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What do IPPA, FIPPA, AIPPA and LIPPA can do for you?
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Hi All,
I’m just wonder what do IPPA, FIPPA, AIPPA and LIPPA can do for you?If I got to LIPPA, What will happen to me?
Also what the point of getting a 20prints to show the IPPA then get a gold,silver,etc?explain to me as I haven’t a clue! (blushes)
Johnny
SFA is probably the answer. :lol:
On a day to day basis, I think your actual portfolio of images will do a lot more for you than letters. Yes, it is very nice to be recognised by your peers with such distinctions, but I doubt it has a major impact on your daily trade.
paul wrote:
SFA is probably the answer. :lol:
On a day to day basis, I think your actual portfolio of images will do a lot more for you than letters. Yes, it is very nice to be recognised by your peers with such distinctions, but I doubt it has a major impact on your daily trade.
Thanks for confirming or at least agreeing with what I was thinking.
It’s very nice to be recognised by your peers indeed. I can’t help thinking what if Micheal Jackson, Madonna, or Bono appeared on the X-Factor. I’ve little doubt that they are not technically correct to Simon Cowell’s demands of what is a singing ability but look what the brought to music. I’ve had a similar experience of this myself in photography whereby the “professional” judges didn’t value my shots but all the other entrants raved about them.However from a clients point of view some sort of accredation is a nice reassurance that the unknown they’re hiring has at least a bit of a notion about what (s)he’s doing. A bit like putting your name to someone else “he’s alright – I’ve seen his work and he reliably performs” But will a portfolio do to replace that? Maybe both is best of all?
I would say that the average client would have no idea at all about the distinctions/letters. They look at your samples/portfolio and make a decision based on that. I don’t think I’ve ever had a discussion with anyone based around what distinctions they have, rather than the work they produce.
Some people may be technically good, and may be able to produce 10, or whatever number of images, is required to get recognised, but can’t produce the work day in and day out.
Again, I’m certainly not knocking it (I myself have Licentiate recognition), but to me, it’s just for peer recognition. To the end customer, Joe Bloggs, it’s about the images you produce and your portfolio.
Nossie wrote:
paul wrote:
SFA is probably the answer. :lol:
On a day to day basis, I think your actual portfolio of images will do a lot more for you than letters. Yes, it is very nice to be recognised by your peers with such distinctions, but I doubt it has a major impact on your daily trade.
Thanks for confirming or at least agreeing with what I was thinking.
It’s very nice to be recognised by your peers indeed. I can’t help thinking what if Micheal Jackson, Madonna, or Bono appeared on the X-Factor. I’ve little doubt that they are not technically correct to Simon Cowell’s demands of what is a singing ability but look what the brought to music. I’ve had a similar experience of this myself in photography whereby the “professional” judges didn’t value my shots but all the other entrants raved about them.However from a clients point of view some sort of accredation is a nice reassurance that the unknown they’re hiring has at least a bit of a notion about what (s)he’s doing. A bit like putting your name to someone else “he’s alright – I’ve seen his work and he reliably performs” But will a portfolio do to replace that? Maybe both is best of all?
I agree with Paul here 100%. In my opinion it’s all about how you are judged by your peers and becoming a member of “the club”. I deal with the public in my day to day photography and I can say quite confidently that when they see my images they couldn’t care less about qualifications. To my knowledge I’ve never lost a sale due to a lack of letters after my name.
I noticed that no one has mentioned Insurance ? That is one of the criteria required by the IPPA and a very strict one. Assuming you guys are full time professionals. Or maybe your bank account would sustain you dropping a camera on Padraig Harringtons fingers in the middle of a commercial shoot and putting him out of the masters due to a loose strap or something totally out of your control, or a couple of million euros worth of jewellery stolen from your studio, would you explain that one away to your client.
As regards to putting a portfolio of 10 pictures forward and demanding high rates on your daily work you’re in dreamland get yourself a cup of coffee, these days you have to have the portfolio the qualifications and a professional and solid business approach, and you better be able to produce the goods or you will be sued.
Hopefully you will never have to deal with a problem like this but dont take anything for granted, you are as good as your last job, be under no illusion, the word gets around the media world very fast and you wont have to worry about insurance or qualifications anymore – you wont have any work.
freshphoto wrote:
I noticed that no one has mentioned Insurance ?
What has insurance got to do with qualifications/distinctions??
Yes, it’s definite that anyone doing any serious or semi-serious photography should have full and proper insurance. But, that is a totally different issue than the question being asked here.
Also, I didn’t see anyone mention a portfolio of 10 images. A portfolio doesn’t have to be just a book of images, it can be your website, or any other means of displaying your work to a prospective customer.
I’ve still yet to see anyone hire a photographer just because of qualifications. Welcome to the real world – it’s about what you can produce, rather than just qualifications/letters.
In all my years as a Pro Photographer, starting out back in 1966, I never bothered with the IPPA, though I was invited to join several times, though they used to have a practice, for instance, if a certain IPPA Member was booked for a wedding on a certain day, and another wedding came in for the same time, same day, that they were bound to hand out a list of fellow IPPA members as recommendations in such a case.
I never knew whether they did this or not, or whether they do it now…
Much the same with NUJ photographers, I never bothered with the ‘Nudge , as we called the NUJ either – as I was making a lot more than they were at one stage.
I was invited as an Honorary Member to join the old Chartered Institute of Journalists back in 1981, and as it never was going to cost me anything, and as they’re such nice upper-class types who don’t bitch, I did .
Basically the NUJ, IPPA etc are attempts to run a closed shop, most NUJ photographers I knew were ok, most IPPA photographers were Good !
Most press photographers today are just digital auto point and shoot, many have never handled anything else only digitals – and it shows !
If you’re good enough, editors will want you, and will publish and pay for your photos, and you’ll become known and get business all the time, even get accredatition as a photographer to a newspaper, and even a staff job , again if you want it !
( If you’re not, everybody sees your crappy photos in the local newspaper every week, so try something else ! ) .
Believe me , it’s much easier, cosier and more comfy a life as a photog to avoid working for newspapers altogether and just do Studio, portraiture, weddings, ‘ G.P. work ‘ etc on your own.
Your blood pressure will improve as you thus avoid the lifetime of ‘ bitching’ that goes on amongst the lower end operators.
The big market over the past several years is not in fact weddings ( always the staple to the past few years but no longer as most people no longer get mattied in church) but big blow-ups, beautifully mounted and framed of babies and kids are all the rage … even pets !
And the secret is to offer only at least at a minimum size, never a 10X8 or A4 – don’t even let the customer see one – but a 16X20 , or digital equivalent sizes, minimum A2 maybe…then you can offer the 10X8’s and A4’s as copies for the grandmas’s and grandads etc
And really for this work you’ll need a 6X6 medium format film camera, or a digital medium format back, last I heard the cost of a digital back for a Hasselblad will cost you as much as the price of a new small car !
Best try 6X6 Medium Format film cameras and a damn good medium format scanner, say a Bronica or a Mamiya 645 – I use both – and a Canon CanoScan 8800F, which is now only 157 Euro from http://www.complett.ie in Dublin !!!
Good Medium format outfits are now on the bay for as lttle as 500 Euro average, but you will have to learn how to use them, which is quite a learning curve if you’re only on digital point-and-shoot DSLR’s .
But with the wedding market virtually gone now, and Editors wiping the floor with young digital point-and-shooters, the IPPA and NUJ no longer really come into it at all .
And if you haven’t a studio, rig one up in your house, or slap a tent up against a wall downtown, best get an upstairs room cheap over a shop along the High Street, to progress to a High Street ground floor studio eventually –
But do yourself one big favour, forget about press work unless the Times, the Indo or De Paper come looking for you, and make up your mind to be a studio photographer one day, starting now, that and nothing else !
And then join the IPPA when you have the time and money and you want to socialise in years to come, when you’ve made it.
– Advice from an Old Timer who’s been there, done that
I am certain this will help .
Cheers,
Michael.“What has insurance got to do with qualifications/distinctions??”
You cannot obtain an LIPPA or pecome a member of the IPPA at all unless you are fully insured, so therefore it just helps to keep a little bit of control within the industry thats all. Im not sticking up for the IPPA nor do i socialise with them, but i dont think being a member aof any professional organisation does you any harm whatsoever, i would feel the same about the SFA.
freshphoto wrote:
“What has insurance got to do with qualifications/distinctions??”
You cannot obtain an LIPPA or pecome a member of the IPPA at all unless you are fully insured, so therefore it just helps to keep a little bit of control within the industry thats all. Im not sticking up for the IPPA nor do i socialise with them, but i dont think being a member aof any professional organisation does you any harm whatsoever, i would feel the same about the SFA.
Yes, and the NUJ, and the Photographers Panel of the Chartered Institute of Journalists, and the Master Photographers Association, and the Royal Photographic Society and the…
Really, once it does not involve a Closed Shop ( the Antithesis of Art ) fine, with the broad acceptance amongst photographers that we do not try to cut in on another person’s living !
I remember back in 1981 I was called to Head Office of The Irish Times and offered another man’s job while he was still working at it !!!
Naturally, I diplomatically declined. But I did tell the man whose job was concerned, and I hear that afterwards there was great commotion, heh heh heh .Cheers,
Michael .Michael McGrath wrote:
freshphoto wrote:
“What has insurance got to do with qualifications/distinctions??”
You cannot obtain an LIPPA or pecome a member of the IPPA at all unless you are fully insured, so therefore it just helps to keep a little bit of control within the industry thats all. Im not sticking up for the IPPA nor do i socialise with them, but i dont think being a member aof any professional organisation does you any harm whatsoever, i would feel the same about the SFA.
Yes, and the NUJ, and the Photographers Panel of the Chartered Institute of Journalists, and the Master Photographers Association, and the Royal Photographic Society and the…
Really, once it does not involve a Closed Shop ( the Antithesis of Art ) fine, with the broad acceptance amongst photographers that we do not try to cut in on another person’s living !
I remember back in 1981 I was called to Head Office of The Irish Times and offered another man’s job while he was still working at it !!!
Naturally, I diplomatically declined. But I did tell the man whose job was concerned, and I hear that afterwards there was great commotion, heh heh heh .Cheers,
Michael .BTW Many of you ( some over thirty years and more) will by now be rightly cheesed off of those gangs of guys with cameras and invading your local parish confirmations all over the country, threatening, abusing, and walking all over you and your families, friends and fellow parishioners. Is there any way of stopping them, No, except if you use your head.
You can’t warn everybody about them , because then a lot of people on the day of the Confirmation will think that you are them, getting all mixed up, and avoiding you too like the plague – in your own Diocese too , ohmygod !
( And they do have a nasty habit of telling people quietly, behind your backs, in the Churchyard that they are with you, anyway ! )
I remember the way Bernard Kelly of Waterford and I dealt with them years ago was that we preached at the school and to the parents the week before NOT TO PAY MONEY AT THE CHURCH TO ANYBODY !
OK, we lost out a bit too – but they didn’t come back near Waterford or Kilkenny for years – people let them take all the photos they liked but steadfastly refused to pay them money on the spot !
While we just calmly got on with our own bookings .
( I haven’t done Confirmations or Communions in years, but I presume they’re still around ) .
I woud always oblige another photographer wherever possible, i dont often get a chance to come on here and rarely reply to anything, i run a good business in dublin shooting only commercial and advertising dont do weddings or portraits and only throwing my two cents in, how people read it or dont, thats their perogative, so ill leave u guys to it and im getting back to work now, but i have never been in any circle and will never be, my work stands up and thats why im busy so chow for now and i wish all u guys the best of luck.
freshphoto wrote:
I woud always oblige another photographer wherever possible, i dont often get a chance to come on here and rarely reply to anything, i run a good business in dublin shooting only commercial and advertising dont do weddings or portraits and only throwing my two cents in, how people read it or dont, thats their perogative, so ill leave u guys to it and im getting back to work now, but i have never been in any circle and will never be, my work stands up and thats why im busy so chow for now and i wish all u guys the best of luck.
Thanks Freshphoto for that, so I’ll do all your family portraits, and you can have all my advertisingLOL
Cheers,
Michael.Michael McGrath wrote:
freshphoto wrote:
I woud always oblige another photographer wherever possible, i dont often get a chance to come on here and rarely reply to anything, i run a good business in dublin shooting only commercial and advertising dont do weddings or portraits and only throwing my two cents in, how people read it or dont, thats their perogative, so ill leave u guys to it and im getting back to work now, but i have never been in any circle and will never be, my work stands up and thats why im busy so chow for now and i wish all u guys the best of luck.
Thanks Freshphoto for that, so I’ll do all your family portraits, and you can have all my advertisingLOL
Cheers,
Michael.And now you might be able to tell me something I have wondered about – how do the politicians get their photographs laminated onto their cars and vans during election time ?
And what cameras are used for their election posters ? Plate cameras ?
Cheers,
Michael .I use two types of gear nikon d3x for general purpose work and a 5d mark ii occasionally for event photography, studio work like something thats going up big like 6 sheet for the side of the rroad etc i use a hasselblad H2 with a phase one back. The photos ur referring to are generally shot 14 or 16bit raw files converted to tiff in adobe 1998 or a specific profile and then printed on a non permanent fasson which is like a self adhesive plastic paper and applied to the car, when it comes to logos etc they are generally cut on a cad. and then applied hope thats some help to u and yes i would be happy to shoot ur advertising work and give u a 20percent comission for any work you put my way. Send me a link to your portrait and wedding work and ill send ur contanct details on to anyone that comes through the studio requesting portrait or weddings
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