2006 AV Fair
Well, the 2006 Antelope Valley Fair has been going on for about a week. I believe that the photography exhibit has been a great success and this can be attributed to the efforts of the many dedicated LPA members who put it together.
You should all be very proud of your efforts. If LPA had not taken over the management this year, we may not have had a Photography exhibit!
There were over 1800 entries versus about 1400 last year. This years total photos submitted were 1462, (19.5 % no-shows). During the photo take-in on 18 August, many people told me it was the first time they had entered photos in the Fair. I attribute some of this increase in entries to the proliferation of digital cameras and photo printers. It would not surprise me if many more photos were entered next year.
I was talked into volunteering for the chairman position because I had seen last years exhibit and thought I could improve upon it. I believe my goals were attained!
Some of the changes and improvements from the Fairs of the last several years were:
- Eliminated the digital divisions, consequently reducing the total classes from 105 to 8.
- Deleted ABSTRACT from the Amateur B&W and Junior divisions due to lack of entries last year
- Added WEDDING to the Professional divisions and VEHICLES to all color divisions
- Reorganized some Divisions/Classes so that Amateurs would not have to compete with Professionals
- Eliminated the requirement to show negatives at take-in
- Laid out the photo divisions/classes in MS Power Point ahead of time so that photos could be hung immediately without waiting for all photos to be received. This also allowed us to better organize the photos classes
- Dedicated pegboards to hang Best of Show and Best of Division winners and to display LPA and Judge’s information
- Best of Division and Best of Show trophies were provided by several sponsors including LPA
- Ten Judge’s Choice Ribbons were awarded
- Three photographers from S4C (Larry Cowles, Joanne Stolte and Jim Kingwell) did the judging in a very efficient and professional manner
According to my count, there were 75 LPA 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners, 41 members won a 1st place. Pat Ware won Best of Division in Advanced! Click here for a complete summary of winners and divisions/classes.
Although the Fair book had been “clarified”, many exhibitors were confused about “flush mounting”, “borders” and how to mount their print. . I have already started to update the Fair book to further “clarify” this issue.
The amateur division had 834 photos hung. 82 in Pictorial Water, 67 in Pictorial Land and 79 in Human interest. It would be nice if we could somehow split these classes but I can’t think of a way to do it. There were only 163 photos hung in the Advanced Amateur division. If we could get more people to enter the advanced division, it would help balance the exhibit. Certainly the competition this year was far less in the Advanced than the Amateur divisions and I don’t think that the quality of entries were much different. Perhaps we could make anyone who got one blue ribbon in Amateur would have to enter their photos in the Advanced division next year? The rules now say three blue ribbons to move.
When I volunteered for the chairman position last year I was somewhat naïve about the amount of work and number of people required to put a show like this together. Fortunately, many LPA members put in a lot of hours and effort to make it a success. Congratulations to all!
All photos by John Shedrick