GOING FOR L - by Mark Reeves

from RPS Landscape Group Newsletter, February 2017

Landscape Photography By Susan Brown FRPS

Mark Reeves relays his experience of achieving his Licentiate.

Ever since I became interested in photography in the eighties, I have enjoyed landscape more than any other genre. So, when I decided to embark on the path to RPS distinctions, it was inevitable that my images would be landscapes. Of course, the Licentiate (L) panel, unlike the Associate (A) and Fellow (F) panels, isn’t required to have a theme, but as the only decent images I had were landscapes, I had no choice!

Not being at all sure whether my photography was good enough, I attended a couple of assessment days as an observer. Not only was this enormously valuable in helping me to understand the standard required, but it was also hugely enjoyable, being entertained by the wide variety of images (and standards!) being presented.

With my confidence slightly boosted, I decided I would submit a panel of images to an advisory day. A friend from my camera club who already held the ARPS, was kind enough to review my first collection of images. He gave his views as to which were good enough and which weren’t, which served to display a use of various techniques and how they might be arranged in a panel.

As with many L applicants, I was slightly reluctant to incur the costs of printing and mounting so I attended my first advisory day with projected digital images (PDIs). Whilst this costs little in the way of time and materials, it does leave the photographer at the mercy of the visual technology. It also relies on having one’s own equipment properly calibrated, something I barely understood at the time. Having seen another candidate’s images completely ruined by technological incompatibilities, I decided that in future I would print my images. Anyway, the outcome as regards my own images was mixed, but overall encouraging and so I went away to work on replacements for some of the panel.

Some months later, armed with some new images of which I felt confident, I applied for assessment. The excitement, seeing my images presented before the panel of assessors at HQ in Bath was intense. Unlike the advisory days, these are fairly formal affairs. Darkened room, bright spotlights, hushed whispers and pregnant pauses while the assessors scrutinise and deliberate. Stephen King has nothing on this lot!

As it happens, the panel was very complimentary about the images themselves but pointed out a slight problem (banding) which I had not spotted on two of the prints. As a result, my panel was referred–I was invited to reprint and resubmit just the offending images. My problem was that I only owned a cheap printer and I couldn’t eliminate the problem myself. Instead, I took the images to a professional printer and the problem was solved. Within a few days, I received notification that I was to be recommended for a licentiate distinction.

So, was it worth it? Hell yeah! I believe that the whole process really helped me to develop my photography enormously and it was also very enjoyable. I am now in the latter stages of preparing for A assessment. Oh, and I have bought a much better printer!