AV News 177 - August 2009
First MFFC AV Salon - South Africa
J e ff M o rris APSSA
In the heyday of slides, many
photographers had great fun
making audio-visuals with
multiple slide projectors and
synchronized music on tapes.
Parts of the annual Congress
were taken up with viewing
these shows.
A number of PSSA members
obtained Associateships and
Fellowships in the (slide) audio-visual category. This whole technology has
been replaced in the digital era with electronic audio-visuals made on
computer. It is still a fairly new medium with relatively few serious
practitioners in South Africa (compared with the number of serious digital
photographers out there). We hoped that with this salon we would interest
more photographers in the medium.
Hosted by The Magalies Foto Fun Club of Pretoria earlier this year, it was
the first AV salon with Photographic Society of South Africa (PSSA)
patronage and attracted entries from 67 authors.
Details and results of the competition are available on
http://sites.google.com/site/mffcavsalon2009/ and www.avnews.org.uk
From the large number of excellent entries, it is clear that audio-visual is alive
and well in South Africa.
In addition to an open section there was a section with the theme of 'Africa'
that attracted 42 entries. This was expertly judged by three well-known
Australians: Barb Butler AAPS, John Hodgson EFIAP FAPS Hon AFB and
John Guthrie LRPS. The organizers are most grateful for their time and effort.
From their comments, it is clear that they also enjoyed the experience of
seeing South African productions.
The Open section, with 92 entries, was judged just as professionally by
South African judges from Johannesburg, Krugersdorp and Pretoria, Mr
Frank Reuvers Hon FPSSA FPSSA(Dux) EPSSA EFIAP, Mr Hein Waschefort
FPSSA(Dux) and Dr Friso Woudstra APSSA. The organizers found that 'remote
judging' where each judge scores entries in their own time and on their own
equipment worked very well. It enabled them to invite the best possible team
of judges and it is certainly the way to save costs of flying in and
accommodating judges at a central judging venue for an exhausting judging
session or two. All the judges used the official PSSA AV scoring system. A
total of four aspects of each AV were scored out of a theoretical maximum of
100 points. For each judge, the AVs were ranked from highest score (=1) to
lowest. The ranks from each of the three judges in each section were then
summed and these sums again ranked from smallest (the winning AV) to
largest (the last AV).
Page 8