AV News 200 - May 2015
P e te r C o le s IA C In te rn a tio n a l
Margaret Salisbury FRPS MFIAP FIPF APAGB AWPF
& Sian Davies CPAGB AWPF LRPS
Margaret - Peter Coles was a lovely man and an
amazing one, totally committed to photography and
particularly AV, he would go a long way to help
anyone. His own work was, ‘once seen always
remembered’ and although the AV world lost Peter
himself when he passed away he will live on in the
memory of the wonderful sequences he produced. It
is fitting tribute to him for his name to be used for this
competition, so those who did not know him will
have some idea of his contribution to this branch of photography.
I attended this year's championships purely as a spectator with friend Sian
and we were for the first time there for the whole two days of the competition.
The first thing which strikes you is the welcome you get when you enter the
Venue, a smile when you are greeted goes a long way. The friendliness of all
is wonderful, even between competitors there is encouragement and
enthusiasm and praise for each other's work.
By the end of weekend it was obvious that without the massive amount of
work over a long period put in by a handful of people this great event would not
run at all. I have been interested in and even done a little AV since I first took
up photography 40 years ago but my summary of the day is purely a personal
opinion I was not ‘judging’ just enjoying the entries and being with friends.
Sian - This was a marathon of images and music. There was a great difference
between some AV’s lasting 2min 05secs to nearly 12 minutes. The longer
ones, unless you are passionate about the subject, I felt lost me somewhere
along the line. I have made an AV to show more images in a 5 -10 minute slot
in camera club. I thought that the quality of images was important. When I
competed at club level, I was told, you cannot mix portrait and landscape
images. Now I see you can, it is how they are presented. I was told you cannot
put in an image, a composite of all my own work, that is an interpretation of
what it must have been like on that day and told that is not allowed. MANY of
the AVs we saw had other people's images, and one, none of the images were
by the author of the AV and it had a top award. This to me was very
disappointing.
Margaret - I found the most enjoyable were those sequences I could relate to
as places I had been, or subjects I felt strongly about. One of the most moving
and emotional subjects having worked alongside staff of Women's Aid was
‘U-Turn’ which showed good photography, excellent choice of medium (strong
mono images) a good commentary and cleverly produced with a strong
beginning and ending. There were many stories from War-time. First world war
sequences, Concentration camps, and the Trenches were featured, but in view
of the anniversary of the war last year it was not surprising. But I was
disappointed not to see featured the Poppies at the Tower of London.
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