The results came through this morning, this was my first submission to an ISPWP quarterly contest. I did ok for an international competition considering the standard is high as are the amount of submissions. Here were my placings:

Bridal Party Portrait, 4th Place.

Pure Art, 8th place.

Venue/Location, 10th place:

Bride Portrait, 18th place:

extract from an email from Erick Danzer, Executive Director of http://www.bestofweddingphotography.com/

“We just finished up the review process a week or so ago, and we’re just in the process of sending out invitations for the second round right now. I’m happy to tell you that our board voted to extend you an invitation! You talk about a blend of documentary and artistic approaches on your site, and that’s definitely what we see there. All of your work has a distinctively artistic and edgy style that we would love to showcase. We’d be honored to count you as one of our first members from Ireland.

Your invitation comes after a rigorous review process by our Board, including David Beckstead, Ben Chrisman, Del Sol Photography (Matt Adcock and Sol Tamargo), Glen Johnson, Anna Kuperberg, Crash Taylor, and David Ziser. As I mentioned, our board members personally reviewed your work and voted to offer you this invitation.

In order to maintain our association’s standards, we plan limit our membership to a total of 500 top wedding photographers from around the world. You will become part of a new, dynamic group that has the potential to dramatically change the face of the wedding photography industry”

a very nice way to start the week!

The saddest aspect of the decline of this building is the potential it has to great. Frustrating planning systems, vandalism and now a lack of finance keeps the question mark hovering. I photographed the building early this year after I was given permission to access. It was a surreal experience. I knew the images had the potential to spark intense local debate which I did not want to be the centre of. Unsurprisingly, the profile of the building has been called into question with the Tall Ships Festival looming; this seems like the right time to release them to local press. Here is a closer look at some of those images…