The Portrait Masters award

Lockdown for photographers has meant we’ve had a crazy year with very little work.  Being a non essential business we had to close down early and still aren’t open.

lockdown life..

In amongst home-schooling, providing snacks, entertaining my children, walking the dog, updating my website and keeping the house from turning into a complete bomb sight, I decided to enter some of my photos to a very prestigious photography competition.

what is the portrait masters award?

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Sue Bryce is one of the worlds biggest names in portrait photography and her work is AMAZING!  As a photographer trainer,  The Portrait Masters Award was created to allow photographers to submit their work to be judged by a panel of international expert judges.  Enabling them the chance to win prizes, accreditation points, and awards. The accreditation program, is for portrait photographers of all genres and is  recognition of ‘high professional standard.’To find out more about this award please click HERE to visit Sue Bryce Education website.

why enter?

Entering competitions is a great way to help us grow and rather than competing against other photographers.  It is about improving your own ability.

Photographing a family is about capturing a feeling.  To me, it’s more about the love between a family and spending time together.  Recording a precious moment in time.  It’s not about getting the perfect pose, it’s about your family connection. Capturing YOU together and creating a memory for you, to look back on with happiness!

Whereas, for a competition all the details need to be perfect, right down to the smallest part.

Because I was in lockdown, I chose to include 2 photos from newborn sessions and 2 photos of my children.   Not everything is perfect but I do love these photos. (For example my sons socks definitely did not match the rest of his outfit).

the results

Choosing these four images meant it showed a variety of work that I do.  Each photo is judge by 5 different photographers from around the world and the result is an average of these scores.  To be awarded a Bronze you must score over 70 points.

Waiting for the scores to come out was very tense.  But I couldn’t believe it, I was SO excited!  I had been given a Bronze in all four images.  I was expecting to be given a score under 70 but really hoped I’d get at least one bronze.  So I was completely shocked to get four!  And even more surprised that one of them was only one point away from a Bronze distinction!

This means that my photographs have been recognised to be of a professional standard by some of the worlds top photographers. 

I am so proud of myself and my two amazing children, who are always there to support me.  They are often dragged out to help me and rarely complain! 

 Next time, I will definitely set out to capture some “competition specific” photos to see if I can improve my score, so feel free to watch this space…

If you would like to book a photography session, when we come out of lockdown please head over HERE to my main website where you can find more information.