WITCH DOCTOR & the CHIP

Go tor a •istinctiont A long tiMe ago, when I was still at school, I often used to see in my "Amateur Photographer" titles such as "Photograph by I.H.Hason, F.I.P.S." & it becanie 'IIY illlbition to one day achieve a loyal Photographic Society distinctioa for ayself. The years vent by, & I did nothing to realise this illlbition; but in 1,a4 I decided "It's about time I joi11ed the I.P.S.", so I wrote off tor an application fol'lll and after returning this with ay cheque I received a nice letter telling 111e that I had been accepted u a iaember of the Society. The next step was to do SOiie photographs to subllit for evaluation. The Licentiate is the euiest of the three distinctions, • is Naly the first step along the road towards a Fellowship. To obtain a distinction, you 1111.lSt satisfy the Council of the loyal Photographic Society of your "Competence & ability in still or aotion picture techinques".There are several ways of doing this; by sul>aitting transparanciea, colour or black & white prints, or exaaples of particularly skillfl.11 work by photographic technicians. I decided to aubllit a selection of aonocroae prints, each 11" x 14" & between stiff heritage board with a window cut in the front to display the photographs. For the L.l.P.S., a subllission ot ten pictures is required; tor the A,I.P.S or F.I.P.S. you Ill.I.St send in tvelve pictures. It was aore difficult to decide vhat photographs to select than to actualy print them up, le I found it as hard to IIOU;Dt the pictures u to produce the act1al prints. There is a saying "The easy bit is pressing the shutter release" - how tnie that ist I think that it is always a problem to guess just what the Judges are looking tor, so tor ay attempt at the L.I.P.S. I sent in photographs of a variety of subjects. The rest is history, as they say, and I was absolutly delighted when one 110rning Wile said "Congratulations" le banded 111e a letter the loyal Photographic Society addressed to, Mr V.J.Walden, L.1,P.S. Hy next goal is to try tor the Associateship. I'• going to have to do ay best to try tor this fairly soon, as "Licentiate• is too had to pronounces