The Guild of Professional Photographers image of the month competition
I really enjoy being an active member of the Guild of Professional Photographers and entering the Image of The Month competition. It has helped to train my eye even more and I have made a great set of new friends from really different backgrounds. I am good friends with photographers who started when they became mums, photographers who only take up their passion on the weekends as they work full time as Police Officers or Property agents.
In February and March I entered some images into the children & family lifestyle category and was pleased to win 2 Silvers and 3 Bronze bars. My images are shown below.
If you are interested in photographer then you can visit the Guild website here www.photoguild.co.uk. You can also sign up for their free bi-monthly magazine where you can meet some of the members and get great hints and tips on photography.
I also now offer mentoring for aspiring and new professional photographers including feedback on potential competition images. For more details please visit here
Nina Mace is a Hertfordshire based photographer who works with mums to be, babies, children and families. To find out more about the family photo session experience and also some feedback from past clients, please take a look around the website.
What a great end to the year! The Guild of Photographers www.photoguild.co.uk, ran a portrait competition in November. All of my customers who were photographed in November were entered into the competition and 3 independent judges were selected to choose one of my images to go onto the National final. The 3 judges were Lauren, from Cake Stories by Lauren, an amazing cup cake maker and party supplier https://www.facebook.com/cakestoriesbylauren, Ruth from Hippity Hop Shoes in Berkhamstead https://www.facebook.com/HippityHopShoes and Gwen Blake, founding Director of Boxer & Co a design and packaging agency https://www.facebook.com/boxerandco.
The winning image was chosen and they received a free Canvas from Yellow Sprout https://www.facebook.com/Yellowsprout. And to my delight I was then called by the Guild of Photographers to say that my image had been chosen as the National Winner and had won £1000 worth of wall products! The family are so pleased and you can see the winning image above.
Nina Mace Photography wins National Portrait competition
I was really pleased to have won another 2 Silver Bars with the Guild of Photographers (www.photoguild.co.uk) this month. Both of these images were taken on my outdoor Christmas mini sessions at one of my favourite locations in Hemel Hempstead.
Day 2 of my training course in Paris was focused around more new lighting techniques including the use of a beauty dish. We met in the morning along the Seine, and again worked with Jen and Angelain 2 different outfits. Jen was very Chanel inspired, in a fitted suit and fabulous hat, and Angela was wearing a French ‘preppy’ look.
I worked with Jen first, using on camera flash and a reflector, and I decided to shoot only in black and white to make the images feel more classic. Some of my favourites are shown below.
The second half of the morning was spent with Angela and we used the lovely tree lined pathway along the river and the tunnel as a backdrop (we were going to venture inside but I will be honest it didn’t smell great! 🙂
We then went for lunch (where I got royally ripped off paying 16 euros for a diet coke!! note to self next time don’t eat right next to a tourist spot) and then we were into our free shooting session at the Louve. The afternoon was all about putting what we have learnt into practice with no guidance from Andrew the trainer. We were to come up with our own lighting ideas and composition.
With Angela, I chose to get my flash off camera and my friends, Stephanie and Sam, did an excellent job at hiding behind posts. Angela looked amazing in a very slinky black dress and we drew quite a crowd of people while we were shooting.
The second session was with Jen in a fitted black and white, slightly gothic, looking outfit. The minute I saw her it made me think of Alice in wonderland so rather than pose her in front of the buildings I took her off into the gardens in the Louvre. These were taken using a beauty dish with Vicki holding it behind the bushes for me.
At around 6pm we dashed back to the apartment to collect our belongings and back home on the Eurostar. I had such a wonderful 4 days, and really enjoyed working with lighting and photographing something that is completely new for me, and Paris was as stunning as I remembered. There is a trip being planned to Italy next year…I better start saving now!
Around the 21st of each month you will see a lot of photographers getting twitchy and checking their emails as the 21st is the day the Image of the Month bars are awarded 🙂 Each month hundreds of entries are judged by a panel of experts from different areas of photography. Panel members include Simon Young http://www.gloucesterphotographer.com/, Kate Hopewell Smith http://www.katehopewellsmith.com/, Andrew Appleton (who is running the training course I am going on in Paris soon) http://www.andrewappleton.com/ and the owners and founders of the Guild of Photographers Steve and Lesley.
Each image is scored on both the technical and the creative storytelling including lighting, congruence, post production etc. Its a challenge I relish and it has helped improved my photography incredibly. Its also very tough to get a Silver or Gold bar, from thousands of images submitted often only 20 reach this level so I was overwhelmed to have received 4 Silver and 4 bronze bars this month. This is the most I have ever won and I think its a testament to the Guild itself and how they have inspired me to keep pushing myself harder. All 8 images are shown below. If you are interested in joining the Guild just visit here http://www.photoguild.co.uk/
What a great end to the year! The Guild of Photographers 
