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DuncanDisorderly

DuncanDisorderly

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Duncan
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For the last couple of years, TP has been the my biggest source of photography inspiration.
I've read inspirational threads, seen cracking images and made genuine friends on meets organised through the forum.

Hence I'm proud to announce that earlier today my ARPS panel was accepted in the Visual Art category.
The real laugh is that two of the images were taken on TP meets and a third was taken alongside people I met at those meets :D

To all at TP - THANKS :clap:

Here's the panel.
You can see them in more detail and see the supporting statement over on my website.
20101224-104249-ARPS-Panel-v5-L.jpg


My panel was not unanimously accepted - I think I agree with them!
The comfortable passes were some of the most incredible and humbling sets of images I've seen in a long while, and I count it as a privilege to have been accepted - even if I only scraped through.

Before we get into RPS bashing...
I applied for ARPS for no reason other than setting personal goals.
It was WAY more work than I anticipated, and I'm feeling genuinely proud of my achievement.
 
Duncan - your panel is absolutely breath taking. I feel honoured to be learning from someone so talented. It's amazing that you find the time to help so many of us with our photography when you have such a time draining qualification you worked towards.

If it's not to personal - would you please share the associated blurb/philosophy you submitted with the panel?
 
Congratulations Duncan, very well deserved.
 
A thousand congratulations, Duncan, and well deserved. I think anyone would be proud to have made any of these images; the set as a whole is just amazing.
 
Wow - thanks all!
VERY ****ed at the mo - been out celebrating :)
Good job this forum allows drunk typing.
Tis what we do well down in this part of the world - getting drunk.

I gotta say - the ARPS standard was way higher than I expected or was led to believe.
I'm very proud to say I scraped through today.
Next person you meet who has ARPS, please doff yer cap in recognition.
Fair play to for achieving something pretty darned challenging.

Edited to add:
I see this forum doesn't allow drunk typing.
Hey ho
Probably for the best.
Take care and TTFN - Duncan
 
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Lol - you go at it fella... and no editing to save face when you're sober again :-)
 
Congratulations Duncan... Well deserved... And after seeing how you climb over rocks and up mountains like a mad cat it shows the amount of physical work that goes into your landscapes
 
Duncan, well done fella you deserve it, a fantastic panel of pics. I've been toying with going for it myself, as you say just to set personal goals, but I'm not sure my work is up to the quality required just yet, particularly as I intend to do it using film only. I shall give it more thought but you have inspired me, cheers mate.

Andy
 
Well done Duncan, that's a great and well deserved achievement. Your panel, and other photos on your site are inspiring.
 
Wow again - many thanks for the feedback.
Isn't TP great :thumbs:

Preparing for my ARPS took about a year during which I learned a lot - not just about my images, but about how others see me.
Finding a whole bunch of images and checking they have acceptable image quality is much harder than it sounds.
For ARPS the images need something to bind them together as a cohesive set, this was my biggest struggle as I take all sorts of images and initially nothing leapt out!
Mashing them into a cohesive panel that looks good together is an art form - I needed a lot of help here!
I sought opinions from lots of people and their feedback was interesting as it made me look at my images differently.

It was a huge learning experience and definitely worth the effort :)
 
Congratulations Duncan and well deserved, looks like the :beer: are on you next Friday :rules: :clap::clap:
 
Many congratulations to you; really like your panel - some stunning landscapes in there.

Am about to hit the road to LRPS myself; again for the sense of personal challenge as well as a bit of recognition.

You say your submission was almost a year in the making; where and how did you start?

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Spooks
 
Spooky said:
Many congratulations to you; really like your panel - some stunning landscapes in there.

Am about to hit the road to LRPS myself; again for the sense of personal challenge as well as a bit of recognition.

You say your submission was almost a year in the making; where and how did you start?

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Spooks
Click to expand...

Thanks!

Here's my 2p on getting an LRPS together.
Start by finding 60 of your favourite images and weed out any that are not technically good enough to print to A3.
Aim to have about 30 left.
Print them all out to post card size 10x8cm.
Throw them on the table and start juggling things around to make a panel design that works. Some people are good at this (I'm not), get help.
Ask lots of peoples opinions, keep the ones that resonate with you and ignore the rest.

LRPS isn't your 10 favourite images.
They have to demonstrate that you have control over your camera so need diversity.
Each image has to be able to work in isolation of the rest of the panel and must be technically competent.
The panel has to work viewed as a whole panel. Colours and tones should balance. Two of my best images had to be dropped from my LRPS panel because they didn't fit (one was green woodland and there were no other greens in the panel, the other was machinery and all the other images were natural. Sometimes you can get away with oddball images by placing them in the middle.
Edge images should keep the viewers attention in the panel.
The top-left and bottom-middle images should be stunners as they are the first ones most people look at.

If you look at my L panel you will see this advice in action.
There's a strong orange theme to the top row underpinned by the red coat on the bottom row. Fireworks in top row had the colour tweaked to match the rest of the row. Three of the edge images can only go one way around in order to make the panel work. Bottom row 2nd and 4th are similar tone, this is deliberate.
20080101-151508-06-Final-2-L.jpg
 
Great advice there Duncan, I'd add that getting guidance from an experienced mentor is essential, especially if you are going for ARPS. The RPS do hold regular workshops around the county, I'd highly recommend attending one of those before embarking in the journey.

I made a series of blog posts on my journey, first one is here, the next seven posts continue the theme: http://thevoicefromthenorth.wordpre...ty-portfolio-part-1-getting-some-good-advice/
 
Many congratulations , well done.
 
viewfromthenorth said:
Great advice there Duncan, I'd add that getting guidance from an experienced mentor is essential, especially if you are going for ARPS. The RPS do hold regular workshops around the county, I'd highly recommend attending one of those before embarking in the journey.

I made a series of blog posts on my journey, first one is here, the next seven posts continue the theme: http://thevoicefromthenorth.wordpre...ty-portfolio-part-1-getting-some-good-advice/
Click to expand...

Your Blog is a great read and I love your panel!
Thanks for chucking the link in here.
 
Well done! They all look great to me but you say you scraped through. Presumably there are images there which you consider weak in comparison to the others. To help people like me who can't see a problem with any of them could you identify them and explain?
 
parkmoy said:
Well done! They all look great to me but you say you scraped through. Presumably there are images there which you consider weak in comparison to the others. To help people like me who can't see a problem with any of them could you identify them and explain?
Click to expand...

Thanks :beer:

The images are fine...
One of the judges commented that the panel didn't make him feel included or draw him in. That's fine by me as my panel's statement is about isolation and solitude; I think he missed that :)
There was another comment that the images didn't do much for them until they got up close. That's fine by me too, I'm not making cute and cuddly landscape images and I've spent a lot of time getting my technique good enough to make the texture and detail go POP when you get close.

Where my panel falls short is its lack of cohesive design.
Go and have a look at ViewFromTheNorth's panel linked a few posts ago.
It makes mine look like a random collection of images.

The other landscape panels that were being assessed pretty much all had three rows with each row having a separate (but linked) theme.
One panel had mist / ice / water with the whole panel produced in high key; it was gob-smackingly stunning.
Another panel had themes on subject distance wide / near / intimate, there were colours and textures that flowed through all three and again the result was wonderful.
There were other examples, but you get the idea.

Compared to the two panels I have just described mine looked barely up to the mark.
 
Spooky...
This panel theming stuff is discouraged at LRPS as above all else they want to see diversity and competence.
ARPS is a totally different ballgame.
 
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Thanks for the advice, Duncan - great to hear it straight from someone who has recently been through it. Really liked you L panel as well, I did have a sneaky peek on your website.

Just off to have a nose at Andy's blog.

Sorry to have hijacked your thread momentarily - congrats again

Spooks
 
Awe-inspiring Duncan, truly great landscape photography congratulations and hope to meet up again with you sometime in the future.
Kevin
 
I am so pleased for you Duncan, I know you have been working very hard towards this.

Off and On over the years I have been seriously thinking about attempting to go for an RPS distinction, I have spent quite a while deliberating whether I should start with the LRPS or attempt the ARPS from the get go.

Perhaps I should submit a panel once I get fully aquainted with my new camera.
 
EdBray said:
I am so pleased for you Duncan, I know you have been working very hard towards this.

Off and On over the years I have been seriously thinking about attempting to go for an RPS distinction, I have spent quite a while deliberating whether I should start with the LRPS or attempt the ARPS from the get go.

Perhaps I should submit a panel once I get fully aquainted with my new camera.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ed :beer:

Knowing your exquisite taste in cameras, I dread to think what you have now purchased :nuts:
I've seem some fantastic images from you. The question is whether RPS distinctions are what you want to do with them.
Remember - it's about the journey, not the destination :)

and if you haven't already done so...
Go and read ViewFromTheNorth's ARPS blog. :D

Spooky...
That wasn't a thread hijack - this is what it's all about :)
Keep em coming :p
 
Thanks again, Duncan

Just had a read of Andy's blog - good stuff from the Voice of the North!

I like the idea of assmbling a collection of images, printing and then sifting, organising them etc; it will make me feel like I am an X Factor judge looking at who to put through to Boot Camp and Judges' Houses. I have started to put a collection together on my Flickr site with a view to posting the link, once it is all together, and then seeing what others think about it.

Will drop you a line when it is ready, if you are interested in having a look and casting your experienced eye over it. I am attending an advisory day in early November so will be looking to get a panel of 10, plus a subs bench of 10 ready for that meeting.

Cheers for now though

Simon
 
Thanks for the explanation Duncan. As I said they all looked great to me so it's nice to know I wasn't wrong about that. I do find it difficult to get my head around the 'panel' concept though especially when you have to exclude some of your best images.
 
Panel 'design' is an art and has to be done hand in hand with image selection. You really need a very large shortlist of images that you whittle down. I think my shortlist for my 20 FRPS images is about 75, my mentors was over 100.

L panels can be themed, or part themed. As I showed a strong themed body of work at an advisory day, I was advised to go straight for the A distinction, but a guy in our club did a panel of 10 bird / natural history images, and is continuing this for his A panel. I was looking at a prospective L panel last week and the upper 5 images were all nature and landscape and the lower 5 were all urban.

Edit: worth adding that you may end up leaving your best images out if you can't get them to fit in the panel. This is where getting advice from a third party comes in - they have no emotional connection with your images and can look at them dispassionately.
 
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Thanks Andy, those are useful comments.

Spooky - good luck with your workshop.
Do let us know how you get on.
Feel free to post in here if you don't want to start a fresh thread.
 
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