PHOTO ACTION 99 (Report)
Photos and Text by Rita Pearle (Area 13)
Thursday October 28th, 1999. We arrived at the N.E.C. in Birmingham the day before it was due to open for the exhibition Photo-Action 99. and had a permit to take the car round to the back of Hall No.1 where we were able to unload all the things that we had brought to set up our stand.
(John Pearle, Arthur Comer)
The basic stands were already there, workmen were busy installing electric cables, lots of hammering going on and lots of rubbish all over the floor. Very loud music, apparently being tested and everyone very busy. Many of the club stands were empty, but a few had started to assemble their displays and we quickly unpacked our prints and got out the folding chairs that we had brought with us. We had no table as the one that we had ordered had a wonky leg and the delivery men had to take it back and said they would bring another one next day. So we started to organize the prints and information cards that we had brought. They were fixed to the walls of the stand by adhesive backed Velcro, the walls being made of a grey looped material stretched between two other stands. Very flimsy! If they were putting up prints on the other side of the wall we had to support our side.
All around us there were large stands going up, big names, like Sony, Fuji, and all the big Magazines had huge wooden stands being erected.
I saw William Cheung helping on the stand for Practical Photography, I had met him years ago as he started work in Colchester for the wholesale company that we get all our photographic equipment from. We had brought a box of matted prints 12x16, from Margery and Kevin Maskell and they told us to pick out the ones we wanted so we got half a dozen of the most colourful ones up first and then arranged the small ones to fill in the spaces. Apparently last year there were several questions about what the club actually did, as some people hadn't a clue what colour reversal was, so we had made cards with details of our activities on them, all in different colours, and we fitted these in between the prints. It looked very colourful when we had finished.
(Left: Pete Guy & Kevin Craske. Center & Right: Lawrence Edwards, Kevin Craske, Bill Reid & Nick Williams)
The next day we were there about 9.30 a.m. It opened to the public at 10 a.m., and our new table had arrived, the fluorescent tube that we had ordered was in the right place, and we were able to set up our light box on the table and put our display of 6x7 slides in position over holes cut in a piece of black matboard. They looked brilliant.
Opening time arrived and the public flooded in. We had two members who had volunteered to look after the stand that day - Geoff Lowe and Brian Savage, and we left them in charge while we went shopping for a tablecloth to cover up the remains of our setting up materiels that were under the table - boxes of scissors, velcro, sticky tape etc. Later, two more members arrived to help, Arthur Comer and his friend so, we could all have a look round the other clubs stands and all the other exciting things that were going on - there was a cat-walk with models parading about and a terrific machine that was making digital prints about 4ft.square. All the rubbish of yesterday had disappeared but the loud music was still there.
On Saturday we had more helpers, Dave Morell and Mr. & Mrs. Dugdale and Arthur Comer came again, and on the Sunday we had our chairman, Nick Williams, Kevin Craske, Pete Guy, Bill Reid, and Lawrence Edwards. Almost a Committee meeting.! It was dark when it all finished, and we had to take everything down and pack it away, before finding the car in the huge car park and starting on the journey home. It was a grand experience and I was sorry it was over.!