In the two years I have been shooting models up until the end of 2010 I received a grand total of 0 awards in competitions, although I only really started entering seriously at the beginning of 2010.
Then in the Smethwick International I was lucky enough to get 3 awards out of just 4 colour prints including a medal as mentioned in my blog post, which was just amazing.
Well my luck held up and I got another award from the Welsh International Salon in the creative section with a relatively old image of Dani Marie entitled Modesty, this was very surprising as they got a huge entry and I would have been glad just to get acceptances:
It didn’t stop there, last week I heard that I also got a medal and a highly commended in Midphot 2011 the exhibition for Midlands camera clubs. I got 9 accepted prints in total including the 2 awards, compared to really scraping 1 acceptance last year!!
And then in the Southampton International Exhibition I got virtually the same result, only 3 acceptances this time, but these included another medal and a certificate (equivalent to highly commended I think!).
Highly commended in both was Pearls with Nanette of course:
And amazingly getting a medal in both of the first two exhibitions it was entered in Simply Red with Holly:
The thing you will notice about all of the award winning images is that they are studio shots, whereas I prefer to shoot and think I am better outdoors – that shows what I know! And also they are all – apart from Modesty – awards for prints, so it also appears my prints are better than my digital images, even though most of the competitions I enter are for digital images.
So maybe I need to do more studio work and more print exhibitions?
Thanks to the models, without whom the images would be rather boring blank backgrounds, Dani Marie, Nanette and Holly.
Comment
Great to find your blog… and see more of your work. It’s always interesting to follow photographers with similar styles and interests, particularly as you’re going down the FIAP route as well.