Notice: Our website is currently undergoing updates, during which time event bookings, user logins and membership registration and renewals are unavailable. Find out more.
The RPS offers qualifications, Distinctions and certificated courses to cater for every level of photographic experience. There are also opportunities with the OU, OCA, boomsatsuma and Falmouth University. Qualifications are an excellent way of setting yourself educational challenges and projects to help further your skills and focus your work.
Distinctions | Qualifications | Falmouth | Other certificated courses | Kids and schools
To become a Licentiate of The Society, applicants must show variety in approach and techniques but not necessarily in subject matter. Demanding but achievable for most dedicated photographers.
Requires a body of work/project of a high standard and a written Statement of Intent. Strong technical ability using techniques and photographic practices appropriate to the subject.
Our highest level of Distinction. Requires a distinctive and cohesive body of work/project accompanied by a written Statement of Intent.
You could be awarded a Royal Photographic Society Distinction without having to submit a portfolio!
If you've completed any of the qualifying courses specified in the last five years you could apply for a Distinction via the Exemptions route.
For more information click the following links:
From Licentiate to Fellowship, from Natural History to Fine Art applicants have for a long time been able to use a book as a means of presentation, but in this genre the photography led photobook is the genre itself.
All elements will be considered that make up your photobook submission, from the images to the colour of the text. What form of photobook you present is under your creative control.
These Distinctions recognize achievement in film production from key competencies at Licentiate level, advanced conceptual and technical skills at Associate level and at Fellowship level excellence in, and equating to, the highest industry, professional and artistic standards. Areas of film production covered will range from concept through cinematography, post-production and presentation.
Screenshot: © Noel McIntyre ARPS
You submit written rather than photographic work for the Research genre. This category encompasses research in the arts & sciences of photography.
It also looks at how photography is considered, how its history is recorded and preserved, how photography is taught and how it is understood in its own terms and as part of wider visual and artistic culture.
RPS Imaging Scientist vocational qualifications are open for application from those who have professional careers within the fields of engineering, science and technology.
RPS Creative Industries qualifications are suitable for those working in the media including picture editors, art directors, curators, and designers as well as those within elements of education.
These qualifications are designed to enhance career prospects and acknowledge achievements by recognizing professional competence.
Imaging Scientist levels:
Stage 1: (QIS & LRPS) Qualified Imaging Scientist
Stage 2: (GIS & ARPS) Graduate Imaging Scientist
Stage 3: (AIS & ARPS) Accredited Imaging Scientist
Stage 4: (ASIS & FRPS) Accredited Senior Imaging Scientist.
Creative Industries levels:
Stage 1: (QCIQ & LRPS) Qualified in Creative Industries & Licentiate: for those with academic qualifications below degree level.
Stage 2: (GCIQ & ARPS) Graduate in Creative Industries & Associate: for those with a first degree.
Stage 3: (ACIQ & ARPS) Accredited in Creative Industries & Associate: for those with postgraduate experience in the creative industries.
Stage 4: (ASCIQ & FRPS) Accredited Senior in Creative Industries & Fellowship: the senior professional qualification.
By being a member of the society you have unique access to a discount for one of Falmouth University's Flexible, online photography courses.
Falmouth Flexible’s MA Photography and BA(Hons) Top-Up Photography are designed to accommodate a broad range of practitioners, from those who use photography to question the world around them to those whose practice interrogates the medium itself.
Digital photography: Creating and Sharing Better Images and Discover your Genre, Develop Your Style
Two 10 week online courses, developed by the Open University and supported by the RPS for beginners and those who wish to develop their photography further.
The Open College of the Arts is offering two new on-line courses, Photography As Language and Investigating Place. These courses are designed to make you think and connect more deeply with the images you see and those you take. Supported by the RPS.
We want to reward those students who excel in their GCSE Photography exams by awarding them an RPS Certificate in Photography.
If you are a teacher or know of any school teaching photography at GCSE level, please let them know about the certificate. It’s free and has already proved a hit with the students.
For further information please contact: Liz Williams, Education Manager, +44 (0)117 3164480, liz@rps.org
Image © Will Price-Lockyer, A* student from Crispin School Somerset
We are very excited to be supporting Sharp Shots Photo Club in delivering their workshops and courses. We have some great projects in the pipeline, which we hope will inspire the next generation of photographers.
