I am officially an ASWPP Qualified Photographer! I like the sound of that. What a way to end 2014!
I have just found out from the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers that I am now an ‘Associate’ member. This is a qualification held by only a small percentage of Society members ( I understand it’s less than 10%) and I achieved it with my Movember Portraits Self Portrait series. I believe this is the first time a series of Self Portraits has achieved this goal with the Societies and I am truly delighted to now be Neil Bremner ASWPP.
Applicants must present evidence of excellence in the techniques and creative interpretation of wedding or portrait photography to become an ASWPP Qualified Photographer. I submitted the below panel of 20 portrait images which were then judged by a panel of Fellows (A group of photographers who’s work is to be truly admired) looking for:
- Technical aspects.
- Creativity.
- Impact.
- Composition and Posing.
- Style.
- Lighting.
- Mood.
When I submitted my Movember Portraits, I realised passing the Associateship was going to be an incredibly difficult achievement as a large part of this project is that all the images have a similar feel. This makes showing a large variety of skills very difficult so it was an uphill battle.
My ‘Movember Portraits’ series is a collection of images taken over the 30 days of November all in aid of raising money for the Movember charity. Every image is a self portrait using timers and there was not a single image throughout the month where I had someone in the studio assisting me with the shot (even when the description suggest there was).
Creating this series of shots means that throughout November I am unable to take a day off as I have to capture each image on the relevant day. I believe the project is at it’s strongest when enjoyed as a series but I also believe that each individual image has it’s own individual merit. Some images are put together through 4 or 5 separate shots (sometimes so you can’t tell it’s just me, other times to achieve the mix of long and short exposures) to get the look and story without anyone being able to tell I did this on my own.
There are no competitions where I can submit a series of images like this and even submitting it as an ASWPP panel was a risk. Thankfully as commented mentioned by Paul Callaghan who was just one of the judges, this approach was “outside the box” which is very me!
