I'm just back from the amazing Societies Convention 2013, and while so much of it was incredible nothing comes close to the honour of being the recipient of the David Routledge Memorial Award at the Societies Awards Dinner on Saturday night. It's such a wonderful and exciting thing to have happened - I don't think it's properly sunk in yet!

I'd like to give a bit of background purpose of the award as I think it's particularly important. When I started to really take my photography seriously and want to take it forward I joined the Socieity of Wedding and Portrait Photographers - the SWPP - and one of the many great features of this particular professional body is a very active forum. It's a real community, and home to some quite incredible talent - without question some of the finest photographers around across a whole number of disciplines - but at the same time extremely welcoming and encouraging to newer photographers like myself who have so much to learn and so many things we hope to achieve.

Unfortunately I never had the pleasure of knowing David through the forum, as he very sadly passed away before I became involved, but I know for certain having spoken to other members that he was a huge and positive presence, and that his many contributions and words of kind encouragement have touched and had an enormous influence on many, many people. So much so that the Forum members were inspired to create an entirely new award as part of the Socieites programme in his honour, with a specific purpose: to encourage newer photographers and those who didn't tend to enter competitions or who had not won awards to put their work forwards and to get involved.

The standard of photography entered in the SWPP competitions is consistently remarkable, and the thought of trying to compete at any level is - I can say in all honesty - extremely daunting, to the point that I had completely shyed away from doing so. Then, suddenly, this particular competition arrives, and having read the story and the principle behind it I finally felt ready to take a deep breath and submit a photograph. It was an open competition so could cross many genres. The image I chose was a favourite from last year, taken as part of a family portrait session in the late summer light out in the Hampshire countryside.

The entries were judged by David Routledge's family, which makes it even more special to me to have been fortunate enough to have been chosen, and it really was an honour to meet Nicky and her and David's family on stage and receive my award from them - a beautiful glass trophy which had been provided through the kind contributions of Forum members.

An incredible moment, and something that I know I will always look back on fondly and with great pride. I'm determined to keep it up now and start entering the various other competitions, but whatever happens this one will be right there at the top! Thank you Nicky and family, SWPP and Forum members - you've made me incredibly happy and the award is very gratefully received, I hope very much in the spirit in which it was created.