Sitting on the sofa watching TV last night with Carol, I wasn’t expecting an email to drop in from the ISPWP announcing that we were placed in the
Top 100 wedding photographers in the World in 2023.
Gobsmacked doesn’t even come close to describing how I felt when I saw that!
Who are the ISPWP and why is this such a big deal? The International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers was set up in 2008 as a way to bring some organisation to the totally unregulated wedding photography industry. Unlike some online wedding directories, you can’t just join the group by paying a fee. You need to either be sponsored by another member or have at least two reliable references from other photographers. The ISPWP promotes high photography standards among it’s members.
Like many directories, the ISPWP holds competitions, which are judged by a selection of members.
We’ve been ranking well in the UK, and were even 1st place in the UK at one point, until we got knocked down to 2nd place in the last round. However, we rarely look at our world rankings, as the ISPWP consists of literally thousands of worldwide, hugely talented photographers and we know how tough the competition is.
So when Joe Milton’s email dropped in, I had to obviously check out how we did. I found us – or rather I found me, Paul Tansley at 62nd in the World in 2023. Wow! So proud of that. We work so hard for our couples, taking the best images we can and to have some of those images win awards is just such a great feeling.
Next, I decided to scroll up the page and see who else was above me. What the…..! 36th place – there’s another Tansley. Who could that be? It’s only my wonderfully talented wife Carol Tansley!!!!
Carol was voted 36th Best in the World in 2023.
That’s just incredible (We’ll ignore the fact that it’s embarrassing that’s she’s beaten me). I’m just so proud of her.
Carol’s journey in wedding photography (or professional photography at all for that matter) began 14 years ago, when I asked her to accompany me on my first wedding shoot. For the past 14 years she’s learnt on the job, with camera training from myself. She’s also learned lots about image taking from some of the conferences and training courses we’ve taken together. Especially the Fearless workshop we attended in Tuscany in 2018, with Huy Nguyen and Tyler Wirken, which was an incredible learning experience. Her career before photography began by working with some of the world’s best photographers as a catalogue and magazine Art Director, and her ability to ‘see’ the world in pictures is amazing. We’re both thrilled that her talents and hard work has been recognised.
