Audio Visual at Ludshott Photo Club 

Ludshott photographic club’s audio visual section came into being in 2005. It was started by a small group of interested photographers who met in Phil Peddy’s house to learn about digital audio visual and slideshows. We learnt as we went along. There were not many sources of information at that time so we relied on trial and error.

At first we used Proshow Gold to produce our shows, but then I went to an international RPS AV festival in Cirencester and met Peter Harms who introduced me to Mid Thames AV group. Jim Henson, Thistle Ince and I joined Mid Thames where we learnt a good deal more about AV. We started to use Pictures to Exe software, and moved meetings to my house, where we fixed a drop down screen to the ceiling in our back room. I started to give beginners courses over the winter and slowly more and more members of the club became interested in AV. We soon had upto 20 club members who come regularly to meetings. As our room is small we sometimes met in two separate sessions during the winter. We have about five sessions each season.

One of our founder members was Jim Henson. He is a very artistic man and produced audio visuals which were different from anybody else’s. He was also good on the technical side and did a lot to promote our group. From 2012 Jim organised a competition against other local clubs. Each year he would invite two clubs to enter five AVs each, and we ran a small competition as part of Ludshott’s annual programme. However, it became harder and harder to find other clubs who could produce sufficient AVs, so we decided to open the competition to all clubs in the SPA.

When Jim became very ill in 2015 we chose to name the new trophy after him.

The Jim Henson Trophy AV competition is held in March each year, with the closing date 3 weeks before to allow the judge time to preview the shows. Finding a judge is a challenge as there are so few nearby.

Kathleen Bird LRPS CPAGB