RPS Exhibition
Hello folks,
I’m often asked what I do with all the images I take. The truth is not much. I share some on social media, and now here, but other than that they just sit on my hard drive. In a bid to find some sort of focus for what I am doing, I have taken the plunge and joined the Royal Photographic Society. One of the arms of the RPS is their Distinctions that set a recognised standard of achievement and I am working towards obtaining the first level, which is Licentiate. More of that later.
The RPS is divided into Regions and naturally I am a member of the Scottish region. Each year Scotland produces a touring exhibition of 40 images that showcases members’ work. The selection process is done by the members themselves and all members can enter up to four images for consideration. So, in for a penny, in for a pound, I decided to enter. All entered images have to be printed and mounted - not something I usually do. So off I trooped to a friend’s to be inducted in the art of cutting mounts. It’s actually a simple process, but has to be done with precision. After watching the first being done, and doing the second under close supervision, I was able to cut the last two without any help. I did feel like I’d lost my thumbs because you have to put a lot of weight on the cutting tools so a) they don’t slip and b) they cut cleanly.
In my usual disorganised fashion, this was all done on the Friday, just the day before the selection. Saturday dawned and we were off bright and early to get to Bridge of Allan, near Stirling for the event. All the participants were divided into two groups at the venue. Each entrant had their four images put up together and everyone in that group had two votes; this meant that two of your images were immediately rejected. I can’t describe how nervous I was when it was my turn - I suppose none of us like to be judged - I wasn’t the only one that felt like that though.
After lunch, the images from each group were amalgamated and sorted so that no-one had two images in each batch of 10 or so images that were then voted on. We had three votes for each batch, which started to whittle down the final total. I was amazed to get both my remaining images through this and into the final selection.
The rule is one image per photographer in the exhibition so all those who had two images through had to choose one. Such a hard task, but I settled for ‘Shokhan’, the Kazakh eagle hunter. Did I make the right choice?