. If the cross-fades in the music occur while the speaker is speaking you won't hear them.

The aim is to try and make the music sound seamless, while, very importantly, retaining the beginning, end and signicant climaxes. I think most people viewing the AV would think that it was one single unedited piece of music.

Photoshop – Lookup Tables (LUT)

Keith Scott FRPS DPAGB AV-AFIAP

At the time of writing this article (November 2019) Adobe Corporation had just released their latest version of Adobe Photoshop 2020 incorporating many new or improved features. Whilst it may have become customary to review new Photoshop releases or major software updates, I was inspired instead by Mark Allen’s article within the November issue of AV News to write about the use of LUT within Photoshop. These are useful functions I’ve used on many occasions. LUT is the abbreviations for `Lookup Tables’, an array used in computer programming that holds values which would otherwise need to be calculated. When the values are needed later the program can simply look them up, speeding up the editing process thereby saving computing resources.

Within Photoshop and indeed many other imaging editing software packages the use of LUT is usually regarded as `Colour Lookup Tables’ (CLUT) a matrix of stored colour data that is searched in order to change an existing source set of colours to a required destination set of colours.

From this ...

However, it doesn’t have to be just about colour, the tables can also hold other data based on the various effects achieved by using adjustment layers. Numerous online companies supply ready to use LUT, some available at premium rates, but others are available free to download and use without any cost or limitation. In our examples image No 1 taken on the quayside at Amble in Northumberland in late October has undergone no colour changes, however image No 2 has a CUBE format LUT named candlelight applied. This effect is just one from a download of 450 + free LUT supplied by https:// www.photoshopdream.com/.

The download consists of a 49MB compressed .rar le with the rather long name “450 + Color Lookup (3D lut) Presets for Photoshop – Free Download.rar”. When uncompressed the total les occupy around 175MB. In practice few photographers are ever going to need 450 plus LUT. It’s therefore sensible to assess the effect of each using a suitable background image then keep only those of useful value.

To decide which to keep simply copy and paste the uncompressed les into Photoshop’s `3DLUTs’ folder, usually located on most Windows systems at C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2020\Presets\3DLUTs. This location may vary slightly depending on which version of Photoshop you are using. With a background image open in Photoshop click on the circular icon at the bottom of the `Layers’ palette to create a new `Adjustment Layer’ and choose `Color Lookup…’ from the popup menu, a `Lookup Table’ properties box will appear, this provides several choices.

To this ...

Photoshop - Lookup Tables continued ...

Click on the top drop-down menu illustrated by the red arrow on image 3 (pictured right) to see a list of the LUT loaded, click on any in this list to see its effect on your background image. Delete those not required.

Photoshop is a powerful editing tool; it doesn’t rely on third party LUT either premium or free sourced. Photoshop can quickly create and export its own LUT in four different le formats and tailored to your own colour/tonal requirements. Furthermore, you are not restricted to using such LUT just in Photoshop, they can be used in Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and almost any other good imaging or video editing program made to work with Look Up Tables.

Photoshop is a powerful editing tool; it doesn ’ t rely on third party LUT either premium or free sourced. Photoshop can quickly create and export its own LUT in four different le formats and tailored to your own colour/tonal requirements.

To create and export your own colour LUT you must start by having an open image le with a `Background’ layer i.e. the bottom layer in the layers palette must be entitled `Background’. Apply one or more adjustment layers to achieve the desired colour or tonal effects i.e. “Brightness/ Contrast, Levels, Curves, Exposure, Hue/ Saturation, Color Balance, Black & White, Photo Filter, or Chanel Mixer” see image 4 (pictured left). The easiest way to apply adjustment layers is to have the `Adjustments’ palette open on your workspace. If this is not already displayed select `Window’ from the `Main Menu’ then tick `Adjustments’.

When all adjustments have been tweaked to meet your satisfaction create and export a new LUT by clicking the main `File Menu’ select `Export’ then `Color Lookup Tables…’ whereupon an `Export’ control box will open, (see image 5 pictured right). In the top line of this box you may type a brief description of your LUT, although this description is not actually necessary.

Optionally on the next lower line type your name if you want Photoshop to automatically add the prex of © Copyright <current year>. This is useful if you share your LUT with others.

If you want to create your LUT with lower case le extensions place a tick in the small square tick box. Next you need to set the quality of your le. Quality options range from Poor at around 8 Grid Points, through Low, Medium, High, to Maximum at 256 Grid Points. Low quality creates smallest size les and conversely Maximum creates the largest le size. For most purposes the Medium quality ranging from 32 to 63 Grid Points will sufce.

You now need to select the le format for your export le, Photoshop can create up to 4 le types i.e. 3DL, CUBE, CSP, and ICC, each intended for different purposes. These are selected by placing a tick in the appropriate boxes. Selecting all four types will do no harm other than occupy a bit more space on your hard drive. However, the top two options of 3DL and CUBE will probably satisfy most Photoshop users.

A 3DL le contains data, commonly used by various image / video editors, it stores an indexed table of RGB colour values for adjusting colour effects. 3DL les are frequently used for cinema movies to create consistency of colour, theme, or atmosphere. If you start with your Background image in LAB colour mode, you can export the LUT as an ICC abstract prole. Abstract proles are the most exible of the formats and you can apply them to any colour mode.

When you export the table in an RGB-only format, Photoshop automatically converts the image document to the RGB colour mode.

Photoshop - Lookup Tables continued ...

An ICC le is a colour prole format standardized by the International Colour Consortium (ICC). It contains colour settings for image-editing programs. It also relays information between software and peripheral devices, including monitors, printers, and scanners. Whether your le is imported or created in Photoshop the data in LUT les is selected and loaded for Photoshop use via the LUT properties control panel (image 3).

The nal stage of creating and exporting your LUT is to inform Photoshop of the location on your computer where you want to save the generated les, and to enter a base lename to which Photoshop automatically appends the appropriate le extensions. You may nd that by default the program wants to save them in the same folder as the original background image. However, you should save the les into the previously described `3DLUTs’ folder. This enables the LUT control panel (image 3) to nd them.

Note: On rare occasions Photoshop may pop up an error message when creating / exporting a LUT, see image 6 (below). This message states; “ Unable to export LUT because Error: General Photoshop error occurred. This functionality may not be available in this version of Photoshop. –The command `Canvas Size ’ is not currently available. :528”.

If this message appears check the following; that the `Crop Tool’ (C) is not selected, ensure the active tool is the `Move Tool’ (V), ensure that there isn’t already a LUT le of the same name in the same location, and try changing the size of the Background image, perhaps to a native Photoshop size. If all these fail resort to rebooting Photoshop!

If `Export ’ and `Color Lookup Tables … ’ are in dark type and not greyed out in the `Files’ menu then this function is certainly activated in your Photoshop version.

The centre image on this example strip is as taken in camera with no adjustments applied, the left and right images have a LUT applied, downloaded free from https://www.photoshopdream.com/

2020 International Theme Audio Visual Salon hosted

by AV Makers

South Africa

We are proud to announce our salon for 2020. The theme comes from Ria Katzke LRPS APSSA AFIAP and is your interpretation of 'STOP '.

Friend Google provides the following:

Verb - (of an event, action, or process) come to an end; cease to happen. "His laughter stopped as quickly as it had begun"

Noun - a cessation of movement or operation. "All business came to a stop"

As usual, the judges will base their judgements on how well the sequences interpret the theme. In other words, they will place an excellently produced sequence with little relevance to 'STOP' lower than a slightly less accomplished sequence with far greater relevance.

Salon Director: Jeff Morris AV-AFIAP AFIAP LRPS AV-DPSSA APSSA

Email: avmakerssouthafrica@gmail.com.

Full details will be published soon on the AV Makers South Africa website, in our monthly newsletter and elsewhere .

With Covid 19 restrictions in place, the status of future events is currently unknown. Please look on line for information.

To contribute to the AV community please visit https://rps.org/ groups/audio-visual/av -clubs-uk/

We are developing a map of all UK groups and clubs with an AV interest.

Please check this and if you want to add a club or update information contact Sheila Haycox at: sah2@live.co.uk

Publication Information

AV News is published three times a year by the AV Group of the Royal Photographic Society. It is distributed free to Group members and is available to others for an Annual Subscription of £22 in the UK, £25 in Europe and £27 elsewhere – contact Keith Watson at k.n.watson@virginmedia.com

Copy Deadlines

Planned Publication Dates

23rd February 1st April

23rd June 1st August

23rd October 1st December

Please note that the copy deadlines are the absolute latest. To ensure publication in the next issue please send copy as early as possible. Publication date may vary according to the dates of National and International AV events.

Any items concerning Audio Visual and Multimedia are welcome, including reviews, technical details, events, photographs, letters and queries. All contributions should be submitted to the Editor at: magazine@avnews.org.uk

The views expressed are solely those of the contributor and not necessarily those of either the Editors or the RPS AV Group.

Distribution: AV News is forwarded to RPS AV Group members using the labels produced by the RPS Membership Department in Bath. Any member not receiving their copy should contact Bath. However, the Secretary will be pleased to post single copies to those members who have failed to receive them.

Copyright: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission of the copyright holder.

Printed By Mensa Printers, Arundel Lane, Shef eld. S1 4RF magazine@avnews.org.uk

Aexpanded format which when combined with the e xtra ensures you look at the authors intent when they were planning the AV. In this edition you synopsis of the AV and anyone who has done this will know how difcult it of my best work has come from moments of serendipity and those types of the post Covid 19 world will look like and especially for our own hobby which community coming together in a wonderful way. We have seized the