Today is my one year anniversary of joining the Guild of Photographers, and what a year it's been! I've met some lovely people, enjoyed several trainings and am looking forward to many more years with such a wonderful organisation. One of the key things about joining the Guild is that you can enter their Image of the Month Competition, which involves submitting images which are judged to international competition standard. The IOM runs over 10 months of the year, so coincidentally the final results of the year have just been released a couple of days ago. If you follow my Facebook page, you'll have seen how pleased I was to get two Bronzes in the final month of the competition for 2017!

I've managed to enter the competition every month this year, and I've been very happy with my results, consistently scoring Classified (e.g. of a professional standard) with 9 Bronzes also awarded to my images. 

Images which gain awards (e.g. Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum) in the Image of the Month competition also score points towards the Photographer's Bar, awarded to members who gain at least 24 points in one category over a minimum of 8 months entering the competition. Bronze images gain 2 points, so this year I needed another 3 Bronzes to gain the Photographer's Bar. It's frustrating to know that at least three of my images could have reached Bronze with a few minor adjustments. Gaining the Photographer's Bar is one of my goals for 2018!

I'm very proud of all my Bronze awards, but the Girl & Horse image  is very special to me. It was taken on a special family holiday in America using my iPhone. People often think that it's the equipment that makes a photograph, so it's nice to prove that it's not about what camera you've got. 

As part of the Guild I've undertaken training workshops which some fantastic portrait and dog photographers, and I'm looking forward to implementing some new skills in my portrait photography and dog photography photo shoots for 2018.

To view my Bronze Awards for 2017, check out the gallery