Tag: The Guild of Photographers

New Years Resolution – Blog more regularly!

Well I haven’t done so well on the New Years resolution but January is always a busy month, catching up after the Xmas break not to mention the tax return and getting ready to submit my Qualification panel at the Societies Convention in London (will blog about that another day)

So Feb started with a bang. The Guild of Photographers Award Evening. A fantastic event. I arrived on Friday to help Clive Hall give his presentation on his amazing Fellowship panel and spent Saturday day time listening to some wonderful presenters. Weddings, Wildlife and Portraiture. Love to look at other people images, hear their stories and learn.

The evening was a big event. It’s very well attended. Sold out in hours of the tickets going on sale! Held at the magnificent Crewe Hall.  I was lucky enough this year to get awarded the Photographers Bar again.

Thank you to Rachael Foster and Samantha Jayne Photography for the images above.

The Photographers Bar

Becoming a member of the Photographer’s Bar is a unique distinction awarded to those photographers who have had images assessed by the Guild via the Image of the Month competition over the course of a competition year, attaining a score the equivalent of a point for each entry made.

In other words any member who can secure 24 points* in one section of the Photography of the Year Title chases from 24 images in any 8 months of the same competition year (ie your chosen 3 POTY images X 8 Months in the same category) will be awarded honorary life membership of the ‘Photographer’s Bar’ in order to acknowledge the fact they have submitted strong images consistently throughout the year in competition judged in accordance with national scoring criteria – a distinction that is very difficult to achieve!!

Such a friendly, well-run event everyone always has a blast.

Thanks to Samantha Jayne Photography for the image below! Party Time!

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Master Craftsman

 

I have no idea where time goes these days! I had meant to write this post last week.

So in October 2019 I started work towards my next photographic qualification Master Craftsman/Fellowship. I had decided I wanted to create a panel to celebrate older dogs. The criteria was set at 13 yrs or above. I did make one exception for an elderly Great Dane at 12 yrs old that is a fantastic achievement for such a large breed.

Lots of you kindly volunteered your dogs as models for the project and we had fun doing the shoots and I met lots of lovey dogs and people and was overwhelmed with the love they had for their four legged friends.

All photographic organisations have their own qualification system.  Licencieate, Associate & Fellow or Qualified, Craftsman & Master Craftsman.

The Guild of photographers are as follows.

‘Qualified’ status is aligned to standards of competence that reflect a level where the customer should be ‘pleased with the results’, when employing the services of a skilled tradesman (the photographer). In other words ‘Qualified’ indicates professional ‘competence’ to a level where the Guild is willing to recognise the photographer as an ambassador of the association , so those who achieve that level should be proud of doing so.

‘Craftsman’ status is aligned to the exacting standards of a true ‘Craftsman’. Therefore to attain this level an increasing level of professional critique to evaluate our members work. In other words we get increasingly ‘fussy’ and look in minutiae at all the elements of photographic understanding. Those that achieve this accolade have demonstrated the finest technical skills and an exceptional creative and artistic ‘eye’.

Finally, in the same way as when a ‘Craftsman’ was granted the highest accolade of ‘Master Craftsman’ having created something truly exceptional (their ‘masterpiece’), a ‘Craftsman’ within the Guild of Photographers can only achieve the acknowledgement of being a ‘Master Craftsman’ by producing their own photographic masterpiece.

Creating a panel is not for the faint hearted! A lot of work goes into it and even I had underestimated this having done my Craftsman Level last year..

You have to supply a panel of 20 images mounted in 20″x16″ mounts a piece of Wall Art and an album and a statement of intent. These are then presented in person and judged by 5 members of the Guilds qualified judging panel.

I am really pleased to say that I was awarded my Master Craftsman on the 21st May 2019.

I would firstly like to thank all the dogs and thier owners. Sadly three of the dogs that participated and had their images in the panel have left us on this world but they will be forever in their owners and my hearts. I would like to thank my friends and family that have supported me, and those that have taught me over the years. You all know who you are.

 

 

 

Awarded Photographers Bar

As some of you that follow my blog or Facebook page will know that on Saturday 6th February I headed off to the Guild of Photographers Annual Award dinner. Held at the magnificent Crew Hall in Crewe. It was my first time as I only joined the Guild at the beginning of 2015. A lovely setting for a Black tie event, lovely food, a great way to catch up with fellow photographers and very well organised.

I was thrilled to gain two awards on the night from the highly respected Guild of Photographers.

I was awarded membership of the Guild’s ‘Photographer’s Bar’ & Top 20 Photographer of the Year in the Open Category.

The Photographers Bar

The Photographers Bar is a distinction that is very difficult to achieve, as it recognises an exceptional level of professional skill in photography. Fewer than 100 other photographers have achieved the Photographers Bar in the three years since its inception. During this time, over 30,000 images have been entered for assessment by photographers across the UK and from overseas.

Submitting and having images assessed every month for a year and reaching the required standards to become a member of the Photographers Bar is very, very demanding.

Foster Photographers (41)s

The Awards were presented by Lesley Thirsk, Director of the Guild of Photographers

I was also given an award for being in the ‘Top 20 Photographers of the Year’ in the Guild’s Open category, coming in 14th position. This was secured as a result of the high judging scores achieved for my pet portraits in the Guild’s monthly competitions throughout 2015.  The Open category includes the follow genres so is a big category to do well in.  Pets, Sport, Wildlife, Nature, Macro, Landscape, Fashion, Digital Art and more.

Foster Photographers (101)s

All the images I submitted into the Open Category were Dog Portraits, which is the side of the business I am very passionate about. So was thrilled to have my work recognised.

I had two images short listed in the top 10 images for Pet Photographer of the year but unfortunately was not the winner this year.  Its always good to have a goal to work toward!  I will be chasing that title this year!

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Here are a few more of the images that I entered this year.

Thank you for reading my post. http://www.meltaylorphotography.co.uk

Exciting News

Some exciting news for me. Two of my images have been short-listed for the Image of the Year with the Guild of Photographers!

The Guild is a highly respected UK based association for photographers which has members from overseas as well. Each year it runs an on-line monthly photographic competition with awards being given each month to the very best of the entries.

Around 10,000 entries were taken into the Image of the Month Competition throughout 2015, the Judges have selected just 10 images in each genre to be short listed as Finalists in the Image of the Year Competition. I have been selected as a finalist in the Pet genre with the attached images.

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“H” was an absolutely  gentle and adorable Lurcher. Having had 4 Lurchers myself over the years I did have a big soft spot for him! Sadly he was a little to big to hide in my pocket!  He is devoted to his owner as you can see from his expression.

His owners bid for the Complimentary photographic session and 20″x16″ Wall Art of the image of their choice from the session that I donated to the local pre-school for the Auction at the Enchanted ball held earlier in the year. The auction was helping to raise funds for them much needed relocation of the wonderful Little Ducks pre-school that both my boys attended.

Guild Director Lesley Thirsk said “One of the Guild’s aims is to drive standards and creativity amongst photographers. Our monthly competition certainly does that, for the standard of the entries we see each month is quite staggering. To have an image recognised by the Guild in the monthly competition is difficult enough, so to have an image selected as being one of the best 10 in a category for the end of year Final is a quite remarkable achievement, and shows just how talented a photographer Mel Taylor is”.

During January the Judges will assess the final few images in print format and choose their overall winners and runners-up.

The final results will then be announced the Awards evening at the fabulous Crewe Hall in Cheshire on Saturday 6th February, 2015.

So not only is it exciting I get to buy a new frock too!  There are lots of stunning entries this year and I am thrilled to be short-listed.

Here are a few more images from “H’s” session.

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Many thanks for reading my post.

www.meltaylorphotography.co.uk

 

Mel Taylor LSWPP and QGPP

Putting things off until tomorrow is easily done. We all have busy lives and I am sure all of you have had good intentions to get things ticked off your must do list and still have not got round to it! I think two years ago I had this good intention to apply for Photography Qualifications. However, I got busy looking after the family, working, continually improving my skill and knowledge base to insure my images are of a good quality.

This year I figured enough was enough it was something that must be done and that applying for my first qualification was a good way to mark of my achievements and assure my customers and potential customers that the quality of my images are deemed off a good professional standard by the Fellow’s of the photographic societies that I belong to. There are a lot of photographers for customers to choose from these days in this digital age. So I wanted to assure my customers that I was a good choice for them, not only because they like my style but because my images are of a high consistent quality.

So at last I selected a panel of images and decided to use Dog Portraiture as my theme as this is one of the areas of photography that I am most passionate about.  My 20 images were submitted to the SWPP (The Societies), for my licentiate, the images are reviewed by a panel of four Fellow’s of the Society and I am glad to say that I passed with Flying colours!

digital photographer_0092I have also been awarded Qualified Status with the Guild of Photographers.

I am now planning the submission for my next qualification, but want to shoot new images for it over the summer months.

Thanks for reading my post and if you would like to see more images please go to www.meltaylorphotography.co.uk.