The EFIAP Distinction Award

I keep getting asked about the FIAP awards so this is a re-post of my original blog from the old wedsite that stopped working.

EFIAP (Excellence FIAP) is the second step on the FIAP distinction hierarchy, and it follows on from the AFIAP (Artist FIAP). It is awarded to “authors who, apart from having an excellent technique and an abundant production, have often been accepted in many international salons under FIAP Patronage “ and I am delighted to say that I have received the notification that I have achieved this award.

EFIAP requires a photographer to have a pretty substantial body of work and to have been actively submitting that work to photographic salons around the world. With the substantial requirements for this distinction, it really is no mean feat to achieve it.

The EFIAP requirements for 2013 were:

• You must be the holder of the AFIAP Distinction, and have held that for 12 months.
• You will have gained (including those used for your AFIAP award) at least 150 Acceptances with a total of at least 50 different photographs.
• This success must have come from at least 30 different salons with FIAP Patronage, and
• Those salons must be from at least 15 different countries.

I gained my AFIAP in June 2012.

For my submission, I actually listed 36 salons across 23 countries. Now this exceeds the requirements but when you achieve your EFIAP award all the images used in gaining the award are void for any future FIAP distinctions awards. So I listed all the countries and salons they were accepted into, regardless of the fact that the additional salons and countries, don’t really count.

I listed the following 36 salons

This gave me acceptances in the following countries

The image requirements are again a large step up for AFIAP, and to try and reach the target I adopted the following approach to my salon entries. I always used a couple of new images with every entry I sent off, whilst also submitting a couple of images that had a good acceptance rate to hopefully get the required country acceptance – but of course nothing was ever certain. Once an image had gained an acceptance I ‘parked’ it and then selected another image to try at the next salon.
In the end I listed 60 different works totalling 303 acceptances. Now this is well over the top in terms of the acceptances listed above, but when I started out the requirements were significantly different. At the 2012 FIAP congress, new requirements for the FIAP awards were announced. One of the key ones was a large increase in the number of image acceptances, an increase of 100 on the previous number. So when I started out I was aiming for 250 acceptances and so this was the strategy I adopted.
Half way through the year it was announced that the new requirements would not come into force until the end of 2013.

So perhaps a waste of a lot of image acceptances but if the new targets were in place. I would still have met them.
The images below are my most successful images from 2013 and these had to be submitted on a CD as part of my application.

The Account Is Now Wiped Clean
When going from AFIAP to EFIAP you can count your acceptances that gained you your AFIAP award, however after EFIAP, your account is now wiped clean. The images that you used to obtain the EFIAP can never be used in any future FIAP distinction process. Future awards can only be gained from new images and acceptances after the date of your EFIAP award.
So it’s now looking towards the EFIAP Bronze (75 acceptances, with at least 25 different works and 3 photographs gaining  awards in 3 different countries) and the rest of the EFIAP levels!