Many congratulations to former RTPS secretary and long term member Ann Healey who has been accepted as a Fellow into The Royal Photographic Society, the highest distinction which can be achieved with the RPS.
Ann tells us below of her fascinating distinctions journey with the RPS – an insightful and informative story which will be a real inspiration to many of us.
“My Royal Photographic Society distinctions journey started in 2008, a year after joining my first camera club, when, with the encouragement of club mentors, I decided to try for my Licentiateship. I was delighted to be successful but I waited several years before going for my Associateship. Two unsuccessful attempts, in Spring and Autumn 2014, with different insect panels, left me so disillusioned, it was another two years before I tried again. This time, I went with a mixed panel of Costa Rican wildlife and finally achieved success in September 2016.
“Frankly, I thought Associate level would be the most I could achieve but in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, I plucked up courage and decided to apply for my Fellowship. Deciding on the topic was not hard: Costa Rican wildlife is so diverse that my initial idea was to have a general wildlife panel but I channelled my thoughts towards my favourite genre – insects. I knew the images would have to be superior to those that got me my Associateship so with that in mind, I sorted through thousands of photographs in Lightroom before processing a sizeable shortlist of images and putting together a cohesive panel. However, the more I looked at this, the more I started to consider honing it down even further.
“Ultimately, the choice was between insects photographed in the rain forest at night and my final selection, Homoptera – leafhoppers, treehoppers, planthoppers, sharpshooters and cicadas. The ‘Hoppers of Costa Rica’ are amongst the most colourful and interesting in the world and I spent many hours on my two Costa Rica trips photographing them. They are a challenge for any photographer, being extremely elusive and tiny, ranging in size from around 3mm to 8mm with the exception of cicadas which are between 2-5cm. Putting a Fellowship-standard panel together was not going to be easy.
“My first job was to go through all my RAW images again. The photographs had been taken in a variety of conditions – sun, cloud, rain, at night – each species had their own individual challenge.
“When it came to post processing, I used Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop CC, allowing me to make numerous selective adjustments. Most images I took were taken in sunlight or with flash to bring out the shadows from difficult-to-reach areas of their bodies, creating highlights which were hard to control. I removed distracting small blemishes while ensuring the subject matter was as technically perfect as possible. I played with layouts on the PC and printed the images myself on A4 lustre paper, my preferred finish and the optimum print size for me. Once I had decided on the final 21, I mounted the prints flush with the top of the mount, to display the finished panel in portrait orientation. I printed the Statement of Intent, which I kept informative but concise, the Identification List, labels, populated the layouts and packaged everything up before delivering my submission to Bristol for the September 2020 assessment.
“On the afternoon of Assessment Day, I received an email from Ben Fox, Senior Distinctions Assistant, informing me I had been unsuccessful. However, the assessors had found merit and potential in my panel and offered me a resubmission. The feedback highlighted the defects they had found – some images were soft, slightly over-sharpened or showed too much evidence of flash. For my resubmission, I reworked two, correcting the over-sharpening on one and reducing the evidence of flash on the other, and totally replaced seven images based on the assessors’ feedback and my own judgement, obviously making sure the new prints were flawless.
“Sending the print box to Bristol via courier proved a complete nightmare and the box ended up coming back to me at home. It was a shambolic experience but fortunately I had time to drive my panel to the RPS, handing it personally over to Ben for safekeeping.
“I was so fearful of failure, I couldn’t face watching the reassessment and when the email from Ben arrived shortly after the event, informing me of my success, I was so shocked, I broke down in tears, taking about an hour to compose myself! To have attained the honour of Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society is an accolade I could never have dreamt of achieving and to accomplish this with a subject so dear to my heart made it even more meaningful.
“I run the Richmond & Twickenham Photographic Society’s Awards & Distinctions Special Interest Group and I would advise anyone thinking about trying for an RPS distinction to go for it: it involves a great deal of work but the satisfaction of success is unparalleled. At whatever level, make sure you take advice: attend an Advisory Day if you can and try to find a mentor with the relevant experience. I wish you the very best of luck.”
Ann Healey FRPS DPAGB EFIAP BPE3*
Click below to see a larger version of Ann’s successful FRPS panel
Ann Healey FRPS – Layout for RTPS Website