This ‘path to a distinction’ is turning out to be extremely
twisty, and pretty steep. After two
false starts (for the gory details read my earlier Aiming for an 'A' posts!) I hope that it is
now ‘third time lucky’.
I have long been interested in history, and my current (version
3) focus for my panel has come from this interest. In some ways, my interest in bell ringing
demonstrates this, as one of the reasons I ring is to carry forward a 400-year-old
tradition and keep it alive.
I’ve been photographing history through shooting our
buildings, countryside, vehicles and traditions for years. So it seemed to be a natural progression to
take ‘heritage’ as the theme for my new panel.
I re-wrote my statement of intent, keeping it short and to
the point – just 60 words - and started to put together my pictures. Although I have lots of photos of heritage
items, activities and sites, most of them aren’t good enough for an ‘A’ panel. After a while I signed up for another Advisory Day, this time at Amersham, on 19 January. I came to this venue for my 'L' Advisory Day, and I like it. It's easy to find, easy to park, and open and airy thus avoiding the claustrophobic crush of the RPS HQ at Bath. And you get proper tea in real cups! (Thank you, local RPS ladies!)
A few days prior to the Advisory Day I ran into two
problems. One of the prints which I had
ordered arrived damaged and I didn’t have time to have it re-done., and I the
mounts for two of the images I’d planned to use were the wrong size. I should have known better than to discover
this at this late stage:
Put everything
together well before the date, so there is time for corrections or changes!
As always, the Advisory Day itself was interesting because
it is fascinating to view other photographers’ work and hear some very
knowledgeable comments on it.
There were quite a few panels reviewed during the day, with
an average of 10 minutes per panel. Several
were work in progress panels, so mine was not alone. Each panel was assessed, and then commented
on. I have learned a lot from listening
to what has been said about other people’s panels at the various Advisory and
Assessment Days I’ve attended.
There were two panels being assessed for the LRPS which were
considered to be at a level for the photographers concerned to submit for the
‘A’. These were both mono panels, one a
very gritty travel panel which was left up for a while to enable everyone to
take a good look at it.
The other was a very strong set of street images.
As well as many natural history images (there seemed to be
quite a few owls photographed!), there were some out of the ordinary
panels. The one which provoked the most
‘rustling’ in the audience was an extremely striking set of HDR processed
images taken at steam railways. I love
steam trains, and my dad was a signalman when you still had to pull levers, so
I have a connection with the subject and loved the approach, but it certainly
created a lot of conversation!
When we finally got to my offering I was relieved to hear my
statement of intent seemed to receive a favourable response. My idea also met with some positive comments,
which was encouraging after my earlier abandoned attempts.
Of the 15 images I put up, one was referred to as a ‘so
what’ picture, and one was seen as something it wasn’t. I thought it was obvious what the picture depicted, but clearly I was wrong. Each image within a panel must stand up for itself and not require explanation, so that was another image which will have to come out.
I was reminded again, through comments made about my own panel
and others, that when submitting for RPS distinctions, you have to think
differently than when you are looking at individual images for other purposes. Some of these images had done very well in
other channels, but were dismissed as potential panellists!
Of my 15, there were two pointed out as being my strongest,
with another three or four as possibles.
It was useful to see which ones were picked, as it shows the kind of
work which was catching the eye of the assessors, and just as importantly,
which work wasn’t. However, it means I
have at best about a third of a panel, and a lot of work still to do.
