I am sure every person who has submitted a panel to the RPS will have a different view but I offer these thoughts from my own experience and from talking to other successful candidates. My route to the distinction was a victim of covid, in that I had prepared my panel and was booked on an Advisory Day in March 2020, which happened to be the weekend before the lockdown started. RPS cancelled the day, which was fair enough. However, I had to wait another year to submit my panel.
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
· Join a camera club. If you are not a member already, I would advise joining a club and entering your images into their competitions. Although I am no longer a member, I found that subjecting my images to critical commentary to be extremely helpful in preparing my panel. It did not particularly matter how my images were scored, it was just the knowledge of what the judges (and my implication, the RPS judges) were looking for. Some of the comments may be nit-picky and annoying but I urge you to look beyond that at the principles behind the remarks. Some camera clubs may have a distinctions group to help members with their panels. I live in a small town and this was not the case. However, I soon found a couple of very helpful members who had been through the process and were very willing to share their experience.
· Look at the RPS website and study their guidance: ‘A guide on how to apply: Distinctions and qualifications guidelines’ is a very helpful document.
· ‘Arranging panels of prints for RPS Distinctions’ by David and Joan Jordan is also a very useful document. It is subject to copyright so I have not reproduced it here but I found a link on the RPS Facebook page. The copy I had was written in 2020 , which is when I was working on my panel but I am not sure if things have changed since then.
· Find a mentor (or two but not too many!) You need someone who will be constructively critical and suggest which prints are strong and why others may not be. With the best will in the world, family members may not be the most helpful as fulsome praise is not what is needed!
· Structure of your panel. My critical friend gave me advice about the overall appearance of the panel. Although it is said not to be as important as LRPS level, certainly several comments were made in the assessment about the composition of my panel. More about that later. The panel is viewed as a complete entity; how it hangs together is very important. Also consider how you will mount your prints. I chose black mounts but every other panel assessed on my day used white. A mix of colours – particularly strong ones – is not recommended as it may detract from the prints.
· Try to have at least two images for each place on the panel. Remember at ‘L’ level, you are advised to demonstrate your competence in a range of skills so it is not advisable to submit 10 macro shots of flowers, for example. The backup for each image should therefore be of a similar genre your first choice – or a style that you have not demonstrated elsewhere.
· Book a RPS Advisory Day. Perhaps I should have said that it is worth joining the RPS when you are undertaking the process, although it is not an absolute requirement. You will then be assigned to a region and it is likely that there will be a number of days throughout the year when you can receive guidance on your work. This is not an absolute requirement but the application form asks if you have attended such an event and it was certainly mentioned in the assessment. It may have been a coincidence but the unsuccessful candidates had not gone through this process. Although my submission was held up by almost exactly a year because of the covid outbreak, one advantage was that I had the good fortune to have a 1:1 session via Zoom. I submitted a digital copy of my images to Steve Boyle and he talked me through each one. It was definitely worth it! Although he did not recommend that I changed any of my original 10, he spotted things like the chromatic aberration on the biplane shot (Image 2) and some clumsy cloning on the portrait near the wall (Image 6).
In my case, my home location falls on the border between two RPS regions and the group to which I was allocated requires quite an amount of travel to events, which is unfortunate. As a member of the RPS, you receive a discount on attendance to their workshops, which are very good value compared to the commercial market.
· React to the guidance given. Hopefully, this goes without saying but it’s definitely worth heeding the advice. You will see the process in the notes submitted with my panel below.
· Book an Assessment Day. Warning: these get booked up very quickly and it may be worth doing this before your panel is actually ready. It is always possible to cancel.
· Submit your panel and cross your fingers! The guidelines for submission are very clear in the RPS document mentioned above. There is also a questionnaire, digital versions of the prints via Dropbox (2048p x 1365p @ 72 ppi) and two copies of a hanging plan to complete, as well as the notes from the Advisory Day. Prints needed to arrive at least two weeks prior to the Assessment Day.
THE ADVISORY DAY
I was not able to attend in person because of restrictions (March 2021) but was able to watch the entire Assessment Day via Zoom. Here are my notes I made following the process. Pease bear in mind that things may have moved on since my rather restricted experience:
· A panel of five judges (a mixture of FRPS and ARPS)
· There was a Print Assessor in RPS house to hang prints and comment on print quality, size of images, mounts, paper type, colour cast, artefacts, etc. I used a photo lab (SimLab in Hatfield, Herts) and cut the mounts myself. I have done a lot of this in the past but it is very easy to get mounts online from a well-known auction and selling site! I used SimLab’s standard Fuji paper and not their more expensive competition selection of papers. On the advice of one of my mentor friends, I chose to have 12” x 8” size prints and 16” x 12” mounts as opposed to any larger so that any chance of pixelation is avoided. This is a 3 x 2 ratio, the native size of my full frame camera. If I had shot in micro four thirds, I would have chosen 12” x 9” (4x3)
· For my remote day, the judges were not present in person so they had digital copies of my prints themselves as well as the images being presented as a slide show on the Zoom screen. The images were run thorough twice (image by image)
· There was then a first (secret) vote
· Two judges were invited to comment and others were asked if they had any contribution or questions.
· The Print Assessor then made a comment about the quality of the printing, mounting etc but no judgement on the prints themselves.
· This was followed by a second secret vote, after which the verdict was given. In my case followed by clapping from the judges for a successful submission.
· The chair of the judges then summarised on behalf of the panel:
o Excellent choice of subject matter, camera craft and creativity
o The panel is well balanced
o There is demonstration of control of depth of field, lighting and range of techniques
o The printing is well handled (please see my blog on preparing an image for printing)
o A strong panel.
· Wow, I was relieved. This was the culmination of a three year process and a seed that had been sown way back in 2010. I was very nervous in the lead up and kept thinking of reasons why it would fail – fortunately it didn’t and they were very kind in their praise.
· In hindsight, I can now say that the judges are actually quite lenient. Some of the submissions had issues such as feet unintentionally cut off; a raggedly cut mount and an image that had been flipped without paying attention to lettering on a T-shirt that had become reversed. I would have expected successful applicants to have been aware of these types of relatively straightforward issues.
· I would also advise you not to be intimidated by other panels you may see, for example on the RPS Facebook page. These are likely to be the very best of the best and qualification standard may have been greatly exceeded. I was also assured by the President of the RPS that the assessment is ‘criterion referenced’ not ‘norm referenced’. Sorry to use teachers’ jargon but it means that as long as the panel reaches the standard, it will pass, no matter how many others pass on that day. I tried to hold on to that point but as the day went on and my assessment wasn’t until the afternoon, I became increasingly worried. I have been involved in exams all my life but I was as nervous as I had ever been!
Attached below are the notes that accompanied my submission and a copy of the hanging plan, plus some of my personal thought about why I chose the particular images.
NAME:
MEMBERSHIP NUMBER:
ASSESSMENT DATE: 03 March 2021
FORMAT: Prints
4 ADVICE AND GUIDANCE
I had booked attendance on an Advisory Day on 15 March 2020, which was cancelled due to prevailing Covid conditions, although I had already travelled to Sussex in preparation for the event. However, I completely understand the reasons behind the cancellation.
Subsequently, I booked an online 1:1 consultation which took place on 17 May 2020, with Steve Boyle, who was most helpful. I did not receive any printed advice but here is a transcript of my notes made during the meeting.
· A good “safe” layout, with outer images facing inwards.
· The panel shows variety and there is evidence that it has been thought through.
· There is a difference shown in the styles of portraits included.
Image 1 The shape and colour are good and the background is fine.
Image 2 A striking image but some evidence of colour fringing on tailplane of aircraft.
Image 3 Super sharp with good management of depth of field.
Image 4 A dynamic image with the background nicely out of focus. Are there issues with the wing tip on the left of the frame?
Image 5 Well executed, image was liked.
Image 6 A relaxed pose with good management of depth of field. Consider the trees in the background to ensure cloning is consistent.
Image 7 The starburst forms a striking focal point and the image is framed nicely.
Image 8 A good pose has been captured. Steve was happy with the sky but appreciated that it could be found to be distracting.
Image 9 A nice shot with balanced lighting and good leading line around the corner to the streetlight.
Image 10 A good ‘end stop’ and a street-style portrait. Well captured image.
Having received the feedback, I decided to retain the images originally submitted as I had worked to obtain a balance to demonstrate a range of photographic skills as recommended in the guidance. As Steve Boyle had noted, I have included a portrait with ‘frozen’ movement (1), motion (5), a posed subject (6) and a person photographed unawares (10). I have tried to balance powered flight (2) with bird flight (4) and chosen a dawn scene (7) and a night scene (9). The square images in the middle have been placed above each other to maintain a balance and anchor to the panel.
However, I have taken Steve’s advice and revisited image 2 to remove colour fringing, image 6 to readdress some cloning on the trees in the background and have slightly toned down the sky in image 8. I studied and enlarged version of image 4 and discovered there is no digital aberration; the blurring of the wingtip feathers is caused by movement, which was my aim when selecting the shutter speed.
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