AV News Magazine | Page 42

AV News 183 - February 2011 Great Yorkshire AV Sunday Peter Appleton Have you ever noticed how, when you're really enjoying yourself, something happens to spoil that enjoyment? Well, on Sunday 21st November, it happened to me at Bradford! There I was, thoroughly enjoying the day, when, after two-thirds of the day was over, Jill Bunting asked me to do a report on the event. "But, Jill", I protested, "I haven't been taking any notes!" "That's alright", she said "Just let me have your impressions of the day". So now I have another challenge: how do you do 'mpressionism' in words. The impressionist painters did it by getting an overall effect of the colour and light, rather than an accurate depiction. Does that mean I should ignore grammer and speling and down just put a rundom jamble of litters and wards? No, that's not going to work; already I can sense Word's spell-checker throwing a fit of the screaming ab-jabs. Better just do it the orthodox way. The day followed the usual format: morning session - attendees' sequences; afternoon sessions - guest speaker. The morning session turned out to be over-subscribed, with some sequences not getting shown. Bryan Stubbs has offered those entries a guaranteed place in the February event. All the sequences that got shown were given some excellent constructive feedback moderated by Keith Scott; with contributions coming from Martin Fry FRPS (our guest speaker) and several other members of the audience. Martin's comments were particularly apt and tended to cover aspects that nobody else had thought about. For one sequence he suggested building it in reverse (start with the end section and work back towards its current opening). That probably sounds daft written down - but it made such a lot of sense in the context of the actual sequence. It boded well for the afternoon: this guy clearly knew his stuff! After a slightly curtailed lunch break, we re-assembled to hear Martin's words of wisdom - and what wisdom! He showed a selection of his sequences; and after each one, proceeded to dissect some aspect of it. In one case, how the images had been put together; in another, how the project had evolved over a seven year time period! And all this interspersed with the occasional humorous anecdote. The day just flew by and was, I am sure enjoyed by everyone - including me (I did, Jill, honest, really!) To anyone who feels I've given short-measure in this report, don't blame me; blame the editor, Jill : honest, really! Page 40