Monday 13 August 2018

Summer Time at the Club


Our August meeting room was once again filled with enthusiastic photographers, anxious to see what was in store! I started the meeting off by baring my soul on why I went mirrorless – and not even Nikon/Canon – oh the shame of it all... I got to show and talk about my new toy, the Fujifilm X-T2 and how it has taken me back to my roots in former film photography – its controls are so retro!

Next up was our first slideshow of the evening from 18 of our members who participated in the July outing to the Glen Ross and Ranney Gorge areas on the Trent River system. It was a sweltering hot day but we all seem to manage to have gotten some great images from our hot days work.

Following the slideshow, the assembled group were asked to put their thinking caps on as we entered into a rather technical digital editing topic – Layers and Blend Modes. After a quick review of layers and masks, we discussed many of the Blend modes that most of our digital editors have available for us and what they are trying to accomplish (and how). We wisely decided to skip the mathematical formulae.  By putting it in words and giving a number of examples, hopefully it will whet the appetite of many of you to use the layer & blend mode concept as another creative tool in your photographic arsenal.  The presentation will be posted on our Youtube Channel shortly. 

Mags Kandis opened up our second half on a much more enjoyable tone, with a slideshow entitled ichi go ichi i.  It roughly translates into “seize the moment”. Her images were from a recent trip to Japan which touched on her other passion - “blue hands” and indigo.  We got to see the people of Japan, going about their daily business, as well as a walk down cherry blossom lane.  Thanks Mags!

Next on the agenda was a review of recent Night Photography Escapades by many of our members. The material started with Fireworks displays from various local Canada Day events as well as the much larger Mystical Fireworks display held mid July in Trenton.  We then moved onto our Night Photography workshop held in Belleville near the end of last month.  We viewed sunset images, car light trails and numerous light painting processes.  These included sparklers, steel wool, orbs from swinging lights and colour light sabres adorning our princess model, Alex. The night was perfectly capped off with a demonstration of nature’s fury - a lightning display which occurred at the end of our Lightpainting workshop.


The theme challenge for the month of July was A Creative Eye On Summer Fun.  Twenty-seven members submitted some really fun and creative images for the slideshow.  These images along with our outing photos have been uploaded to our public Facebook page for your viewing pleasure.





The theme challenges for the next 2 months were handed out – Dance, Music & Performance for August and Country Life for September.  Our outing for this month will be a trip to many of the wineries in the County.  It will be held on Sunday August 19th.