Andy Smith FRPS tips his hat before his Fellowship image ‘This is not René Magritte’s pipe’
After a working life in business, I switched focus and completed an eight-year artistic experiment – a fully documented 10,000 hours of deliberate practice mastering art photography.
The project, begun in November 2017 and concluded in March 2025 with an RPS Fellowship, is the first fully documented application of the 10,000-hour rule within the visual arts.
The principle, drawn originally from the work of psychologist K Anders Ericsson of Florida State University and popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 book Outliers, holds that a minimum of 10,000 hours of focused, deliberate practice is required to reach true expertise in any discipline.
Since setting out to test this theory in photography I have recorded each hour spent learning, shooting, processing and reflecting. Every day I have done at least one hour and an average of between four and five hours of deliberate practice.
I’ve recorded daily on photography10kh.com
Hanging plan for the successful Licentiate submission by Andy Smith FRPS
Licentiate
I am not naturally talented. In October 2018, I had worked on this project for nearly a year and recorded 1,286 hours of deliberate practice when I first attempted – and failed to achieve – an RPS Licentiate.
The first level of RPS Distinction, the Licentiate is a recognition of general photographic competence. My eclectic submission of 10 images – including portraits, landscapes and some creative images – fell short of the required standard. While disappointed, I was determined to learn from the feedback and continue.
My revised submission had changes to several images where specific criticism had been made, two new portraits and a slight reordering. A Licentiate resubmission in March 2019, at hour 2,022, was successful.
‘The trees of Stoke Common’ from the successful Landscape Associate submission by Andy Smith FRPS
Associate
Now a Licentiate, I set my sights on the next level, the Associate, which demands a high level of expertise in a particular genre of photography. The submission 15 images supporting a Statement of Intent – a new challenge.
This took a long time. More than half the time of this 10,000-hour project was the period between Licentiate and my first attempt at Associate. This involved experimenting with and dabbling in several genres, out of which landscape became a focus.
My choice was helped by Covid lockdown restrictions and my access to common land, Stoke Common, under the pretext of dog walking. I joke that whereas most dogs understand the command ‘sit’ or ‘fetch’, mine understands ‘out of shot’, and knows that a tripod means it’s going to be a slow walk.
My intention with the submission was to capture the meditative mood the common inspires when walking through it alone on a misty morning.
My first submission in March 2023, at hour 7,533, was unsuccessful, though the feedback was extremely constructive and encouraging. With a lot of work and a formal RPS one2one advisory session, the resubmission was successful in October 2023 at hour 8,081. I had achieved my Landscape Associate.
Hanging plan for the successful Landscape Associate submission by Andy Smith FRPS
Learning about art
Many of the 6,000 hours between Licentiate and Associate were spent learning about art. Conscious I lack any formal art education, I found myself drawn to art history and theory, and particularly to abstract and modern art.
My interest in abstract art was a driver of my successful Associate submission. As Melissa Brown advised, the challenge of landscape photography is “finding pearls of abstract art in the natural environment”. While the trees are clearly visible as trees in my submission, I wanted the mood to be one of thoughtful reflection.
Interest in Surrealism and René Magritte
Whereas abstract art tends to be quiet and meditative, modern art is more often dynamic and exciting. I became fascinated by Surrealism’s attempts to create a greater form of art by encompassing the subconscious, as well as the conscious or visual view of the world.
By chance I bought a book on René Magritte and noticed, somewhat to my horror, that I bore a passing resemblance to the famous Belgian artist as he is usually shown in his later years.
Purely for fun I bought a bowler hat and created some pictures using self-portraiture. These constructed images did well in club competitions and international salons, and I felt encouraged to continue. Magritte’s paintings, though, are steeped in symbolism and reflect the radical ideology of the time. This led to an interest in the philosophy of Freud, Jung and Lacan, and a desire to create paradoxical Surrealism for the 21st century – and perhaps a body of work worthy of an RPS Fellowship.
‘The Son of Man’ from the successful Fellowship submission by Andy Smith FRPS
Superficially, the above picture just looks like a man with an apple Photoshopped in front of his face. However, the man is looking round the apple at you, the viewer. As Magritte said: “Everything we see hides another thing … we always want to see that which is hidden by what we see.”
The man and apple are an example of paradoxical juxtaposition, of the type that Freud identified as occurring symbolically in dreams. The sense of unease in increased by the man’s (my) left elbow appearing to be backwards.
‘The Human Condition’ from the successful Fellowship submission by Andy Smith FRPS
This is a reasonably close reproduction of Magritte’s original The Human Condition, executed using modern photographic techniques. The image on the easel represents what we see in our mind’s eye and the landscape outside the window is reality.
‘The industrial Human Condition’ from the successful Fellowship submission by Andy Smith FRPS
This picture is a contemporary version of the one above and is displayed on the opposite side of the panel, so that the two are connected through symmetry. Here the viewer is presented with a comfortable modern environment, isolated from the dystopian reality beyond the window by a high-end computer screen.
‘Decalcomania at Cliveden’ from the successful Fellowship submission by Andy Smith FRPS
Decalcomania is a process of transference, used in pottery and other crafts, where an image is moved from one medium to another. The image behind the man is moved to where his shadow may have been. Metaphorically, it is a meditation on identity and concealment.
‘This is not René Magritte’s pipe’ from the successful Fellowship submission by Andy Smith FRPS
Although widely mocked, Magritte’s 1929 painting The Treachery of Images, which includes the words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”, is one of the artist’s most recognisable and important works. It was a forerunner of a key strand of contemporary art discussing the relationship between image, object and language, an example being Joseph Kosuth’s 1965 work One and Three Chairs, in which an installation of a physical chair, a dictionary definition of the word ‘chair’ and a photograph of the chair are shown together, challenging the viewer to consider the relative meaning of each element.
In my Fellowship submission the pipe picture is the central image, declaring my intention not to copy but to reinterprete the underlying themes of Magritte’s work in a contemporary context, using modern photographic techniques.
Hanging plan for the successful Fellowship submission by Andy Smith FRPS
My submission was assessed by the RPS on the 14 May 2025, at hour 9,773 of this 10,000-hour project.
An RPS Fellowship is the highest level of Distinction awarded by the most prestigious photographic institution in the UK. It requires a demonstration of both the highest technical capability and a distinctive and distinguished body of work. Therefore, the achievement of a Fellowship is an acknowledgement of mastery.
The project is a practical demonstration of the 10,000-hour rule in the context of the visual arts.
See more of Andy Smith FRPS’s 10,000-hour Fellowship journey.