In 2023 I attended The Society of Photographers convention in London – to speak and teach, to judge, and also to my qualification panel for assessment for my SWPP Fellowship. It’s a pretty massive undertaking – a set of 20 images that sit together much like a gallery exhibition, demonstrating your voice and your expertise as an artist, then presented as printed+mounted+matted images to a panel of five judges (all of them Fellows of the SWPP).

I have never been so nervous. Normally I’m pretty chilled but not that day. I remember reading my statement to the judges and thinking my usual voice had abandoned me.

The judges inspected for what felt like hours but was probably like 15 minutes, then went off to deliberate, before returning and… declaring it a unanimous pass. So I’m very proud to say I’m now a Fellow of the Societies of Wedding and Portrait Photographers – Kris Anderson IFSWPP.

Hugest of thanks to Isla Maraca and Tiarna Warren, the two dancers that feature in this set. Tiarna, Isla, you are both amazing dancers and great humans, and I appreciate you, your hard work, your talent, your art!
 
Thanks to Scott Johnson for mentoring me – and steering me towards this style of images in the first place. I’m not sure a qualification panel like this has ever been presented to the SWPP, so it was a gamble, and one that paid off.

It was amazing to go through this process alongside my good friend Belinda Richards, who also achieved her Fellowship, and did it cool calm and collected… well more than me anyway. And thank you Jo Howell  for your support and for taking photos on the day too! The three of us support each other all the time – I so appreciate you both!
 
Also thank you to EIZO – as an EIZO ambassador I talk about how my EIZO makes a big difference with shadow detail and colour reproduction, and shortens my edit-print-edit cycle greatly – and it really did with these.