Outside The Medals But 10 More Acceptances

Posted by ciaran on June 29, 2010 in Blog, FIAP | 7 comments

Considering how little I’m shooting this year, it’s probably no surprise that my blog has been pretty stagnant. It seems the only things I’m talking about are really to do with images I’ve shot or show cased in the past. And unfortunately this blog entry is no different. But I guess any good news is worth blogging about? As mentioned in my previous blog entry, I’ve been making a concerted effort this year to submit images to various FIAP salons around the world. Following my recent “success” (and I use that term loosely) at the Mondial Salon in Luxembourg, I’ve just received the notification back from the 4 star Vigex Australian salon. Unfortunately all of my images were outside of the medals placings, but I did have 10 of my 11 submitted images accepted to the salon So that’s now 77 acceptances from 28 different images, across 9 different salons in 6 different countries, including 3 awards…. and counting.

VIGEX Monochrome Print Acceptances

Picking up acceptances from one strong image is a relatively easy task, but I’m really trying to gain acceptances from as many different images as possible. For the EFIAP accreditation which is the award following on from the AFIAP, you are required to have 150 acceptances from 50 different images This really is a pretty big step up from the 30 acceptances from 10 images on the AFIAP. So rather than leaving it too late, I’ve decided early on to submit a wide range of images from my catalog to various salons. That way, the back is already broken on the work involved in attaining the EFIAP.

VIGEX Creative Print Acceptances

There’s also a knack to knowing which images should be submitted to which categories. If it’s a simple case of an open print category, be it monochrome or colour, then the choice is easy. But with VIGEX for example, they had 3 categories, those being Monochrome Print (open), Creative Print and Portrait Print. The last two categories were open to either monochrome or colour prints. So the question is, if you have monochrome image, which is a creative portrait, then which category do you enter it in? Or even if you have a very simple, but strong mono portrait, should it be entered into the monochrome section or the portrait section? I learned a hard lesson at my own clubs salon, held recently, where none of my “creative” images were judged to be creative and failed miserably because of that. So I guess I still need to work on getting the hang of categories

VIGEX Portrait Print Acceptances

Having not read the entry requirements for this salon in any great detail, I blindly printed out four mono and four colour prints for entry. It was only when I started to read through the application form, that I realised that there were specific categories as opposed to just open themes. Shots I had originally planned for one, in my opinion, could easily have applied to the other category. So in the end, I printed 3 more images (ran out of ink before the fourth), categorised them as best I could and submitted them. I guess 10 out of 11 isn’t bad.