ARPS Distinction

What is ARPS?

ARPS stands for Associate of the Royal Photographic Society, it is the middle tier of their three distinctions which run from Licentiate to Associate and then finally Fellow.

The criteria for achieving ARPS is set out in the RPS website but in summary is:

A Statement of Intent that defines the purpose of the work, identifying its aims
and objectives.
A cohesive body of work that depicts and communicates the aims and objectives
set out in the Statement of Intent.
A body of work that communicates an individual’s vision and understanding.
A high level of technical ability using techniques and photographic practices
appropriate to the subject.
An appropriate and high level of understanding of craft and artistic presentation.

Unlike Licentiate, both Associate and Fellow level distinctions are awarded based on genres. At the time of writing (late 2024) the Genres and their definitions are:

Applied Photography: Photography which has been produced for an intended purpose, utilising a stated output.
Contemporary Photography: Photography that communicates a visual realisation of a stated argument, idea or concept.
Documentary Photography: Photography which communicates a clear narrative through visual literacy.
Film: The work can be created in any moving image format including film, video, and digital media.
Landscape Photography: Photography that illustrates and interprets earth’s habitats, from the remotest wilderness to urban environs
Natural History Photography: Photography which illustrates an element of natural world within an unrestricted, uncultivated and untamed environment.
Photobooks: A concept-led book that uses photography as a medium of visual communication in its own right.
Travel Photography: Photography which communicates a sense of place.
Visual Art Photography: Photography which communicates a creative vision.

You then have a choice of Digital or Print submission. For me, I always planned to make a print submission as that gives me maximum control over the delivered work.

Normally, photographers progress from Licentiate to Associate and finally to Fellow. For me, I decided to forgo the Licentiate step as I already have a fairly narrow genre that I work in and felt I would struggle to show the variety needed for the Licentiate distinction.

I already knew that my subject was going to be black and white fine art architecture but I had to spend some time going through each of the genres to decide where my style fit best. The only areas that I felt it could go under were Applied, Contemporart or Visual Art. In the end, after reading and re-reading the criteria, I chose Visual Art as this best described what I have been doing with my photography.

Choosing the images

Going into this process, I felt that I had a reasonably strong set of 15 images, so I set about trying to arrange these into a panel. Once I had completed that, I took it along to a Saturday morning group belonging to the Camera Club I belong to (Rushcliffe Photographic Society). This was an opportunity to go through what I was thinking of and showing my work so far. The feedback I received was quite eye opening, and incredibly useful.

For a start, people felt that I was mismatching styles of architecture so I had some "iconic" buildings mixed in with more "everyday" buidlings, some bridges and abstract images. The overwhelming advice was to stick with whole buildings and try to explain how I chose the buildings.

In terms of layout, the overall structure wasn't coherent as some buildings faced left, some faced right and others just didn't fit. I was also inconsistent with the ratios (width to height) of the images.

Going away from this I had a strong sense of what I needed to do, so I reviewed my archive looking for only "everyday" buildings and only pictures that showed complete buildings. I then reworked this into a new panel, and reworked and repeated a number of times to get to what I thought was a decent panel. I shared with another group that I belong to (Print Project Group) and they helped me a lot with the aesthetic quality and consistency of the images. For example, trying to make all of the skies in the images uniform.

Penultimate Panel

The starting point for me, and the one picure that has persisted in its original position from day one was my picture of the Library at Loughborough University. A judge at a camera club competition commented that he had spent years working at Loughborough Uni and had never thought to take a picture of the library. This describes what I wanted the photographs to represent - the "unsung" architecture that surrounds us that doesn't get much notice. This picture is quite panoramic in aspect, so I decided that the pictures above and below it should have the same aspect.

I then decided that I would use upright images on each end, to (hopefully) evoke supporting structure for the panel, but I chose to make the top corner images a slightly thinner aspect ratio to represent supports not needing to be so wide at the top as at the bottom. For the bottom corners, I intentionally chose more rounded buildngs, to hopefully convery supporting pillars.

For all the others, I decided to use a 4:3 aspect ratio (so not quite square) and to have buildings facing into the centre. I chose to try to match the buildings on each row in terms of shape. Once I had completed all of this I was ready for a review with one of the assessors for my genre - this is called a one2one.

Panel submitted for one2one review

The RPS provide a template (shown) for laying out your panel. However, I also created a mockup in Photoshop, that allowed me to simulate how the mounted pictures would look as a panel, as this is quite different to how it appears in the RPS template.

My Photoshop example showing my panel would look as mounted prints

one2one

The Royal Photographic Society process doesn't mandate that you have a one2one session, but strongly advises it. Having been through the process, I think it should be mandatory though there is a cost associated with having a one2one. The other option is to book on to an Advisory Day, which is face to face - but there weren't any available that I could get to. Getting proper feedback from experienced assessors is critical I think, as they will help you to see the flaws in your work that they will pick up on.

I sent over my panel layout, my statement of intent, my 15 main images and 5 spares.

After about a week, I joined a pre-arranged Zoom call with my advisor and she explained (in detail) what worked and more importantly what was holding me back with my submission.

I was particularly disappointed that she told me (in no uncertain terms) that one of my favourite photographs couldn't be part of the submission as it wasn't consistent with the rest of the panel because it showed a cladded wall not the building itself. I was especially galled because this was a picture taken where I grew up.

Nucleus - the one that got away

At the time I felt quite deflated, but luckily I have really supportive photographic friends who helped me see the benefit of the feedback so I decided to carry on.

My reviewer also stressed the importance of having a statement that is completely fulfiilled by the panel of images, she suggested I rewrite mine after asking me to explain what I was aiming to achieve with the panel - she felt that my verbal explanation was much better than the written one.

I took all of the feedback on board and actioned it. This involved reworking some of my original images but also finding replacements for some that were deemed inapproprate for the overall submission. I also replaced one or two that I decided myself were "weak".

As I worked through the images, something clicked and this has helped me to find what I would consider my "personal style" which I started applying to these images but have continued with since.

The Final Panel and Statement of Intent

Black and white fine art architectural photography speaks to me; it combines my appreciation of architecture with my passion for black and white photography.

My aim is to create striking images of everyday buildings that fit within this genre, to show that opportunities surround us everywhere if we look carefully enough.

To fulfil this, I seek opportunities as part of normal life; looking for interesting buildings and viewpoints. Working on this project has required me to concentrate on line, shape and form in order to highlight the aesthetics of the building itself in recreating it in the final image.

I made the decision to concentrate on UK locations for this work. My panel is designed to show each building in its best light, whilst also showing complimentary design features and styles across these different examples.

My Final Panel, as submitted

Block of flats, Hammersmith
Castle House, Newark on Trent
Minerve Building, University of Lincoln
Nottingham Central Library
Block of flats, Leeds
Lyric Theatre and Offices, Hammersmith
Yoko Ono Lennon Auditorium, University of Liverpool
Pilkington Library, Loughborough University
Multistorey Car Park, University of Leeds
Rosebowl, Leeds Beckett University
The Wave, Sheffield University
One Park West, Liverpool
Marco Island, Nottingham
Clatteridge Cancer Centre, Liverpool
Hammersmith Broadway, Hammersmith

Submitting

It was now mid-April 2024 and I was ready to submit for the next assessment (in June). Unfortunately, I discovered that the submissions had closed just a day or two before and the next assessment wasn't until the end of November. I decided to just plough on as if nothing had happened and submit anyway, mainly to get it off my plate as I was struggling to work on any other photo related stuff with this hanging over me. I was also hoping against hope that there might be a cancellation allowing my submission to be bumped into the June assessment - alas no such luck!

Submtting 15 mounted prints in 500mm x 400mm mounts is qute an undertaking. I bought a complete set of ink plus spares for any inks that were down below halfway (plus extra black and grey). I also bought 50 sheets of A3 Baryta paper and 30 mount boards and 30 backing boards, plus a sturdy print box to ship it all in.

I then started printing, leaving each print for 24 hours before inspecting it carefully and looking for flaws. A few of the images printed fine first time, but some took multiple runs before I was happy with them. In total I got through about 35 sheets of paper and probably one and a half complete ink sets. All the time I was looking for consistency of tone and size. I mistakenly tried some non-OEM ink in my printer whilst preparing the submission but quickly discovered that the black ink had a slight cyan tone to it, so returned it all for Canon ink.

I then set to cutting each mount for its picture, and then mounting the picture to the backing board using T-hinges to ensure that the prints would lie flat.

Finally, I had all 15 prints mounted and ready. I woke up in the middle of that night realising that something was badly wrong and had been staring me in the face. My careful calculation of print areas was off somehow, as the mount from the top row and middle column had its aperture different to the other two middle column mounts. I then realised that the print software had automatically adapted to one of the four print ratios I had used and applied that to some of the others, throwing everything off. Once I worked out what had happened, I realised I "only" had to reprint the top row of five images and mount them. Going very carefully, that is what I did.

Dispatching

Before dispatching the prints, I printed off copies of the various submission forms, then packed the mounted prints and the forms into my print box. I had a roll of strong brown wrapping paper and wrapped the whole thing, using what felt like yards and yards of wrapping paper. I then labelled everything up ready for the courier to collect it next morning. At that point, I re-read the submission guidelines and got myself into a tizz about whether I had included enough copies of all of the forms (one place said I needed one copy and another hinted at two copies and, of course, I had only included one). So I unwrapped the whole thing, added another copy of that form and then rewrapped using almost all of my remaining wrapping paper.

Somehow, after all the reprinting and remounting I had been doing earlier, it seemed wholly appropriate that I even had to package the thing twice.

With the physical dispatch out of the way, I still had to transfer electronic copies of everything using the WeTransfer service. I even ended up having to do that a second time, probably because there was such a long time between my submission and the actual assessment at the end of November.

Assessment Day

After waiting six months, and with photographer friends continually asking "Have you had your assessment yet?" the day finally came for the assessment.

Currently, these assessments are carried out in the RPS HQ in Bristol (there are plans for this to move around the country in future). For transparency, the assessments are open to the public (though no participation whatsoever is allowed) both in-person and via Zoom. I chose to attend via Zoom because the logistics of getting to Bristol from the East Midlands was too much to consider.

I already knew that I would be the fifth assessment of the day, and I estimated that each assessment would take about 15 mins (based on previously sitting in on one) so it would be around 11:30 for mine. Of course I hadn't factored in a 20 minute comfort break, so my assessment wasn't until around 12 noon.

The assessment is carried out by a panel of four photographers plus a non-voting chairperson. Each one is a highly experienced photographer in your selected genre, and all of mine had FRPS (Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society) distinctions. The chairperson facillitates the session, including giving personal comments on the submission but does not vote. The voting is secret, each panellist has a red card and a green card, they hold up one of these for only the chairperson to see.

Eventually, my turn came. First the mounted prints are displayed (on rails) using the layout you provide as part of your submission. The chairperson then reads out the statement of intent and the panellists view the panel from their seats for a time before all getting up to take a closer look at the individual prints. After that, they all go back to their seats and an initial vote is held, which the chairperson notes but doesn't reveal.

The chairperson then asks one of the panellists to come up and give their thoughts on the submission. The types of things that are discussed are whether the submission achieves the aims of the statement, the way the panel is laid out, the quality of the photography and then the physical quality of the printing and the mounting. A second panellist is then invited to give their comments, which often involves other things that the first panellist didn't mention. Finally, the remaining two panellists are invited to give any additional thoughts that they have.These comments are well considered, and if there are any negative comments the panellist will typically say that they are interested in whether the others agree.

One thing to note for submitting a printed panel, is that the panellists will look at the quality of the mounting, colour of the mount, how the photograph is sitting in the mount (e.g. is it cockling, which is where the photograph appears wavy) plus whether the paper choice (e.g. gloss versus matt etc.) is appropriate for the subject. They point out that they are assessing the delivered photographs as objects, not just the images.

The chairperson then summarises the comments from all of the panellists and can make their own comments too at this point. Finally, a final and binding vote is held. If the submission fails, the chairperson explains that the submission failed and that detailed notes will be given to the photographer in writing - the name of the photographer is not revealed.

If the submission passes, the chairperson does announce the name of the photographer and that they are now entitled to the post-nominal letters "ARPS". In my case, I also received an email from RPS 1-2 minutes after the announcement telling me I had successfully passed and including attachments for the ARPS logo to use on my website etc.

Final Thoughts

Reading through all of this, it is reasonable to be thinking "was this worth it?".

Although it is of course gratifying and encouraging to gain the distinction, I feel that the whole process has been beneficial to me and was worth it regardless of the final outcome.

The pursuit of quality to this level has affected me, and is now part of what I do with all of my work. This can be painful and frustrating at times (especially for someone as impatient as I am) but knowing you have produced something to the highest possible standard (for you) is very rewarding.

In the six months since completing this submission, I have achieved more success in competitions and exhibitions than I had previously - including having my picture of the Wave in Sheffield picked to represent Great Britain in an international monochrome competition.

Sheffield Wave

I would encourage anyone considering an RPS Distinction to just go for it. Get some ideas together and start sharing them with other photographers - especially if they have already been through the process themselves. However, I would strongly advise you get as much "official" advice as you can too - I am fairly certain I would have failed if I had gone with the first of the two panels I show above.

See more of my pictures at my Gallery

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Andy McDonald Black and White Photos