Associate BIPP

“It’s over, I can move on with my life. Hurrah”.

That was my main thought yesterday, as I drove home from the judging of my BIPP Associate panel. I have to say that the last nine months have been very stressful, with some wonderful moments, mixed in with a lot of frustration, worry and failure. I was never looking to get my Associate qualification, I hoped that I could jump right up to Fellowship, but the reality was, it was never going to happen with the task I set for myself.

Over the next few posts I will explain why in more detail, and go through the images that made it into my panel, as well as some of the images that didn’t. But today I will just discuss a little, what it was like for me to be judged on my Associate panel.

So going in to my panel, I knew that many of the images were very good, but a few, really were not up to the level I aspire to, for a variety of reasons. Be it the lighting wasn’t quite right, or the subjects expression was off, or small details just didn’t work, little things can make a huge difference and with the quality of judging, it would be obvious to the judges what the issues were. So I wasn’t confident, that the panel would pass, giving myself a 50/50 chance.

When working, I like to treat my shoots professionally and going for this panel, I knew that I would have to do the same. From getting the panel printed out, to ordering the display right, through to making sure I got up to the judging early and being prepared on the day.

Printing
For my panel, I decided to go to Digitalab. The reason was because I had seen their work over many years and they had a good reputation, also my interactions with their representative Nick Proctor has always been very good, and I am a big believer in that elusive personal touch, which makes all the difference.

So after a discussion with Nick it was arranged that I get several different paper samples. What many will not realise is the big difference paper can make to the look of a print, and this is also something the judges will know. So upon receiving and comparing the printed on paper, I decided to use Photo Rag fine art paper, as it made the images pop a little more and give the images more of a three dimensional feel. For a different image, such as a black and white image, I would be more inclined to use fine art Baryta, but I felt that it didn’t quite work as well with this panel of images.

Upon receiving the images I was generally very happy, though one of the image, did have a line going across the image, which I didn’t initially notice (I had a quick look but not a detailed look) but it really wasn’t an issue as I wasn’t happy with the editing of a couple of images (which included the image with the line across and re-edited the image and got reprinted and sent back.

With the image, printed I could sort out the order of the images. One of influences on my panel was a friend Neil Bremner, a great photographer and former fellow of the MPA. With one of his product panels, he had decided to use ten different colours for his images and arranged them in such a way that really helped raise up the panel.

Ideally, I would have like to have done similar with my panel, as like Neil I had shot my panel in 10 colours. Unlike Neil’s panel, I had shot my images both landscape and portrait orientation and I hadn’t got the images orientation to match up evenly. So I had a choice, I could have them colour co-ordinated or I could have them orientation co-ordinated. I chose the latter, as this just looked better to me, though I knew it would uneven the look of the panel slightly.

So over the next couple of months, there was very little I could do and even though I should have been moving on, my brain felt like it was in a bit of a limbo. The Masters degree course was finished but the judging was still to come.

Educational vs Professional qualifications.

So for me there is a big difference between Educational vs Professional qualifications. In particular the final work that is presented. Education is all about experimenting and implementing, successful images are not necessarily needed to pass, as long as you can show that you have learnt from the experience. Where as a professional panel is all about presenting the work that works together (At Associate and Fellowship levels) and technically reaches a certain level of skill and creativity.

Most of the students on my course, would currently struggle getting a professional qualification, some would be able to get Licentiate but getting anything higher would be a struggle just because their level of experience and work would not be high enough. Of course, with time that can change and that is one of the big factors, generally to get a higher professional qualification can take years of experience (though I know a few exceptional photographers who have achieved fellowships more quickly, they are generally the exception to the rule).

For me comparing the two, getting a professional qualification is much harder than getting an educational qualification.

Organisations

Within the photography world there are various photographic organisations, with different organisations aimed at different groups. The most well known organisation in the UK is the Royal Photographic Society, and this is with whom many amateur (and a few professionals qualify with). But generally within the professional industry, the judging with professional bodies, such as The BIPP, MPA, The Societies of Photographers and Guild of Photographers, is seen to be much tougher and have higher prestige. So a panel that might pass with the RSP, may fail the BIPP judging.

Mentoring

One of the very good things the BIPP and other organisations do is assign or advise members to have a mentor. A mentor is normally a highly experienced photographer, often a fellow, who has been through the process of qualifications, and is someone who is who is able to give advise on a individuals panel.

It is important that a mentor be honest with the person who is doing the panel, as they gives a second set of experienced eyes and can assess whether a panel is good enough to meet the expectations of a certain qualification.

For my panel I had Mike Ward a highly experience Fellow of the BIPP and MPA. With my panel, Mike liked the photos, but was a little worried that they wouldn’t hang together as a panel for Associate qualification. This was less to do with the quality of images, but because traditionally a panel will have similar images, which was different to my panel, which was very varied, with very different lighting, colours and outfits, which could be a challenge if not handled correctly.

A disadvantage Mike had was I send him the images at different times, so it was harder to see the who panel, which was the advantage I had, as I could see the final panel in my head.

Statement of intent

As a part of my panel, I had to write a statement of intent. One of Mike’s biggest pieces of advise was to make sure that I got over, what the panel was about and how it works as a panel to the judges.

Traditionally, writing about a panel was a long process, where you would have to give supporting evidence about how a panel was created, talk about the individual images, and also show things like insurance (still has to be shown), health and safety in the work place, etc. But a few months before the BIPP decided to change to a 500 word statement of intent.

Now, anyone who has read my blog, will know that I can be very negative and very over wordy. Which diffinitely wouldn’t help.

But with the statement, I could still explain the panel, how it worked, what it was created for and give a bried, explanation about the lighting.

I was also able to send the order of the images which would make up the panel, which would be arranged in two rows of tens.

Finally, I decided to show various behind the scenes images taken during the shoots, which showed how I worked.

This was something which helps the judges but also put Mike at ease, as he could see the whole panel would be displayed, and he was able to reassure me that he thought the panel could do well.

Day of Judgement

So having travelled up to Birmingham the day before and staying in a hotel, I didn’t want to risk failure because I was stuck in a traffic jam on the M25 for 4 hours. The day of the judging was pretty hassle free. Unfortunately, my experience of the hotel wasn’t the best, with the air conditioning keeping me awake for much of the night, but apart from that everything went as planned, and I arrived to get the panel judged with an hour to spare.

With the judging there are 5 judges, plus the head judge. All the judges are fellows, with the judging taking around twenty to thirty minutes, with feedback following. Because of the high level of judging, there is no guarentee of success, and sadly two panels had already failed, including the panel which proceeded me, which didn’t help my confidence.

Whilst the judging takes place, one judge sits out, allowing for a rotation of judges throughout the day, and during this time I got chatting to a couple of the judges. I must admit I yammered on a little, probably because I was stressed and was just trying to keep my mind off of the qualification.

One of the things I noticed with the previous person was that all the judges came out of the room, after they had failed. So when when I was invited into the judging space, I had an inkling that I may have passed. Of course, I didn’t want to build my hopes up too early, so I went into the room still expecting the worst.

Upon entering the room, the judges and staff are all on one side, and I was facing them with the panel to my back. Then the head judge came over to shake my hand and told me I had passed, it was both not a surprise and also a big surprise. After, the judging there was congratulations and feedback from the judges and staff at BIPP.

The feedback pretty much was what I expected. The judges had very much enjoyed judging my panel .but there were a few issues, lighting on one of the images, which I had known, expression and engagement with the subject, which again I had known, and is one of my weaknesses. The other thing mentioned was the balance of the panel, with the judges believing that I should have gone buy colour instead of orientation, which I had originally wanted to do.

The good thing with the feedback is they pointed out everything I knew was wrong with the panel, which means it wasn’t something I was missing, and some of the mistakes such as with the lighting were due to a very condensed time period to take the image (though it was still a silly mistake on my part). With the engagement, it was with two images, that I personally hate, and had wanted to reshoot but had been unable to get the team back together, to reshoot.

The other feedback which I got was that I was too negative about my panel, which is maybe my biggest fault in life, and is down to emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitive dysphonia, which is one of the hardest parts of my ADHD to deal with. and something that I wish wasn’t me, but it is. It comes down to this. If I go it expecting failure, when I are told that you have failed, it doesn’t feel as crushing.

With the judging done, photos taken and congratulation and hand shakes over. I was able to pack up and go home. It is strange, it all feels a little weird, as it was over quickly, but I had done it. I can now call myself Michael Laing ABIPP. Technically I can call myself Michael Laing, BA (Hons), MA, LSWPP, ABIPP, which is something I would never have thought possible, when I left school with no qualifications in 1988, Of course, I won’t be putting the letters after my name, but its fun to think I could.

A big thank you has to go out to various people who were involved with getting my panel to judging and the Judging itself:

Mentor: Mike Ward
Head Judge: Paul Wilkinson
Judges:
James Musselwhite 
Gary Hill
Sean Conboy
John Parris
David Taylor
Saraya Cortaville (who had to listen to my yammering whilst the judging was taking place)

BIPP Head office
Martin Baynes
Katrina Bird

Panel setup and additional photos
Karen Massey