All cities have their own atmosphere, personality and flavour, and Napoli is no exception. Paul Hollywood felt that it “certainly has a lived-in look…a little bit dirty, but I love it”. And so do I. I got a real feel for the city as I wandered around its narrow cobbled streets and engaged with the locals.

Life is lived at a slower pace here, no doubt due to the hot climate, where friends have time to stop and chat, and residents often while away the hours gazing out over their neighbourhood. With most apartments having their doors and shuttered windows to just one side of the property, these openings are in regular use, as they provide valuable light and a way to interact with passers-by.

My panel aims to celebrate the character of the Neapolitan people as they go about their everyday lives, the beating heart of this remarkable city.

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Back in 2022 when I was awarded my Licentiate Distinction from the Royal Photographic Society, I knew it wouldn’t be long before I would start thinking about working towards an Associate Level. It was upon my return from Naples in April 2023, that I began to wonder if there may be enough material for a panel in the Travel genre.

At Associate (the middle) and Fellowship (the highest) Level, the submissions are split into different genres, such as Travel, Documentary, Landscape, Natural History, Contemporary etc. A panel of 15 images needs to be produced, along with a 150 word Statement of Intent (SOI) – 300 for contemporary. It’s critical that the SOI clearly describes what the images are showing you, and weirdly this is almost more difficult than putting the images together. The assessors go through the SOI with a fine tooth comb and pull it apart if they read anything that isn’t demonstrated visually….no pressure then!!

I joined the Sidmouth Photographic Society (SPC) Distinctions Special Interest Group (SIG) again in October 2023, to give me the support on the road ahead. At the first meeting I showed a suggested Layout to see what people thought….

SOI: The objective of my portfolio is to capture the character of the city of Naples, where life unfolds in and around its narrow cobbled streets. Young and old alike spend their time contemplating, gossiping and celebrating in these streets, amid the ubiquitous speeding mopeds. It is a city full of colour, warmth and emotion.

It was well received as a concept, but there was a lot of feedback on both the SOI and images selected. It’s funny looking back at the origins of the panel now with hindsight, as it shows I really didn’t have a clue what would work in this genre! The SOI talked about capturing the character of the city, but it was felt I should be focusing on the character of the people instead. Speeding mopeds were mentioned in the SOI – but not shown in the images…a rookie error! And as for the images themselves; many did not really convey a sense of place and could have been taken anywhere. And if I’m mentioning colour in the SOI, maybe I need some more vibrant images…and all of the images should include people. Thankfully I was booked on another trip to Naples later that month, so I could keep all these inputs in mind when shooting more material. I took it so seriously that I even learned Italian for a month in the run up to the trip, in order to ask to take people’s pictures!!

I had 4 full days in Naples to take photos and spent my time wandering about the oldest areas of the city, up and down the narrow streets looking for inspiration – and finding it! I even walked past the same old guy leaning out of his green shuttered window – no movement in 6 months!! I started to get braver by day 3 and approached people “Posso fare una photo?”…and no-one refused, although many were rather bemused. I was asked a couple of times if I was a photo journalist, and in reply learnt “Non, è la mia passione” – it’s my passion, as being Italian, they understood this more than it’s my hobby!

Back in the UK I began looking through my hundreds of images to construct a new panel….as a side project I put together a short black & white eZine about the men of Naples, which made me wonder if I should perhaps do this as a panel in black and white. I’d also spent some time taking pictures around Garibaldi station and wondered if they might make an interesting panel. So I decided to put together 3 different panels to see which one had the most possibilities, before committing to just one direction. Back to the Distinctions SIG for feedback!

At this stage, I must admit that I couldn’t see the wood for the trees – too many ideas / directions / possibilities! After talking through my ideas with the group, I realised that I kept being drawn back to the colour images and that should be the way forward, which meant that I could concentrate now on forming the best combination of images and fine-tuning my SOI. Even dragged my Dad into the process and he helped me wordsmith the first part of the SOI and even found the Paul Hollywood quote! At the beginning of January 2024, when the RPS released the Assessment dates, there were only 2 per year per category…so I panicked and booked the one in September, as I couldn’t face waiting until 2025 to complete it! Now I had a fixed deadline to work towards…

I can’t possibly show all the various panel layouts I’ve gone through since – needless to say there were many (poor Distinctions SIG critiquing all of these different options!). The next milestone was to attend an Advisory Day in Bristol, to show my prospective panel + SOI and receive feedback. On 20th May 2024 I headed up there to attend the Advisory Day in person and to learn what it is the assessors are looking for, what a successful panel looks like, listen to advice on other panels and have feedback on my own. It was a very enjoyable day – I learnt an awful lot, and in fact berated myself for not having attended one before going on my second Naples visit.

SOI: All cities have their own atmosphere, personality and flavour, and Napoli is certainly no exception. Paul Hollywood saw it as “curiously chaotic, it certainly has a lived-in look, it’s alive, vibrant, a little bit dirty, but I love it.” And so do I. I got a real feel for the city as I wandered around its narrow cobbled streets and engaged with the locals. My panel aims to celebrate the character of the Neapolitan people as they go about their everyday lives; the beating heart of this remarkable city.

It was felt that the SOI needed tightening up slightly, but was generally on the right track. However, if the focus was on everyday lives, then image 2 didn’t really fit. The addition of static portraits didn’t provide a sense of place (no environmental details) and there were rather too many mopeds in the panel. But they appreciated the style of photography and careful placement of images.

I went back and completely reworked the panel again, focusing on the inputs received. But I just had to keep the man with the green shutters and it seemed fitting he should be the focal point in the middle of the panel – somehow his image was the beginning of my decision to use Naples for my A panel. It was at this stage I realised just how few images I had with the correct people to environment ratio – I either had close/staged portraits or environmental shots without people! So it was becoming harder to fill the spaces! I booked a 1-2-1 session with the RPS and was lucky enough to be matched with Hazel Frost FRPS, Chair of the Travel category.

SOI: All cities have their own atmosphere, personality and flavour, and Napoli is certainly no exception. Paul Hollywood felt that it “certainly has a lived-in look…a little bit dirty, but I love it.” And so do I. I got a real feel for the city as I wandered around its narrow cobbledstreets and engaged with the locals. 
For many, life is lived at a slower pace here, no doubt due to the hot climate, where friends have time to stop and chat, and residents often while away the hours gazing out over their neighbourhood. 
My panel aims to celebrate the character of the Neapolitan people as they go about their everyday lives, the beating heart of this remarkable city.  

The 1-2-1 went well and Hazel could see that I was now moving in the right direction. Image 8 had to be removed due to borderline quality issues – and 7 was also potentially dodgy. Image 11 was too static and 5 not interesting enough. Hazel also suggested I mentioned the shutters in the SOI, seeing as I felt they were a key part of Neapolitan life.

Back to work again, because removing 5, 7, 8 and 11 had opened up 4 gaps to fill – being mindful of the dimensions of the images to ensure balance across the panel, as well as the colours used. Submitted 4 versions back to Hazel, with 3 out of the 4 being acceptable…and my gut chose the final version!

The Assessment Day itself on 11th September 2024 was nerve wracking, but it was so much better to be there in person. I asked Mike from SPC Distinctions SIG to join me on the day, as he had waded through literally hundreds of my images for quality control and given feedback on all of my panel versions (the majority of which I haven’t shown!) and was as invested in my success as me! There were 3 assessors and 1 Chair – at the start of each person’s assessment a vote was taken. Then each assessor would provide feedback on the panel and a second vote was taken. Then the announcement was made if the person had passed or not. The first 2 print submissions were beautiful and no surprise that they both passed. Then it was on to digitals and mine was first up. The first assessor’s comments were all positive. Then came a couple of criticisms – the whites in image 4 were far too bright (and to be fair they did look terrible – maybe the projector was running a bit too bright?) and one area in image 13 looked as if it may have been amended…so I really wasn’t sure which way it was going to go. But thankfully it went my way and I passed…oh the relief!! Out of 7 submissions that day only 3 passed – the other 4 clearly hadn’t attended a 1-2-1 session, otherwise the issues would have been identified at an earlier stage. I managed to embarrass myself (and probably Mike) on the way out, by walking up to the assessors to thank them and because I was a tad giddy, dancing about and gushing my appreciation…oh well, just couldn’t help myself! And what a great finish to the day as it was an SPC evening, so it was a joy to share my success with all of my club friends, who had supported me along the way. A fabulous end to an 18 month project…now, what shall I do for my FRPS???!!!