NP or BIPP or SWPP
There are many photography bodies around the world and there are the good the bad and the ugly; National Photographer was set up in order to deal with the main issues facing photographer but to make it clear to clients we don’t have different levels and only accept professional photographer who are full time.
National Photographer was set up by photographers for photographers, this means that any member wishing to join NP has a say in how it is ran and becomes a fundamental part of the business. The allows us to shift some of the business to the members and reduces the cost of membership.
Lets look at the differences and the benefits of Joining National Photographer in this post.
The SWPP require that to be a member you submit images for evaluation, the fee’s change dependant on which certificate you wish to go for, NP charge a single £20 for applications.
We look at photographs submitted and we also look at complete galleries from a photo shoot to ensure that photographer meet the right standards. A panel of photographers review the photography and this panel changes and is selected from our members.
Once accepted on the merit of your photography you will then pay your fee and we check your references, send members in to deal with you to ensure that you meet a good standard of customer service. We can and may check at any time to ensure that you were not doing your best just the once in order to be a member.
National Photographer is one of the photography organisations where you are either out or in and there are no grey areas, this keeps the standard of photographers up and reaffirms in the publics eye that our photographers are some of the best photographers in the UK.
You do not need to be a qualified photographer to join, I’m sure that artist like Picasso were never asked before they painted a picture or are refused like many photographer were at the time. Simply if you are a good or great photographer and meet the standards we will consider you, BUT its not always photography as being a photographer is about business and customer relations and people management. Both factors are considered when you are a member of National Photographer.
We actively promote photographers as we have two online directories and a network of websites which photographers participate. This allows photographer who don’t have a website to find themselves featured on one of the websites with clients coming to them as a direct result. Our directories have around 200,000 visitors each month and I believe this is worth the membership and trial alone?
Not only do we offer this but we offer the photographer a business telephone number and email to ensure that they can make the most of the services available.
Photographers will be able to place banner adverts on the websites of National Photographer and City photography to promote themselves, this avoids the costs normally made for these on other websites and directories.
If the photographer has a website, our multi award winning web design team will look at their website to point out any issues and help with making adjustments. There is also the mini photographer website that are held on the NP website as well as a full member website.
Meeting are also held and photography workshops are held at a super discount rate by the members for the members to improve working relationships and further knowledge within the group.
We have our own training website open to the public which has videos and information to help people improve their photography skills, members who wish to offer photography training and workshops can participate within this website and offer courses of their own. NB they do need to undertake a trainer training course which we offer.
We offer an arbitration service, this is where there are problems with our members or complaints made against them we look at the issue and deal with this internally, it avoids court action in many cases, and can mean that members maybe struck from the members list.
All of this is included within the membership fee aside from small fees for workshops and training.
National Photographer is an honest and transparent business and we are open to questions from members or applicants and the general public.
To find out about joining National Photographer click here.
Generally we ask that our members contribute to the websites, this means that they have a say in how we work and add content to the websites and show their commitment to photography, NP and their customers. There are blogs and websites that are updated and fed to our websites in the form of news feeds. This is a small part to play in the business.
We also ask photographer members to look at other members work, spy on them ( in a nice way) offer workshops and help other members for the benefit of each other and themselves.
Related posts:
- joining National Photographer
- How does National Photographer work?
- Photographers and their websites
- Websites for photographers
- National photographer social and stock gallery
