Sue McDonagh evening.

The multi-talented local artist, Sue McDonagh gave us an entertaining and informative evening around our own images on the theme of 'Contrasts'. Although there were not many prints (guilty mi Lud) it was good to see quite a good number of projected images on our spanking new projector.

Sue’s perspective as an artist was really interesting and clearly similar factors of image assessment come into play, namely composition, colour, texture and although she didn't actually use the word, impact. She took time to talk through each image and had even brought her own cropping templates to show how she thought images could be improved. It was a bit of a struggle using them on the projected images though!

Whether by design or not, she had the names of each photographer and although she didn't know us individually, she did soon find that interactive dialogue became the order of the day. I thought that worked out rather well and made it a less formal and more instructive session rather than the normal competition evening with a judge when the audience just has to sit and ‘take it on the chin’ with no comment allowed.

Sue didn’t mark our work in the traditional way up to a maximum of 20 points; she did put stars against the images that she really liked and gave her reasons succinctly and without favour. Altogether a refreshing and enjoyable evening that had one of the best audience participation that I have seen for some considerable time. Mike Davies gave a vote of thanks and I for one would like to see a repeat performance in a future year.

Mike Baker

This link might be of help re. counterpoint. Thanks Phil

http://emptyeasel.com/2009/03/03/3-ways-to-use-visual-counterpoint-in-art/