R.P.S. Visits Clacton

Distinctions Advisory Day. March17th 2002.


By Maurice Reeve ARPS.

The Royal Photographic Society was in Clacton on Sunday, 17th March, for the first time in its long history, when East Anglia Region held a Distinctions Advisory Day in the Princes Theatre for a large number of photographers interested in improving the quality of their work.

The Royal Photographic Society is the leading organisation in this country (and it also has members throughout the rest of the world) as far as imaging is concerned.
The RPS was founded almost 150 years ago as an educational charity, intended to improve the quality of photography of amateurs and professionals alike, by setting standards and offering advice and instruction in many ways. It was also set up as a learned society, concerned with developments in photography and associated areas, pushing the boundaries forward, involved in research and development. These two aspects of the society continue to this day.

For some time now, East Anglia Region’s meetings have been held at Stowmarket, in Suffolk, in the centre of what is a geographically very large area, involving a lot of travelling for everyone, though by having the meetings in the centre, there is a certain fairness to it, even if the majority of members live in the large towns and cities around the edge.

The meeting in Clacton is the first one to move away from Stowmarket for some time, and it was chosen in response to a request by Mike Chatfield, who runs the North Essex Photographic Workshop, which has many keen members, a large number of whom were interested in acquiring a Licentiate Distinction from the RPS, the first of three ascending levels, which expects a good, basic competence in photography, and is awarded for 12 prints or slides on any subject that show technical ability and artistic judgement.

The Chairman of Tendring Distict Council, Councillor Jessop and her consort arrived before the proceedings started, in order to meet the Regional Organiser for East Anglia, Maurice Reeve ARPS, as well as the three distinguished panel members who were to advise participants.( Click here for pictures)
She was impressed by displays of photographs presented by the North Essex Photographic Workshop as well as Loughton Camera Club. In her introductory remarks she expressed the pleasure of the Council and the people of Clacton that the Society should at last have come to the town and hoped it would be the first of more visits.
She also suggested that all the photographers present would find it worthwhile to visit the town and especially the seafront, even on a rather murky winter’s day!

Colin Westgate FRPS explained the requirements for gaining a Licentiate, before 19 photographers showed their work one by one and received constructive criticism from him and the other two panel members. Colin is a specialist printer both in colour and monochrome and runs a professional business called ‘Quest Photography’.
He was assisted by two more specialists, Dr Anne Owen FRPS, who is an engineer by trade but who specialises in underwater photography and had many helpful comments to make about images of wildlife and flowers.
The third panelist was the redoubtable Jack Jackson FRPS, mountaineer, diver, and author of books on adventure travel, underwater and four-wheel drive, who has just returned from a five week commission working in Borneo. He was able to make penetrating comments on many of the images that had obviously been taken on holidays and visits to a variety of locations around the world.
Between them the Panel were able to make suggestions on layout, subject matter, printing, mounting, coherence and a variety of other aspects of good photographic practice. At the end of the afternoon there were also four applicants for the higher Associate level, who presented more specialised images from Nature, Travel, Documentary and Visual Journalism.

The audience was not just those who had brought photographs but many others, both members of the Royal Photographic Society and camera clubs from nearby, but also from as far as central Derbyshire, all with something to learn, and a lot to enjoy.
Now, the participants have gone away, remembering the comments and advice, many of them already filling in their application forms prior to sending their set of prints or slides for actual judgement by the Distinction Panels.

Before long there should be quite a group of photographers in the Tendring district able to add LRPS after their names - and then they will be thinking of how to get up the next stages of the ladder of the ladder, through ARPS to the ultimate accolade FRPS, the Fellowship of the Society, which denotes individual style and brilliance and is gained by only a small number of applicants each year.

Only the most outstanding photographers become FRPS - but who knows, some of those who enjoyed Sunday may before too long be able to boast that they are numbered among that select band.
Let us hope so, because there were some very impressive photographs on show in Clacton, and the town can be proud to have hosted such a day.

Maurice Reeve ARPS,
RPS Regional Organiser for East Anglia.