In 2016 I joined the Lytham St Annes Photographic Society. Up to that time my photography had been about taking pictures on holidays as a reminder of where I had been and what I had seen, so they were mostly landscapes, often taken on walking holidays. After joining the photography club, I began to enter some of their competitions and enjoyed a bit of success. The club also hosted talks from experienced photographers, so I began to see other genre of photography such as wildlife and portraiture which I had not considered before. Many of these guest speakers had letters after their name, indicating their achievements in photography competitions.
After a couple of years of entering competitions within the club, I began to think my photography was at a standard to enter competitions outside of the club, and today I have quite a keen interest in competition photography and the accreditations that can be gained. Photography competitions may seem a little pointless as photographs can be very subjective, however I believe that entering competitions has challenged me to improve my photography and it provides an ongoing stimulus to get out and create new material.
There are a number of groups of competitions that I have been entering over the last few years:-
- BPE – British Photographic Exhibitions – This is a group of about 15 exhibitions held throughout the year within the UK, with entry restricted to UK based photographers. Acceptances into the exhibitions can lead to the award of BPE crowns. In general the standards are very high with typically just over 20% of the submitted images being accepted.
- FIAP and PSA Exhibitions – These are international exhibitions that have the patronage of either FIAP (Federation International de l’Art Photographic) or the PSA (Photographic Society of America). Sometimes an exhibition will have patronage of both. There are about 800 to 1000 such exhibitions each year, organised throughout the world and similar to the BPE crowns, acceptances can be accumulated towards FIAP or PSA awards. In general the standard is slightly easier than in the BPE exhibitions, but the FIAP and PSA awards require a large number of images, so requires a greater strength in breadth.
- PAGB Awards for Photographic Merit – The PAGB Awards are presented by the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain – the organisation that controls photographic clubs within the UK. The PAGB awards are not based on exhibition acceptances, but on the assessment of a small number of images which are assessed by a panel of experienced photography judges. There are several levels of increasing difficulty between ‘good club photography’ to ‘the highest standard of amateur photography.