Master Photographer Association Licentiate qualification

My photography journey started in 2001, when I bought a Nikon F65 camera. I had just gained my degree in Film, with media and video production but their had been no joy in getting that. In fact I was pretty frustrated for a variety of reasons. I also didn’t get to graduate with the rest of my year, even though I had passed because I had to resubmit my dissertation (but that is another story).

I then did a basic photography qualification in 2006 in digital photography. In retrospect it was a bit of a crap and the course itself wasn’t great. My third qualification was in 2018. I had just joined the Society of Wedding and Portrait photographers (The Societies) and restarted my business. So I applied for my Licentiate with them, putting in some good image but nothing which was great and got a decent pass.

In October 2018, on the advise of Jamie Morgan, I joined The Master Photographer Association. Joining the MPA, I took more seriously than joining the Societies and on the advise of Jamie I started to enter the MPA unqualified monthly competition.

I didn’t get the initial success I had hoped. Ray’s main complaint was in regard to my editing, which had always been a weakness. I was also quite experimental when putting images in. Some Ray like and others he hated but he would explain why and I would take that information on board.

It was at this point that I decided to take gaining my MPA qualifications seriously. Around that time, they had decided to add the Certified Professional, where you had to show how you worked as a professional photographer. I have never been a great writer, so I didn’t go into doing this with great expectations. To get my certification, I had to create a working profile document. This explained who you were, the kind of photography you did and then how you worked as a business. It took me a couple of months to write the document and to my surprise, it passed. It I was told that the document was very good.

So then I was free to go for my Licentiate. It took quite some time to get my panel together. I was quite picky on the photos I wanted in, at one point I got tennis elbow in my right arm and pick up a camera for around 5 months. Slowly, I managed to get it together.

Ideally I would have liked a couple more shoots, to choose photos from but with the lockdown, I decided ‘to hell with it’ and started to put my MPA Licentiate panel together.

Surprisingly, it came together very easily. On advise I changed one of the images because it didn’t fit but apart from that I was very happy with the panel generally and started to write my creative profile.

This took 2 weeks and was 17 pages. This comprised of me explaining each photo, showing drawings of the setup and feed back from clients on the shoot. This took a couple of weeks and I then sent everything on the 9th April.

Just under a week goes by and I get an email from the head judge, telling me I have to make changes. This caused me to go into a panic. The MPA provide a small online booklet explaining how to put a creative profile together and I had missed some things. So quickly I started to write, adding pages, half of which, it turned out I didn’t need, once I read the document again (I hate being dyslexic). I was also told that one of my photos had to be changed. I had used a photo of Reggie and I was told my panel would be disqualified if I used it. So I had to replace that.

I started at 9pm and finished at 5am, when my brain was completely fried, getting a couple of hours sleep. I then got up, fed and walked Reggie and got back to finishing the document. Handing it in at 11:45am.

I hadn’t expected to hear anything back for a while but at 4:30 the same day, I got a call from the head judge telling me I had got a good pass. Out of 240, I had got 225, with a pass being 180. I don’t know why, I just didn’t feel that excited about it. I was just at the door, with Reggie, about to take him for a walk, when I got the news and after I was walking down the road, with Reg, thinking, I should be more excited about this.

Today, I got got the judges, feedback.

A very interesting & varied panel with a theatrical feel. A little attention to tight cropping on some images would have helped. This panel was accompanied with a very concise Working Profile.

Strong theatrical style coming through, most images would benefit from being less tightly cropped

Lovely panel, found it hard to remove any marks, a little bit of cropping and a few lighting bits.

This pleased me, but it was only when I saw Rays, review that I I finally got that feeling of elation. I don’t know if it was because if I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe it or because I just am much more visual than verbal but I was suddenly so happy that I passed (unfortunately, I can’t post, the video, as it is no Facebook but I will post a link (which may or may not work.

Michael Laing Licentiate Panel review

To see the actual panel you can go here: Michael Laing MPA Panal.

So what next. I already have plans but that is a story for another day.