Ok, so it’s likely that you were hoping this post was about something other than photographic exhibitions? Sorry, it’s not about the arguably (but only arguably!) more interesting subject of baring all, but firmly about the concept of showing off your photos in an exhibition, but is there more to it than a few not very interesting photos on a rarely visited public library wall?

As you may have seen over on my bio page I was introduced into photography by my father and I’ve long known and heard about is exploits in local, national and even international photography exhibitions, but it’s only recently that I’ve been becoming more involved myself. Now it’s fair to say that most of us are unlikely to have a full photographic exhibition at MOMA or the Tate Modern, but there are some more realistic targets out there, as I’ve been finding out!

There are plenty of armature and professional photographic bodies and federations in existence (The Royal Photographic Society (RPS), Fédération Internationale de l’Art Photographique (FIAP), New York Press Photographers Association (NYPPA) to name three of the hundreds out there), but the one I’ve been paying most attention to recently it the [Photographic Society of America] (PSA). The PSA is armature run international society, obviously based out of the USA. The crux of their ‘mission’ is to bring people together, help them better their photography, have fun and ultimately gain recognition for their achievements in photography.

The PSA run an annual exhibition, which is open to anyone. The exhibition is split into various photographic genres and every picture is judged and marked. Very roughly the best 20% of entries are accepted into the exhibition and the very cream of the crop receive an award. However, the PSA’s influence extends much further than a single annual exhibition, because they provide accreditation to other exhibitions all over the World. This means that smaller clubs/groups etc can apply to have their exhibitions accredited and as a result there are stacks of exhibitions all year round to enter and pit yourself against your peers. Furthermore the PSA run a recognition scheme based around the number of pictures you have had accepted into accredited international exhibitions. Each collection of acceptances earns you a star-award in your chosen genre and multiple star-awards add-up to larger overall awards.

I can imagine some people reading this and thinking ‘what’s the point’? I think the answer to that is simple ‘some people like this sort of thing and some don’t’. Some people are happy taking pictures for themselves alone, which is no more or less valid. For me the anticipation of seeing whether your pictures have made the ‘cut’ and the on-going focus that it provides is great. Whether you enter the exhibitions or not the PSA is a great organisation and I’d encourage all (armature particularly) photographers to join and see where it leads you; it’s cheap, provides you a monthly magazine, which though basic is very informative and provides access to many learning resources to improve your photography.

I’m sure your all pretty tired of hearing about this years POTY competition through Practical Photography magazine. We’ll you’ll be please to hear that this is officially the last post on the matter and that’s because it’s the final! Here’s how I ended up being one of the last six photographers that made it through to the final.

The rules for the final round are slightly different. The six finalists were asked to enter a set of three photographs under the theme ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’. So without further a do here are the images that I came up with:

As you can see I decided to go for a food themed interpretation of ‘the good, the bad and the ugly‘. I did this primarily because I wanted to continue the ‘home studio’ approach that had seen me through to the final and also because I was a little shoot on time due to a pending trip to the South West US (more on that later). So the upshot of the judging was that I came 5th out of the 6 entries. Of course I would have liked to have done better, but on reflection I’m pretty pleased to have made the final. A couple of hundred quids worth of Jessops vouchers made it all the sweeter as well! The other finalist can be seen here on Practical Photography Magazines’ website. I have to say I thought the winning three photos were just great and so original for the theme! The magazine article can be seen here. So it’s roll on next year and all the POTY 2010 competitions that will be up for grabs!

Round 2 of the competition saw 80 photographers move through to a themed round that would whittle the entries down to just 6. The theme was ‘long exposure, over 4 seconds’. To be honest I was short on time and a little short on ideas, until I saw a photo of some marbles on Flickr. My previous straws shot that got me into round 2 had been taken at home, so I decided the follow the ‘home studio’ route again.

To that end I came up with Electric Blue and I’m very pleased to say the judges saw fit to give me a grand final place. There were no prizes for round 2, but with nearly £5000 of Jessop’s vouchers up for grabs in the final there was all to shoot for.

The picture itself is just an arrangement of marbles on some fleece and the blue lines are a blue led key ring that I rotated around the marbles whilst the shutter was open. The exposure was around 4 seconds as per the requirement for the theme.

You will of course not be surprised to hear that my next post is likely to be all about the final and what happened there. You can see a screen shot of the magazine page here. There’s also a blog post on Photoanswers.co.uk (Practical Photography Magazines web site) about round 2 with commentary here.

In my previous post I mentioned some success I had last year in the Practical Photography Magazine 2008 Photographer of the Year competition. Spurred on by this I decided to enter the 2009 competition. The competition runs all year with the first round consisting of 8 themed rounds from which 10 photographers progress, leaving just 80 photographers from thousands of entries to progress to round 2.

Back in May this year I entered the 5th heat of round 1, which was the macro photography heat. I’m very pleased I took the trouble as I bagged first place with a shot of some drinking straws I’d taken a while before. Not only did I get the kudos of winning the heat, but also bagged myself a very nice Nikon D300 camera (thank you very much)! Being a Canon man this quickly lead to some EBay action, but the resulting funds were of course very welcome.

Keep an eye out for a post coming soon with details on how I did in round 2 of the competition. You can see a screen shot of the magazine page here. There’s also a blog post on Photoanswers.co.uk (Practical Photography Magazines web site) about the macro round results here.

Every year Practical Photography magazine hold a ‘Photographer of the Year’ competition that’s open to everyone and anyone around the World. The format has been the same for some time; there are 8 monthly themed rounds that each result in a winner and 9 runners-up progressing onwards. This means 80 photographers move through to round two and these are further whittled down to 6 photographers for a grand final.

Back in October 2008 I entered the Travel round, which happened to be the last of the 8 themed rounds. The photograph was a shot a took in Thailand in June 2008 of a dilapidated house by the side of the Thonburi canals that run through Bangkok.

The actual shot entered into the competition was a sepia toned version of the one entered here. The competition wasn’t only significant because I was one of only eighty photographers (from thousands of entries) to progress to the next round, but it represented the first time that one of my photographs had been seen ‘in-print’. You can see a screen shot of the magazine page here.

Unfortunately I didn’t progress further than round two in the 2008 competition, but it did give me the impetus to enter the 2009 incarnation that brought considerably more success. Keep an eye our for news on that to follow……