AV News 186 - November 2011
I take you back to my original statement. According to the RPS AV Group
website 'The Group strives to expand the skills and techniques of individual
workers by encouragement, guidance and involvement'.
Did we get a chance to expand our skills and techniques – NO
Have we been encouraged by this experience? – NO
Have we received guidance? – NO
Will we be involved again? – NO and not likely to be if the structure for
selection remains the same.
As a member of the RPS and the RPS AV Group could I ask those in charge
to take a look at how things are currently done and try to come up with a more
fair system that follows the website statement?
If you feel I can be of help with a review I would be only too glad to volunteer.
T h ird P a rty Im a g e s
Malcolm Gee LRPS
My wife and I very much enjoyed attending the National Audio Visual
Championships at Sutton Bonington in September. However there is one
important topic that I would like to air. It highlights an issue that I believe
devalues the awards that are being given at both national and international
audio visual competitions. I know that it is very controversial, but in my
opinion it needs to be openly discussed, to stimulate the use of creative and
original photography by competitors in the audio visual world.
At the 19th Royal Photographic Society International Audio Visual Festival,
held last year, and the very recent 17th National Audio Visual Championship,
both hosted and organized by the Royal Photographic Society Audio Visual
Group, the two first placed, gold medal winning sequences, made use of old,
third party, recycled, archive images.
Obviously a lot of the creative input by their authors was directed at
sourcing, selecting and copying rather than creating these images. Surely in
making their decisions, the judging panels at these events should be
encouraging the production of new and hopefully innovative photography,
rather than sanctioning plagiarism!
I wonder is the correct message being sent by the judges to the entrants
(31% of which were new to this years 17th National Audio Visual
Championship) that creative photographic ability is a key component of a
successful prize winning entry.
As a relative newcomer to the medium I find it hard to comprehend the
culture of plagiarism that seems to pervade the current competiitve AV
scene. I hope that by raising the issue that I might be able to start a
constructive discussion about the extensive use of third party images within
some audio visual sequences.
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