Proud to be shortlisted

It’s rare for me to enter photographic competitions; for a start there aren’t that many I feel qualified to enter, and when you strip out the ones with dodgy terms and conditions this narrows down the options even further.

But last year I decided to enter the British Life Photography Awards, a competition which celebrates British life in its many, varied forms. The photos don’t even have to have been taken in the year of the competition, which is some help to me, though most of my catalogue wouldn’t fit the criteria of the competition.

I entered a small selection of photos including my portrait of Donald at the local tyre fitter’s shop and a few from my Standerwick series which studied the life and work of the farmers, traders and auctioneers (as well as the animals) at Frome livestock market.

Out of the set I submitted, one did get shortlisted, though sadly it didn’t make the cut for the final rounds. But still, it’s been many years since I entered any competition at all and I was pleased to even get shortlisted.

The BLPA competition itself isn’t free to enter, but the fees are reasonable and the T&Cs don’t grab complete control of the entries, so I very much hope to be entering again this year. I’ll also be on the lookout for other competitions with similar aims of simply recognising good photography because it can be a great way to give myself more motivation to take pictures of the subjects which interest me, push me to be more technical and “pure” in my approach and hopefully will give me something to crow about when I win!

 

Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016!

Traditionally I would do a “year in pictures” post about now with a photo from each month of the year, but this year I thought I’d just pick out a slightly random selection of this year’s pictures from various assignments, personal projects and even the odd holiday snap for you to enjoy.

This is the last post for this year, but I look forward to being able to bring you lots of exciting stuff next year.

I just wanted to say a massive thank you to all my lovely clients, and to wish all my readers a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year!

Without further ado, here’s a round-up of 2015. Click an image to enlarge and you can scroll through from there. Enjoy!

Fancy a Challenge?

Last week was huge fun as I was booked to cover the IRTE Skills Challenge 2015 for the Society of Operations Engineers. The event, hosted by S&B Automotive Academy in Bristol spanned four days and involved teams of bus and coach technicians tackling challenges from diagnosing electrical faults in a wiring loom to repairing a metal box section in the bodyshop.

It was full-on and all-go as I set about making sure I had a good selection of photos of each of the 50+ competitors over the course of the event, as well as group photos, detail shots and general views.

The pictures will be used on the SOE website, on social media and in press releases and you can see an edited selection of the pictures here.

This was my first year covering the event which has been running for 5 years now, but hopefully I’ll be invited back next year. I was really impressed with how helpful everyone was, especially the candidates who were under pressure of time and having to concentrate while I worked around them.

It was a fascinating challenge to see how to get the best angles and light the subjects in the most effective way. Welding shots are always fun as they have to be done through a welding mask (or risk permanent eye damage!), but here’s one of my favourite images showing competitor Tim Laws Chapman of FirstGroup grinding a tidy finish to his welded section in the body shop.