Corona Virus Update

Our Executive Committee met to discuss the implications of the corona virus threat to our club operations. As the experts say, we are currently in unchartered waters. After lengthy discussion with arguments on all sides of the equation, we decided to err on the side of caution and temporarily suspend our regularly scheduled club meetings. While this may not be the optimal decision, it will certainly not be the wrong decision, nor something that we will regret in future.

The reasoning for the decision is threefold.  First, the virus was transmitted from it’s original source by human travel – and photographers, by their very nature are ardent world travellers. Second, once the virus takes up residency in an area (which it is close to doing even here in North America), it is transmitted by air borne droplets and from people touching surfaces where the virus has landed,  In this regard, close contact with others makes it easy to transfer the virus and our Library Meeting Room is quite small for the size of our membership, with limited ventilation.  Thirdly, once infected, the older a person is, and those with compromised immune systems, the greater the liklihood of a serious complication from the disease.  Our membership consists of many retirees and others in the above high risk category.

This decision will be re-evaluated on a monthly basis by your Executive. Let me be clear that we are not closing the club – just temporarily changing our mode of operations.  We plan to have more outings and smaller workshops in place of the large club meetings.

We will be asking any member that has recently travelled by air or on board a cruise ship, to not participate in club workshops/meetings until 14 days following their return. This is also applicable for anyone showing signs of colds, coughing or fever. Participation by these people in outdoor outings is optional, but we’d ask them not to come into close contact with others. This is likely overkill, but we’ve not yet seen any reasonable alternative.

Let's all keep active on the photography front and work through this threat together. 

March Session Review

Our March 1st meeting was another well attended session with great participation from our members.  We had 37 members participate in the slideshows giving us a great diversity of subject matter and photographic techniques to admire.


I started out the session with a short talk on Computer Monitors and screen resolutions – critcal for successful photo editing! We followed that up with a wintry view of the Lemoine Point Conservation Area in Kingston. This outing was attended by 14 of our members and we literally had birds eating out of our hands!





Our featured presenter of the night was Larry Tayler - who never shies from using his photography to put an edge on matters. Larry’s topic was entitled Using Photos to Motivate. It was part of a larger set of material from a week long workshop that he will be leading at the significant Quaker gathering this summer in Virginia. His material was highly provocative and emotional.

Following our break, Doug Smith introduced his slideshow from a trip late last year to Argentina with special emphasis on the Patagonia region. The icefields and mountain ridges were utterly spectacular.

 

Next up was a new agenda item - The Road to the Winner's Circle -  where we had 6 of our award winners from last year’s Awards Gala (Ian Dickinson, Daphne Creasy, Alan Jenner, Margaret Liddon, Gail Hamilton & John Dufour), tell us about their winning image and why it was so effective. Interestingly, chance timing seemed to play a role in a number of the shots, along with swift and effective action from the knowledgeable group of photographers. It was agreed that all six had well defended their winning entries and should therefore retain their trophies for the current year! Thanks to all of them for this fun discussion.

Our final slideshow of the night was our theme challenge entitled – High Key!  Thirty-five members submitted images that were shot with an emphasis on the right hand side of the histogram (whites and light tones predominate). These images, along with our Lemoine Point shots have been uploaded to our public Facebook page for anyone to view (facebook.com/countyfotoclub).

Our theme challenge for March is People & Pet Photography, while April’s theme challenge is Subject Placement is Everything! 

Thanks to all who participated during the month.