AV News 179 - February 2010
15th Great Northern Festival
H a z e l & M a lc o lm S a x to n
The first event, on Friday evening 4th
December, at The 15th Great Northern Festival
was a lecture by Denis Thorpe FRPS entitled
“On Home Ground”. He illustrated the first half
with an amazing collection of images from the
Manchester Guardian, which he had worked
for, taken over a hundred years by named
photographers.
In the second half we saw Denis’s own work.
Apparently he had been told as a school boy to write as if he was a reporter
and so he gained a post in his local paper as a reporter and gradually became
involved in the photography side, to which he gave the same approach as his
writing. He wanted his pictures to tell a story and not necessarily the obvious
one. At times he selected small elements which told a far greater story. He was
a friend of LS Lowry and when Lowry’s death
was announced he went to his house, only to
find a van outside and the house being
cleared. He managed to persuade those in
charge to allow him to record the rooms as
they were.
He took one image of hanging coats and
hats and later discovered Lowry had made a
similar drawing. It was a fascinating evening.
The moment had been captured. There was
a message and atmosphere in his images
which often told the social history of the time.
On the Saturday it was Audio Visual competition time. There were 35 entries
covering a wide range of subjects from people who had never gained an award
in a major competition to the experts who have won National and International
Competitions. The judges this year were
Eddie Spen