ACHIEVEMENTS
As a photographer its always exciting and very rewarding when your work is valued, liked and recognised. Each month I try and submit my images for various Awards and Press opportunities. These achievements are not for bragging rights but to improve. I gain valuable feedback, what works and what doesn’t work and most importantly it helps me to identify areas for improvement.
AWARDS - IMAGE OF THE MONTH
Submitting my images each month to the Guild of Photographers, Image of the Month Awards (IOM) is always exciting. Outlined below is how the Awards works. But rather than bore you with lots of words I thought you might like to see the images first! Achievements – to date (since September 2017) my images have succeeded in gaining 13 Bronze Awards, 4 Silver Awards and 1 Gold Award. See them all HERE
AWARDS OVERVIEW
The Guild’s popular and exciting ‘Image of the Month’ Awards involves members submitting images into the sections of their choice.
The entries are assessed by a number of highly experienced Judges. The judges grade them in accordance with international judging criteria, the higher scoring images are given Bronze, Silver, Gold Awards or even the highly sought after Platinum Bar.
Any image achieving a Bronze Award or above can utilise the relevant logos to highlight their achievement.
Most importantly the highest scoring images have the distinction of being an ‘Image of the Month’, with their associated prizes
AWARD SECTIONS:
- The ‘Wedding’ section
- The ‘People’ section
- Newborns and Babies’
- The ‘Open’ section
SCORING PROCESS
Entries are assessed by very experienced Judges in accordance with national competition criteria and graded :
Platinum Bar .. Images of exceptional or outstanding quality (only awarded to the ultimate of images)
Gold Bar .. Images of particular distinction (very rare)
Silver Bar .. Images that are very well crafted (difficult to achieve)
Bronze Bar .. Images of a strong standard at a national award level (something to be proud of)
Classified .. Images of a standard worthy of acknowledgement but which are not deemed award winning at national award level.
Not scored .. Images that do not reach ‘Classified’ level score will not be given a grade.
Those awarded a Bronze Bar or above can download a corresponding logo to place on their website against their image.
An album of all the Gold and Silver winners is placed on the Guilds external Facebook page. All Gold and Silver scoring images are entered into the Image of the Year Award. Images that achieve Gold Bars are published in the Guild’s Creative Light magazine.
AWARDS - QUALIFIED STATUS 7th July 2018
What does Qualified status mean
Qualified status is aligned to standards of competence and understanding therefore reflecting a level where the customer should be delighted with the results.
Most importantly ‘Qualified’ indicates professional ‘competence’. A level where the Guild is willing to recognise the photographer as an ambassador of the association. So those who achieve that level should be proud of doing so.
The Assessment Process
For QGP status (Qualified – Guild of Photographers) I submitted 21 images. The images have to have been taken in the past 24 months.
The overall selection must be varied. Demonstrating that I’m competent in the craft and importantly have the specific skills required. The submission was presented in a professional way. It included a brief explaining my thought process behind the images
What Do The Judges Look For?
The judges consider set criteria based around a combination of art and science – all of which helps to create the perfect image .
The skills are combined into distinct groups, bearing equal weight within the judging process.
These are –
1. Subject and Story Telling
2. Composition and Creativity
3. Lighting
4. Technical and Post Production excellence
The components must work together to create ‘one’. And finally, vital within any submission is Presentation.
PRESS - FEATURE IN SUSSEX LIFE MAGAZINE - April 2018
Seeing your images in print is always exciting and a huge achievement. It’s great to feel that other people appreciate your photography and for me, most importantly, they enjoy seeing your pictures as much as you enjoy taking them.
I’ve lived in Sussex for the last 30 years so it was a real privilege to see my Kingfishers take pride of place in a full two page press spread within Sussex Life Magazine!!
PRESS - AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2018 - FUR & FEATHERS
My Kingfishers faired well in the Fur and Feathers section of the Amateur Photographer of the Year 2018 competition.
They achieved 13th place in the Crowd results – peoples favourite and finished 8th once judged by the panel of experts – very delighted.
