The Same Medal, but Different Medal Winner
Iveta On The Stairwell
Gold Medal Of Excellence, Trierenberg, Austria 2012
I’ve been quietly chipping away at FIAP salons this year and purposely avoiding blogging too much about them, but every now and again I feel the urge to share the good news 
Regardless of past successes, it’s always very satisfying to do well in a salon, especially when you feature in the medals and awards. Whilst the quality of the salons can differ and indeed the quality of the medals/awards can differ, each one brings a certain feeling of achievement. But with that said, there are certain awards that are worth having that little bit more than others and some salons carry a little bit more prestige than others. The Trierenberg Super Circuit in Austria is one such salon.
The salon is well financed, hence well organised and produces one of the best, if not THE best catalog on the FIAP circuit. It offers prize money in excess of €5000 to the best author and attracts approximately 3000 authors from around the world, who submit over 20,000 images (yes… 20k – figures based on last years statistics). So to have a shot featured in the medals is probably just a little bit more satisfying than some other salons 
And thankfully, for the second year running, I was awarded a Gold Medal of Excellence for my shot of Iveta Niklova above, titled “Iveta On The Stairwell”
Voyeur
Gold Medal Of Excellence, Trierenberg, Austria 2011
Last year, in the same salon, I picked up the same medal/award, but for my shot “Voyeur” featuring model Madame Bink. What’s nice about this years award, apart from it being two in a row, is the fact that it’s for a newly awarded image and indeed an image which I have only started to submit to salons this year. So that brings my total now to 18 different awarded images – the 20 mark is in sight
Well Done The Irish
What’s also very pleasing is to see other Irish photographers feature in the awards list. Dave Martin from Dundalk Photographic Society picked up a FIAP Gold. Dave Hunt from Limerick Camera Club also picked up a Salon Gold and Gabriel O’Shuaghnessy, also from Dundalk Photographic Society was awarded a Salon Silver. That’s 4 Irish photographers, out of 3000 or so, that have their work acknowledged as being amongst the best submitted. Go Ireland 
A White Wash – Acceptances
I was also lucky to have all 12 of my images (4 monochrome prints, 4 colour prints and 4 projected images) accepted into each of the 4 salons. So it was a whitewash.. 48 acceptances and 1 award. Not too shabby
I saw you had got another good result from this Salon Ciaran, many congrats.
Thank you