Bridlington, Flamborough and East Yorkshire Landscape Photography

Exciting News: My Photograph Selected for Gurushots Exhibition in London


I am thrilled to announce that my photograph, captured on Bridlington North Beach, has been selected by Gurushots to be showcased at the Coningsby Gallery in London! The image will be on display from December 19th to December 21st this year.

This particular shot was taken during a serene moment at sunrise, with the moss-covered wooden groynes extending into the sea, creating a striking leading line towards the horizon. The combination of the soft, moving water and the textured, weathered structures encapsulates the peaceful yet dynamic nature of the coastline.

Being selected for this exhibition is a great honor, and I’m excited to have my work featured in such a prestigious gallery located on Tottenham Road. If you’re in London during this period, I would love for you to visit and check out the collection, which showcases incredible photography from around the world.

Thank you to Gurushots and all the supporters who’ve helped me on this journey! Stay tuned for more updates.

This image has been selected by Gurushots as one of the forty images from the photographer of the year challenge to be printed and displayed at The Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham St, London W1T 4RJ, on the 30th and 31st of December 2022

Absolutely delighted to receive a gold in The National Photographic Society's monthly image competition from April for my image captured on Bridlington's North Beach

Each month there are two sets of winners :-

Gold – The ultimate accolade, an image that is outstanding in the eyes of the judges

Highly Commended – An image that is almost at Gold level but just a tiny bit short of winning Gold. Highly Commended is still an incredible achievement to earn.

You can find the results each month on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thenps.

Images are judged to Licentiate Qualification guidelines, 65 out of 100 is a pass in Licentiate, over 95 is a Distinction. These are equated to Highly Commended and Gold. Please note that Highly Commended images may differ in quality as an image scoring 94 will be of a higher standard than one scoring 65.

Absolutely delighted to have an image achieve a gold on the Guild of Photographers image of the month competition.

THE SCORING PROCESS

Entries are assessed by very experienced Judges in accordance with national competition judging criteria and graded as follows –

A Platinum Bar .. Images of exceptional or outstanding quality (only awarded to the ultimate of images)
A Gold Bar .. Images of particular distinction (very rare)
A Silver Bar .. Images that are very well crafted (difficult to achieve)
A Bronze Bar .. Images of a strong standard at a national competition level (something to be proud of)
Classified .. Images of a standard worthy of acknowledgement relevant to the genre entered but which are not deemed award winning at national competition level. In many cases it is possible that with one or two small tweaks these images could have scored even higher, so feedback could be of value.
Not scored .. Images that do not reach our 'Classified' level score will not be given a grade. Often images in this position do evidence competition potential, but require some things to be different for the image to score higher in a national competition. In some cases it can be just one thing that prevents a higher score such as dust spots which are clearly visible or the accidental inclusion of a business watermark. Feedback would be of value in these cases so it is well worth considering it.

Feeling quite bemused, every month I go out taking photos carefully weighing up the composition and timing shots to get the best water movement only to get classifiedes and bronzes with the odd silver then I just put the viewfinder to my eye centre on the horizon set a 2.5 second exposure and swing the camera roughly 30 degrees and it scores a gold, amazing

One of the highlights of 2017 for me was gaining craftsman with the Guild of Photographers after achieving my qualified status with the Guild of Photographers and my panel going so well I decided to try for the Craftsman status which is described in the following section of the guide book

3.3 What do I need to submit to be considered as a Guild ‘Craftsman’in this section?

• You must have ‘Qualified’ status with the Guild to apply.

• You must stipulate the specific genre applied for (e.g. Studio Portraiture / Lifestyle / Events / Commercial / Landscapes etc.) A multi-genre entry is not permitted so a different submission will be required for each specific area you wish to seek Craftsman status for.

• You need to submit 20 images to demonstrate that you are a true ‘Craftsman’ in the art of photography and your chosen genre.

• Your 20 images must have been taken by you in the past 3 years.

• They must be presented in both a digital format and also as prints

• Purposeful text should accompany the submitted images to enhance our evaluation and understanding of your submission (ideally no more than 1200 words).

• It is recommended (but not compulsory) that you include a Presentation Book with your submission (ie. a book containing your submitted images). These can assist your submission

I picked 25 images then booked a mentoring session to discuss my panel and I was advised to have it printed as 6” x 4” standard prints so I could lay them out and see how they would sit together. From the 25 images I was happy with 18 but in the meantime I had been on a few more outings with the camera and picked 2 images from these shoots so another set of test prints, this time I liked the way all the images fit together. After running my panel by my mentor the next step was to decide on which paper to use. I had one image printed on all the papers used by D S Colour Labs then narrowed it down to a choice of 2 Perma jet photo art silk or Hahnemuhle photo rag two stunning fine art papers finally deciding on the photo rag because of its totally matt qualities. I ordered my 12” x 8” prints then it was time to decide on mounts originally I was thinking double Black with a grey accent colour but after ordering samples I decided this was too fussy and detracted from the images so I finally decided on single white window mounts with backing boards. Saal digital had a promotion on photobooks so I took advantage of this for my product, for my brief I decided to give details of each image shutter speed filters and thoughts etc. I purchased a USB stick in a presentation box from 3XM to store my digital images and that was it everything ready.
The date for Judging was Monday 18th September at 11:30am at Guild Headquarters in Stoke upon Trent a good 3 hour’s drive away from where I live so I decided to stay the Sunday night at a Premier Inn in Buxton just half an hour’s drive away making life a lot easier on the Monday morning. My wife and I were having breakfast when I received a phone call from a mate who was just checking how I was getting on and to warn me about traffic but on finding out how close I was to Guild HQ asked me if I would take his earlier 10:30am time slot because he was stuck in traffic and not going to make it. We finished breakfast then packed all our gear into the car and set off for guild HQ arriving just after 10:00am we were met by Steven and Leslie Thirsk who made us feel most welcome and did their best to put me at ease.

At 10:15am I was shown into the judging room and allowed to set out my panel I handed my USB stick to the head judge Kevin Pengelly then I thought I would exit the room and leave the judges to it but no the other four judges entered the room along with David Islip my mentor and head of the Guild Steven Thirsk then I was asked to read my brief this is when I realised my brief did not read well and I would have been better having a more generalised brief stating that I prefer to shoot with an aperture of f/16 and use filters to obtain the desired shutter speeds only when light is changing fast will I change the aperture to get the required shutter speed to get the best from the water movement. This is when the nerves really kicked in and I went into meltdown after reading ab out the first six images the judges put me out of my misery and allowed me to leave the room, I thought I had blown it but Steven Thirsk said to me he thought I had done enough to show that I had good knowledge of my craft. After what seemed an eternity I was called back to the judging room, the judges asked a few questions about my images and seemed to keep me hanging on as long as they could before congratulating me on a pass and informing me there were three minor errors, two images had a minor scratch and one image was half a stop overexposed.
Now all the hard work starts to progress to Mastercraftsman

A brief excerpt from the Guild qualification Handbook describing the Guild of Photographers qualifications

2.2 What are the Guild Membership Levels?

Whilst traditional photography related qualifications are a controversial issue by aligning levels of skill and understanding to the guild concept we can apply criteria to our membership levels that reflect the underlining principles the original guilds utilised. By doing this we have created what we believe is the most industry relevant assessment process for photographers in the UK, and across the world (meeting the needs of photographers, clients and our craft)!

Our membership levels are...
•
Registered (i.e. untested)
•
Qualified
•
Craftsman
•
Master Craftsman

Our 'Qualified' status is aligned to standards of competence and understanding that reflect a level where the customer should be 'delighted with the results' of a tradesman (the photographer in our case). In other words 'Qualified' indicates professional ‘competence’ to a level where the Guild is willing to recognise the photographer as an ambassador of the association, so those who achieve that level should be proud of doing so.

Our 'Craftsman' status is, as one would imagine, aligned to the exacting standards of a true guild 'Craftsman'. Therefore, to attain this level, we add an increasing level of professional critique to evaluate our members work. In other words we get increasingly 'fussy' and look in detailat all the elements of photographic understanding. Those that achieve this accolade have demonstrated the finest technical skills and an exceptional creative and artistic 'eye'.

Finally, in the same way as when a 'Craftsman' was granted the highest accolade of ‘Master Craftsman’ having created something truly exceptional (their 'masterpiece'), a 'Craftsman' within the Guild of Photographers can only achieve the acknowledgement of being a 'Master Craftsman' by producing their own photographic masterpiece.

Getting the Qualified status with the Guild of Photographers consists of submitting a panel of 21 images taken within the last 2 years with up to a 600 word brief and an application form.
I have been a registered member of the guild of photographers for over three years now and in that time I have put many panels together to try and gain the qualified status but through one reason or another never actually submitting my panels and letting images go out of date until I attended the qualification and portfolio review day a workshop and critique session designed to help get to grips with the qualification and judging process a very informative day that gave me the push to book a mentoring session that helped me prepare and gave me the confidence to submit my panel after an anxious wait I received this wonderful email

Hi Phil,

I hope you are well.

Just to let you know that the panel have judged your submission and I am very pleased to tell you that you have passed congratulations!

Some of the judges also commented that it was a strong submission and that there is potential for you to go further and work towards your Craftsman.

If this is something that you may be considering for the near future then just let me know as having mentoring sessions to help you work towards your Craftsman would be very beneficial.

To say I was delighted is an understatement now I am in the process of booking my first mentoring session and starting my journey towards craftsman status.
Heres my panel,

I have just recieved this e-mail and I am absolutely delighted to Have the above image featured on the Wall of Fame in Landscape photography magazine

Congratulations, a picture/feature you had submitted in the past has been published inside the latest issue of Landscape Photography Magazine (you will not find it on the website).

You can announce the good news through your social media pages if you wish. The link to direct your followers is https://landscapephotographymagazine.com/magazine/issue-70

We have attached the cover of the latest issue for your records.

Thank you for taking part in our venture.

The LPM Team



Another image featured in Landscape photography magazine



in the August 2016 edition


Another image featured in the Febuary 2018 edition of Landscape photography magazine

Just recieved this email from Steven Thirsk at the guild of photographers, Made my day



To

Phil Green

Message body

Congratulations Phil,

On behalf of the Guild of Photographers I am delighted to advise you that as a result of your consistently high standard entries into the Image of the Month Competition you have earned the right to honorary life membership of the 'Photographer's Bar'!

Less than 100 photographers have achieved this in the 3 years since its inception so you are now part of a very distinguished group.

We hope that you are attending the Guild's Awards night on 6th February so we have the privilege of presenting you your well-deserved certification in person.

It is also fair to say that having achieved this you must have one of the higher scores in the Guild's Photographer of the Year Title Chase, and therefore you are a contender to become one of our 'Top 10' photographers in your genre. Who has actually achieved this will be revealed at the Awards Night with the relevant certificates and trophies being presented to those people. It would be great if you could be there!

If you do want to attend the Evening please contact lesley@photoguild in the next few days so we can reserve your place. We will obviously post your certification to you shortly after the event if you cannot be there to celebrate your success.

Below is a press release for your use ... please feel free to tweak it and either use it now or following receipt of your Award.

Once again, please accept our congratulations and good luck in the 2016 competition!




Kind Regards,

Steve
(Director - The Guild of Photographers)