The Disabled Photographers' Society

Twice a year in May and November the DPS awards distinctions to members in recognition of acheivement in photography. There are 3 levels of distinction awarded by the DPS.

• LDPS or Licentiate - the starting point.
• ADPS or Associate - the middle award with a higher level of skill required.
• FDPS or Fellowship - the highest distinction awarded and the hardest to achieve.

The panel is chaired by Margaret Salisbury FRPS, who along with John Chamberlain FRPS, Anne Cassidy FRPS, Graham Reeves FRPS and John Long ARPS assess each application on its individual merits. Margaret Salisbury, who joined the DPS some years ago, took up photography 35 years ago. First going to evening classes to learn how to put a film in the camera and what the dials were for! Then Margaret started teaching the same class 6 years later and continued to teach for 25 years.

Joining the Royal Photographic Society she gained an L in 1976 an A in 1979, after failing miserably at her first attempt. she went, on eighteen months later, to gain two Fellowship of the RPS believed to be the first person to achieve two at the same time, one in the pictorial and one in the applied sections.

Margaret recently retired from the L panel of the RPS, having served her maximum service time allowed by the RPS. In total she was involved for 20 years as Panel Member, Deputy Chairman, Chairman and for the last six years as Team Leader and Chairman of the panel. Amongst many distinctions, her most recent being Fellowship of the Irish Photographic Federation, she was thrilled to be awarded the MFIAP distinction (Master Artist of the International Federation of Photographic Art).

Margaret has also been awarded the Fenton Medal, mainly for services to the L panel and helping people with their distinctions, which are estimated in excess of a thousand over a period of over 20 years. Although she enjoys Assessing, judging and lecturing Margaret still loves her hobby, still has a darkroom, rarely used these days but enjoys all aspects of photography and still thinks of herself as a "pictorialist" but has taken pictures of anything and everything when the opportunity has arisen.