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RICHARD BRADBURY
Societies and Associations
Case Study 3
Portrait and advertising photographer RICHARD BRADBURY FMPA FBIPP, counts Tesco, Sony Playstation and The Guinness Book Of World Records as clients. He teaches seminars for both the MPA and BIPP on business and photography, and is currently working on charitable book project, The Children of London. It’s been proven time and time again that a large group of people will always have a better solution compared to the individual. It’s important for photographers to speak to each other as the nature of our business is very solitary. Photography is hard enough; it’s a difficult business to be in, particularly when you’re working on
The BIPP were first on my radar, then the MPA and I think of them on an even par. Accreditation is extremely important in the same way that I think awards are. It’s not only that you have those letters after your name, but it’s because it forces you to take what you’ve done more seriously, to inspect your work. It motivates you to look around you, take more pictures and think about what you’re doing. If you know that a panel of your contemporaries are going to be looking at your pictures then you’re going to take a lot of care to make those pictures the very best they can be. Everybody benefits from that – the client, you, the association, and the industry as a whole benefits because we all end up being better photographers.
your own. The more we can get together to discuss issues and share experiences, the better. Anyone can go onto YouTube and find tutorials, but when you go to societies you know you’re meeting trained professionals – you don’t get a Fellowship by sitting on your hands. After 30 years of being a professional photographer, I still attend at least half a dozen seminars a year
Winning an award or accreditation is a really good justifiable reason to contact clients and remind them you’re still there and they genuinely will want to hear about it and be impressed by it. People won’t come to you just because your work’s great – it’s about marketing.
because I still learn things.
www.rbradbury.com
Looking for something more specific? There are professional bodies out there such as the Institute of Medical Illustrators (IMI) who specialise in specific fields of photography that may be less represented in the larger groups. Simon E. Brown MSc FBIPP FIMI FBCA RMIP (www. sharpenyourimage.co.uk) is a clinical and medico-legal
courses and training and point people in the right direction. The BIPP represents a whole range of photographers which gives you contact with those in architecture, forensics or portraiture. IMI is the opposite; it’s such a specialist area. If you’re looking for a photographer for legal reasons then you would want to look
photographer who has found the IMI to be of great use in his practice. “There are very few medical Fellows and I’m very proud of my BIPP qualification, but for medical photography it gets much more complicated,” he tells us. “Your best route for that is the IMI. They represent most professional medical photographers, accredit
for someone who is extremely qualified and experienced in their field. Get as qualified as you can in your area of speciality and promote that.” Keep an eye out on social media for our full list of specialised photographic societies soon! www.imi.org.uk