Photosmudger On the Road

Spent the day at TVU Ealing yesterday, but felt slightly fuzzy round the edges after the lengthy day at UCLAN.

• Student turnout - 4/10. Oh dear. Where were you all? We heard that there'd been a field trip to Berlin the week before, but surely it doesn't take 3 days to recover from a hangover? All those who did make it are hereby entitled to take a comedy size frying pan and bang it over the heads of those who didn't.
• Number of questions asked - 1/10. I'm not even sure there were any, although there were a few in the flash demo.
• Quality of tea and cakes - 8/10. Big shouts out to Matt and Tony for this, as we were kept continually fed and watered all day long.
• Tom's ability to find his way round the building - 0/10. When looking for the loo, don't ask a caretaker who started working there that morning. He won't be much help, and may even send you on a wild goose chase all over the building.
• Ability to handle the assignment - 7/10. Pretty good stuff, with very thorough business/invoicing stuff as well. Sadly only 5 (yes, 5) people actually handed stuff in. See student turnout above for suggestions.
• Cool AV equipment - 10/10. Press button, projector slides out from ceiling, and back up, and down and up. I could have played with it all day. If only the corner of the room I was lecturing in didn't smell of drains I'd be on to a winner.
• Number of students who happen to live round the corner from me, and thereby get a lift home - 1/1. This sort of thing tends to only happen at colleges in London!

Right, I've got a massive pile of work in front of me, having been out of the office for a week. None of it is particularly appealing, and mostly involves very boring admin. Am shooting all weekend, and then it's the last 2 venues, Nottingham and Derby next week.

Apologies for taking almost 48 hours to post this, but it took quite a while to get back from Preston, the M6 wasn't kind to me, nor was the bottom end of the A40, and since I had to be up bright and early to go to TVU yesterday, this is the first chance I've got. So here's what we thought:

• Student Turnout - 8/10. Lots of folk, and a record breaking number for the brief in the afternoon.
• Number of questions asked - 4/10. Hardly any again, I really must be telling everyone all they need to know.
• Quality of tea and cakes - 6/10. Nice enough, but there seemed to be no time to enjoy it, due to:
• Parking facilities at UCLAN/Preston in general - 0/10. Moving the cars twice in a day, then having to go off and find them is a little annoying. Particularly when the cars are full of enough stuff to fill 100 goodie bags, camera demo gear, my camera gear, pop-up stands and so on. This gear is heavy, and takes a while to shift. It's also why Duncan ended up doing some valet parking!
  
• Ability to handle the assignment - 6/10. Some good stuff, often let down by the usual technical bits. I'd strongly suggest you all go and read up about licensing and usage however - I nearly lost my rag with the sheer number of people who filled in the invoice wrong.
• Number of Students from my year at college who lecture at UCLAN - 1/1. Sadly Irene wasn't there on Tuesday, as she was in hospital having her knee mended.

Thanks go to Simon Leach, who took time out from his work as a photographer, and his role as President of the AoP to help with critiquing the assignment shots. Above all though, I was very impressed with how many people attempted the assignment, it's very encouraging indeed, as we know from long experience that it's not always the case.....