Following Oldham PS member Christine Widdall’s success in achieving the MPAGB recently, it was suggested that a Blog on the subject would be appropriate.
Photographic Distinctions are nothing new…the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) have a long history of awarding personal distinctions in this vein, the LRPS, ARPS and FRPS. These three levels of distinction require the judging of a panel of work, 10, 15 and 20 pieces of work respectively, which must work as a cohesive panel like a mini exhibition.
The PAGB distinctions are different…the three levels of CPAGB, DPAGB and MPAGB also require 10, 15 and 20 pieces of work respectively but each piece of work is judged independently of the others, by a panel of six national judges from the PAGB panel, who vote their marks independently by means of electronic scoring machines. An aggregate minimum total is required to pass. It can be argued that the PAGB distinctions are a little higher standard than the RPS distinctions on the basis that many candidates over the years have entered their successful RPS panels into the PAGB distinctions but failed to reach the pass mark. However, whichever way you look at it, the two routes are very different. The one requires images that work together, the other requires independent images of a certain standard.
One other difference is that, with the RPS, a successful candidate must pay the RPS membership fee every year to maintain the distinction (this is in the region of £100 per year, depending on the level of achievement. Although both bodies charge a fee for holding the adjudication (there is a big expense in holding such an event), the PAGB do not charge a fee to maintain the award, so it’s yours for life.
The PAGB provide a leaflet about the awards, which you can download here:
An extract from the leaflet tells us that:
CPAGB level is: “Good Club Photography”. The pass level is 200 marks out of a possible 300. This level is hard to define, but it really refers to good work in a “good” club. Is your work being regularly chosen to represent your club in Federation competitions, for example? Do you come top of the league in your club?
DPAGB level is : “Open Exhibition standard photography”. The pass level is 300 marks out of a possible 450. At this level you should be entering competitive national and UK international exhibitions run by the BPE and FIAP. You should be receiving a good level of acceptance rate in these exhibitions.
MPAGB Level is: “The highest standard of UK amateur photography”. At this level the pass level is 450 out of a possible 600. There are just over 100 people in the UK with this award. For the MPAGB, the work should be receiving a high acceptance rate in national and internationals exhibitions with the occasional award and the average mark for passing is a higher percentage of the total possible mark than with the other levels.