Joan Ryder AV Judge

FPSSA, FRPS, AFIAP, DPAGB

Joan’s introduction to AV was in the early 1970’s, when Sir George and Lady Doreen Pollock from the UK, gave a presentation to the PSSA Congress. These were presentations with colour slides, tape recorders and a manual Purlock Duo-fade to produce the dissolves.

There was a fascination in the creative opportunities offered by AV and the creation of third images, as well as the story telling aspects. This led Joan to become Chair of the Audio Visual Division of PSSA and promote this art form.

In other areas of photography, Joan was awarded an APSSA for Colour Slides, Colour Prints and Audio Visual resulting in the FPSSA and she was President of Germiston Camera Club for many years. Very active as a judge and PSSA Distinctions.

In 1986, to celebrate the Centenary of the City of Germiston, Germiston Camera Club organised a National Salon with Joan as Salon Director. All acceptances were presented live to the public as a two hour long audio visual, with manual dissolves, using a Duo fade and music, quite a monumental task. There was a second National Salon in around 1991 and presented in the same way.

In 1987, Germiston Camera Club hosted an AV Seminar, led by Joan together with Clive Rathband and this resulted in a book being written: AV Simplified – A Practical Guide to Audio Visual Presentations. Also in 1997, they created a twin screen, 4-projector audio visual as a Germiston Camera Club project using members’ slides and it was presented to PSSA at Congress that year.

Joan has won many photographic awards over the years and in 1990 won the Gold Medal in the Royal Photographic Society International Slide Exhibition – Nature Category. In the same year she was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society for a panel of Natural History slides.

In 2009 Joan and Clive were married and Joan moved to the UK. She became very involved with the Royal Photographic Society with many years sitting on the Distinction panels for Natural History and Travel. Also, mentoring, advisories and tuition.

In the digital era Joan has found PTE AV Studio a very creative audio visual programme and many new skills have been learnt through ZOOM membership of Wilmslow AV Group in the UK and AV Makers SA. Joan has made several AVs as an individual and jointly with Clive, with several of these sequences achieving Awards. She has also judged the PECC International AV Salon, RPS National AV Championships and the inaugural Jurassic Coast International AV Salon as well as many local competitions.