Skip to main content

The Convention: A Near Winner, a New Letter Beside My Name and a Really Great Time!

Once again I attended a fantastic event run by the Societies for photographers from around the world.  The Societies Convention is held in the Hammersmith area of London each year at the start of year.  For me its like Christmas and New Year all over again. 

This year my husband and I were apart of the event from the very beginning to the very end.  We saw the set up, he saw the taking down (thankfully I was resting at that point).  For the first time I was able to attend the business school, see some of the print judging and sit in on some of the Qualification Panel judging.  More specifically, I got to see my own panel being judged.  It has been some time since I applied for my Licentiateship with the SWPP and though I had been meaning to take the qualifications further one thing lead to another which meant this took a back seat.  Until this year when something told me to just go for it.  What do I have to lose?  At worst I get some good feedback which would help me to improve my skills.  At best I'd get the all alusive A I'd been striving towards for years and the reasurance that my work is heading in the right direction. 

Well this year I reached my goal as I was awarded my Associateship in portraiture.  I am among a select few (statisically around 10% of all photographers) who have taken the time to get this recognition and been successful in achieving it.  I consider it to be a huge honour, particular when sitting there watching the high caliber of judges in the room that day who decided that I deserved this qualification. 

This gave me great confidence when approaching my talks which took place on Friday and Sunday morning.  In hindsight, 8am Sunday was a bit of a misktake.  I wouldn't have woken up that early on Sunday to see me so how could I expect anyone else to.  Needless to say turnout was less on Sunday than it was on Friday.  We went from a full house to a slighly less than half house.  Lesson learned, if I get the chance to speak again that is. 


We finished off with the Awards ceremony.  Each year, throughout the year thousands of entries are made in a monthly competition that culminates in the annual awards.  All entries that were awarded a gold in the monthlies make it to the annual competition where it is narrowed down further still to a small selection for each category.  This year one of my baby images made it to the top three amongst entries from all over the world.


Unfortunately though, it did not win, but as some would say, 'It is an honour just to be nominated'.  And the truth is, I do feel quite honoured to have made it this far.  Of course it would be better to be announcing an award but I may only be a couple of marks away from the winning entry and to me that means my image is still a very high quality image.  And that says a lot about the quality of work I strive for on a day to day basis.  The image was taken as part of a standard client shoot. This was not done in my spare time when I could take the time to be more creative.  I take the same time for all my shoots.  In every shoot I do I have the hope that I will be greating an award winning image.  It is certainly what I am working towards. 

There is one thing I took away from the convention that I really wish I hadn't and that is the flu.  I've been so under the weather these past two weeks which is why this post has taken so long to be written.  My New Year's resolution of keeping on top of my blog has already fallen by the wayside.  But not for long.  I'm back and this year is going to be a great year.  I'm going to make sure of that.  A quote from a speaker this year that has really hit home with me is 'Its not what you know but what you do' is going to be my motto this year.  And this year I am going to do loads. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My First London Fashion Shoot

Well I finally did it. I bit the bullet and faced my fears and headed to London with a good friend, Mr. Panikos Hajistilly to do my first location shoot. We chose our locations together and Panikos organised a model and brought so much of his gear which he kindly shared with me. And probably most importantly, he showed me how it's done. I was so surprised to see just how much wonderful light was there, just waiting to be used. I am a studio photographer and while I understand the use of studio flash very well, I am very much out of practice and out of my comfort zone with using available light. Its one thing to place lights and backdrops around my subject in the comfort of my studio. Its very different to find the right light and the right backdrop in unfamiliar territory and to place my subject in it. That may sound simple enough but honestly it is not, particularly on a day with no clouds in the sky. One of our planned locations just wasn't possible as a result of the

Never Work With Children or Animals

Or so the saying goes. But I have to say that working with dogs has been so lovely. They have been almost entirely a dream to work with. I say almost entirely because we have had a few moments where a dog has needed to settle. And one moment where the dog had settled but one of my cats decided to have a look through the glass door which, as you can imagine, rather quickly unsettled the dog. Still, that didn't stop us from creating incredible work. In fact it was during that shoot with the cat instance when I created two of my favourite pieces, shown below. (It was while sitting on the couch here when he noticed the cat peering through the curtain) I don't know if I've just been lucky or all dogs are just easy to work with. I photographed a french bull dog puppy and I thought that would be tough as he hadn't had time to be properly trained yet. But he did everything we wanted in no time at all. And this included the props we used here (below), which to me

I am Still Me: A Story about a Transgender Boy

  Meet Leo. Leo is 15 and currently going through an epic transformation that has momentarily turned the lives of himself and those around him upside down. A mum who once had the daughter she always longed for is now coping with the realisation that she will be living the rest of her life with a son instead. When your child is born you have certain expectations of the typical life they will lead but most of us know and accept that it won't necessarily end up the way we imagine. Not every person wants to marry, have kids or be involved with the opposite sex. Most of us have come to accept this and can adjust to whatever comes our way relatively easily. But few of us have expected to have to deal with a change in sex. Its not that we've hoped it won't happen, but just that it never occurred to us that it might. This is a new adjustment that we as a society are being presented with today, just like so many others that have come before. When I first heard that Phoebe

Family Portraits with Fine Art Flair

I have a love and hate relationship with family portraits. I love the finished piece and creating something that is truly special to the family. I love that in years to come something I made is going to be a cherished and valueable memento for this family. What I struggle with, is getting all members of the group to look their best at exactly the same moment in time. You would be surprised at how difficult this actually is, particularly when it comes to 6 children. But I always get there in the end, whether it is the luck of a moment or with the aid of Photoshop. I ensure that everyone in the portrait is looking their best, even the dog. Seeing as this family is actually made up now of two families we also did portraits in their respective groups which I chose to do in different style to their main group. I love adding a bit of style for the overall main group and what you see above is something that is proving popular with my clients. I love adding props and giving a sort of Vani

London in Spring, Whats Not to Love?

Well I know there is still a lot not to love but I'm choosing to see the great things about London at the moment. I am having a ball this year visiting London as often as I can. Which is unusual for me since I usually prefer the comfort of my own home, in rural old Leicestershire. Staying home and avoiding people has always been the easy option. But this year, possibly due to the wonderful weather we keep having, has me longing for venturing out. Again, just like my last trip, I headed out with my good friend Panikos Hajistilly . Living in North London he finds it easy to meet up for our shoots. This time though I had more of an idea of the sights I wanted to use as the backdrops for my portraits. With it being spring I was in search of colour, preferably flowers. Admittedly. I didn't quite get what I was looking for. The white fronted terraced houses with pink magnolia trees we did not find unfortunately. But I did make it to Peggy Porchen's which was a must see on m