Planning a Licentiate Panel
If you are at the stage in your photography where you are considering attaining a Licentiate qualification, with either the BIPP, MPA, SWPP or the RPS, I would certainly encourage you to do so. You will have your reasons for wanting to do it but for me, it wasn’t gaining the qualification so much as the process by which I gained it that made the most difference. I learned so much, about myself, the way I think, how I take images and why as well as what I want to achieve in my photography that I found it to be thoroughly worthwhile. It also made me appreciate how much work is required to gain such a qualification and to value it more. So, go for it, whatever your reasons for doing so.
I would certainly recommend engaging a mentor at an early planning stage as their help and expertise can be invaluable. The BIPP provides a free mentoring service, and will try to match you with a mentor from a group of Fellows who volunteer their time and expertise to try and help you to achieve your aim. This is essential as without their guidance, you may struggle or worse, fail and have to re-apply or worse still, give up trying.
I consider myself very lucky to have benefited from the extraordinary advice and guidance from an eminent BIPP Fellow who acted as my mentor. He was very honest with me and kept asking for more, more, more and better, better, better, really driving me to improve my work. I am so grateful for that experience. With his help and often brutal advice, I sailed through my Licentiateship ‘with flying colours’.
Gaining this qualification is not just about the images however. It is essential to present them in a professional manner and also to produce the accompanying documentation of a sufficiently high standard and content. The BIPP publish guidelines on their website for those considering a qualification so make sure you read it thoroughly and ask for advice on anything you are not sure of. The qualifications department is very helpful and they can also put you in contact with a potential mentor, chosen for their subject knowledge and expertise in the area of interest to you. I cannot comment about the process with other associations so you will need to contact them for details.
A panel of 20 images is required by the BIPP, presented in two rows of ten. It is vital that the images follow a common theme and that they work well as a cohesive body of work. Your mentor will be able to advise and offer help on this. I found this to be the most difficult part, in many ways, as knowing which images to leave out is as important as which to include and the order in which they appear is also significant. The written documentation which accompanies the submission is an opportunity for you to explain what you do, how you do it and why and offer an insight into your working practices.
Although not compulsory for Licentiate candidates, I would recommend attending the assessment for interview as, regardless of whether you pass or fail, speaking with the judges is invaluable in itself and I found it to be extremely useful. It may involve a bit of travelling but, in my opinion, is well worth it. The journey home is a good time to consider their comments and make future plans.
These are some of the images from my qualifying Licentiate panel which I hope may be useful to anyone else either in the process of putting a panel together or who is considering it. They were presented as a panel in two rows of 10 images mounted on snow white board. The panel received a nomination for Best Licentiate in 2005.
