PAUL SHERRIFF - BPE JOURNEY

The National Exhibitions which are members of the British Photographic Exhibitions offer a Crown Award system designed to enable successful exhibition photographers to gain additional recognition. Exhibitors are invited to aggregate their acceptances in the affiliated exhibitions and, upon reaching the accepted aggregate, to apply without charge for a Crown Rating Award. Each successful applicant for an award will receive a Certificate and a Ribbon and will be able to use the letters acknowledging their award after their name.

BPE1 Crown Award - 25 points, BPE2 Crown Award - 50 points, BPE3 Crown Award - 100 points,
BPE4 Crown Award - 200 points, BPE5 Crown Award - 300 points

To gain points you must be accepted into one of the recognised exhibitions with an image ( each image equals one point, towards a crown, to be accepted the image is marked by a panel of judges if the total marks reaches the acceptance level , usually 12 marks the image is accepted.

Link to the official site for more information

http://www.britishphotographicexhibitions.org.uk

BPE1*

My Journey started in 2016 entering the Frome salon, the acceptance mark was 11.

None of my images were accepted.

Undeterred I continued to enter other salons, Clay Cross being the next one, again no acceptances scoring 10's and 11's out of 12. The next one was the Vale of Evesham salon, once again no luck so I decided just one more and then that will be it, maybe Im not quite good enough. The next one was Bassingstoke and I did it I got an acceptance with Alchemy Professor. I then went on a bit of a roll with 3 sometimes 4 acceptances in salons even the odd commended, I entered 12 salons before I reached the required 25 acceptances to earn my first crown and a BPE1*.

BPE2*

I continued to enter salons and have gained my BPE2 after entering another 12 salons I obtained 50 acceptances to earn my BPE2* crown award, once again midway through the season I had a run of 3 salons with no acceptances, I took stock and concentrated on what I considered to be my stronger genres and soon the acceptances started to come in again.

BPE3*

I took a break after obtaining my BPE2* for a couple of years but thought maybe I can reach BPE3* I started again in 2021 to try to gain BPE3 (I need another 36 acceptances to reach this target)

at the time of writing I now need 21 more acceptances. I was hoping to achieve this by the end of 2021 but with covid issues some of the salons have not been running this year. I am confident I can reach BPE3* if not by the end of 2021 early 2022.

My quest towards BPE 3* continues with Swan song her final journey proving popular, winning first place in the creative section at Winchester National exhibition 2021.

My image Old Jokers are the best is also doing well with a few highly commended awards and Certificates of merit.

Below are some of my more successful entries all scoring above the acceptance level .

Swan Song a selectors choice award and a creative first place award, Old Jokers are the best a merit award, Private property commended and a selectors choice and Team Batman highly commended, Hitching a ride did well with a commended.

I had an excellent result In January 2022 at the Clay Cross Salon with six acceptances, that left me only needing two more acceptances to reach the 100 mark, today I received the results from The Vale of Evesham salon, I had 3 Accepted, my tally now is 101 acceptances.

March 15th 2022 today I achieved BPE3*crown award.

The BPE4* crown needing a total of 200 acceptances is on hold as I don't think I take or have enough photographs at the moment but that could change ( only 99 to go !!!)