Kirkbymoorside Camera Club members receive international recognition

To the delight of club members husband and wife, Richard and Janet Burdon, have each recently been granted an international award recognising their artistic skills in amateur photography.

Richard and Janet joined the camera club in the 90’s as complete novices. Their aim, to learn more about their shared new hobby. Many new members do likewise and get their enjoyment from the club activities and from its social life alone. Other chose to challenge their skills by entering our club competitions and exhibitions. Some ‘push the boundaries even further’ and enter competitions and exhibitions beyond club level.

In addition to these challenges some will seek to achieve formal recognition in photographic excellence by gaining national awards. The most well-known being those granted by the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB) and the Royal Photographic Society (RPS). Hence you may notice that some of our members have letters after their names indicating their acquired award(s). These groups of awards are not mutually exclusive and some members have gained awards from both societies.

Despite their quiet and unassuming nature the couple not only achieved national recognition by way of the PAGB but then chose to look beyond the shores of Great Britain by seeking international recognition by working towards an award from the Fedération International de l’Art Photographique (FIAP).

Thanks to their tremendous efforts the club can now boast membership ranging from beginners to internationally acclaimed photographers. Interestingly though, one of our recent club competitions was won by a relative beginner; beating much more experienced club members!

If anyone seeks to emulate Richard and Janet they should be aware of the minimum criteria for their ‘award’ category:

· 30 acceptances in FIAP approved exhibitions, using a minimum of 10 different works from 10 different salons and 5 different countries, (England, Scotland and Wales qualify as three different countries.)

· And much more!

Their efforts began when they started to enter FIAP approved exhibitions in 2005 and has culminated in both gaining the distinction of ‘AFIAP’.

They have each provided The Blog with one of their images submitted during the course of their efforts. One taken by Janet at Whitby on the sea-front; one from Richard taken at Saltburn when he photographed a surfer practicing his skill on ‘the board’.