Arctic Magic – March Meeting Recap

We had a wonderful turnout at our March meeting, in anticipation of Bert Jenkins’ talk and images from his recent North-West Passage expedition. We were certainly not dissappointed. Bert’s images were breath-taking in their beauty of the northern landscape and penetrating in their depiction of its Inuit inhabitants. If you missed the session, I strongly recommend you follow this link to Bert’s Flickr site - https://www.flickr.com/photos/bert_jenkins/sets - where you can see his Arctic images in full HD format.

Prior to Bert’s presentation, we did spend a bit of time reviewing the topic of Waterfall Photography. I’ll upload these slides in video format to our Youtube site shortly for your review, as we are going to have an upcoming outing on this topic.

Our first slideshow of the evening was from our March club outing to the Lakeshore Lodge area of Sandbanks Provincial Park. Due to extreme cold and wintry weather, this outing got postponed by a week, but that didn’t stop a number of hardy souls who braved the conditions and were rewarded with some spectacular frozen coastal scenery. The images from this outing have been uploaded to our Facebook site for public viewing.

David Gilbert started off the second half of the meeting by getting our feet back firmly on the ground with a light-hearted view of some time-worn relics of the road – entitled Minaker’s Wretched Wrecks. Following that, Dave Tugwood put on a mini-workshop, demonstrating how he weaves his digital magic using Adobe Lightroom to turn a somewhat average image into a real head-turner. The last slideshow of the evening was of our February theme challenge – Window Light.  Once again, we were rewarded with creative interpretations of this theme – these images have been posted to our Facebook page.

The theme challenge for March is Minimalism & Negative Space – a follow-up to the discussion at last month’s meeting on this compositional element. Advance notice of our April theme challenge was also provided - entitled Reflections. Creative interpretations are always appreciated!

We have planned a couple of outings for March including a driving tour (Sunday March 13th) north of Napanee to capture fast moving rivers and waterfalls, as well as a night workshop later in the month to capture the full moon rising over West Lake.

Thanks to all those who attended.

The Art in Photography

Our February meeting turned its attention to the artistic side of our craft. Even the Superbowl couldn't keep the audience away as we had another full house and great participation by club members in our month's activities.

 

Our special guest speaker for the night was a relative newcomer to the County. Carol Noel's images are bold, colourful and insightful, all the while that her subject matter is often very common place – things few people might consider photographing. She has the ability to turn left-behind garbage and torn plastic into works that have compositional beauty and entice the imagination. I do recommend you go to her website to see more of her vibrant graphics – www.facebook.com/MixdNutzStudio.

Our evening also delved into the more serene side of photo artistry with Margaret Liddon giving us a presentation on Negative Space & Minimalism. She also touched on the forms of Zen and Contemplative photography which overlap this subject area. Her slides will soon be posted to our Countyfotoclub Youtube site for viewing and this compositional form will be the subject of one of our upcoming theme challenges.

On the technical front, I put on a short discussion of Photographic Noise – what causes it and how you can reduce it's impact on your images. This also will be posted to our Youtube site.

Four separate slideshows filled out the remainder of the meeting. Two of the slideshows related to our outings during the month – one at Glen Ross and the other at Port Traverse. A third slideshow covered the results of our Night Photography Workshop held at Wellington Beach on a very cold and windy January evening. The theme challenge – Frigid – rounded out the night's proceedings with some wonderful images of our Canadian winter. All of these slides have been uploaded to our Facebook Page for your viewing and sharing.

Upcoming theme challenges include Window Light for February and Negative Space & Minimalismfor March. Our next club outing will be on Sunday Feb 21st 2PM at Lake Shore Lodge (Sandbanks Provincial Park).

Thanks to all who attended and participated.

All Hail to the Hardy!

Our January meeting took place under threatening skies and howling winds. Even horizontal sleet didn't deter a dedicated audience of avid photographers from attending. Everyone was anxious to see the Member's Choice images to get an idea of the style and preferences of our varied group of members. We had 30 submitters to this year's free-for-all show and the images transcended all genres and touched many geographical locations. For those who couldn't make the session, please go to our Facebook page to see these wonderful images.

Ramesh Pooran and Dave Tugwood put on another tempting display and discussion on Night Photography, essentially recapping some of the adhoc workshops held last Fall on the subject. They are waiting for the Night Skies to clear and hope to have another workshop going in the next few weeks – I'll keep you posted as soon as a date is set.

The second half commenced with a side-trip to a very photogenic location – Iceland. Janice Ruggles-Bolton stopped there for a few days this past May on her way from Scotland and captured some great images for us all to see. Our final presenter for the evening was Bert Jenkins who demonstrated his processing workflow using Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop Elements. All was going well until Billy Gates sent the infamous “Blue Screen of Death” to fry Bert's computer. I remain very thankful for Linux!

We are planning a wintry outing to the Point Traverse lighthouse this coming Saturday Jan 16^th. We plan to meet there at 11AM.

Our theme challenges for the next 60 days are – January's theme is Frigid, while February's is Window Light.

Thanks to all who braved our once-fierce Canadian winter!

2015 CFC Awards Gala

We had a full house at the newly renovated Ristorante Wellington Biblioteca – well not really, but it certainly looked and felt that way last night. We were treated to a wonderful array of foods for all tastes and palates. The room was beautifully decorated with Christmas tree, twinkly lights and seasonal place settings on the tables - all adorning our "banquet" hall. Christmas music and member seasonal images added to the party-like atmosphere.

We started the meeting with two slideshows which included images submitted from 25 of our members. The November theme slideshow was all about composition – namely Rule of Thirds & Variants – while our outing for the month was from the lighting of Napanee's downtown business core – buildings literally drenched with seasonal lights – “drenched” being the operative word as were the photographers on that eventful club outing! We even managed to get Charlie Brown & his Gang to help put together the Napanee lights material – have a look if you didn't make it to the meeting – both slideshows have been posted to our Facebook page.

After gluttonously devouring the wonderful entrees and deserts, the second half of the evening was opened by a short review of 2015 put together with the help of our friend - the Pink Panther. After a fervent introduction & reception (much of it canned applause!), David Gilbert and I took to the stage to present some of the most coveted trophies in all of fotoland. After reviewing over 3300 images submitted over the course of the past 12 months, it was boiled down to 4 nominated images for each of 19 separate categories, plus one overall Image of The Year Award. The categories and the winners were:

Award	Winner	Image Title
Portrait	Glen Dobson	10th Birthday
Sports/Action	Anna Lam	Somersaults
Altered Reality	Janice Ruggles-Bolton	Birds of a Feather
Aquatician	Caspar Radden	Wicked Waves
Animal	Marilyn Holland	Orange Feline
Funniest Image	Carol Quinn	Eye Boggling
In The Mood	Bert Jenkins	Cobble Stone Lane
Nightscape	Margaret Liddon	A Lover's View
Most Adventuresome	Dave Tugwood	-
Monochrome	Bob Stock	Grove
Photoshopper of the Year	Glen Dobson	Bon Echo Kayaks
Architecture	Lew Mitz	Sailing
Slideshow of the Year	Bert Jenkins	River Cruise
Use of Colour	Jan Swenson	Inks
Composition	Ramesh Pooran	Comin' In
Floral	Daphne Creasy	Bursted Pod
Shallowest Photographer	Dave Tugwood	Singin' the Blues
Landscape	Alan Jenner	Morning Light
Light Painter	Dave Tugwood	Starry Night in the County
2015 Image of the Year	Mags Kandis	Petting

Congratulations to all our 2015 CFC Award winners. The full Awards Presentation is available for viewing on our Youtube channel.

Our next meeting will be on January 10th and our theme challenge for December will be Member's Choice.  Due to the busy Xmas period, we will not have a formally scheduled outing for December, but will have one early in January, so more on that later. Our January theme challenge (2 months advance notice) is Frigid – so interpret as you will!

Thanks for everyone who came out to the Gala and especially to our helpers who created the wonderful atmosphere for our special night.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

November Meeting in Retrospect

At Sunday's meeting we were treated to a cross country whirlwind trip that displayed Canada's wildlife at it's finest. Kyle Blaney showed us images captured on his 20,000km camping trip this past Spring which started close to home – in Belleville - and ended up in Vancouver via the Northwest Territories. Rare birds and encounters with confused bears and angry otters were but a part of his very enjoyable presentation. Kyle also discussed his role as outreach coordinator for the Shad enrichment program for gifted teens prior to their entry to our universities and encouraged more local representation in this program.

We also reviewed the results of our Sept 24^th LightPainting workshop that was held on the Belleville waterfront and led by Glen Dobson.

Three slideshows completed the evening's events, including a Glimpse of the Island and People of Cuba (by James Archbold & Kathryn MacDonald), our Ameliasburgh outing slideshow and the monthly theme A Splash of Colour show. The images from the later two slideshows have been uploaded to our Facebook page for your viewing pleasure.

The meeting was well attended and we had great member participation in submitting material for the meeting with 32 individuals sharing their work for our collective review. Thanks to all who participated.

 The theme challenge for November is Rule of Thirds & Variants (images due at the end of November). The theme for December will be Member's Choice - to be shown at our January meeting. These Choice images can be from your portfolio of past images on any subject of your choosing.

Our outing for November will be held on lucky Friday November 13^th. It will be a night shoot of the lighting of the festive lights in downtown Napanee. There will be a large street party with musicians and the like – lots to shoot.

Next meeting (Sunday, Dec 6^th) is our annual CFC Awards Night & Gala with gormet pot-luck dining and great comeraderie.

Thanks again and happy shooting!

Ken

October Meeting - Raising the Bar!

October's meeting was very well attended and included image contributions from 27 of our members. At the meeting, the bar was raised on our photographic artistry with incredible views of the Night Skies & Nightscapes by Dave Tugwood and Ramesh Pooran. Their images and presentation elicited great interaction with the assembled group and I will be posting these slides to our Youtube channel shortly. They were followed by Bert Jenkins, who gave us a wonderful display of his use of light, shadow and detail in his Hungarian River Cruise slideshow.

 

Margaret put on the fourth in our series of Art Composition episodes, this time covering the Rule of Thirds and delving heavily into Da Vinci's Golden Section and the Fibonacci Spiral. It is interesting to see how classical art and modern photography corroborate their use of such compositional elements. The evening also included a discussion on Prime vs Zoom Lenses and how different camera/lens combinations can affect resulting optical performance. We recommend going to DxOMark.com website if you are in the market for a new camera and/or lens to see how they measure up under test.

The evening also featured our audio-visual slideshows for our September club outing – the Picton Fair – and our September theme challenge which asked members to interpret compositional elements of Framing &/or Balance. The Picton Fair outing was held in the evening this time around and we received some remarkable images of carnival lights at night - sights that can only be seen/recorded by a camera (long exposure with tripods in tow!). Both of these slideshow images have now been uploaded to our Facebook page, in case you missed them.

The theme challenges for the upcoming two months are – A Splash of Colour for October and Rule of Thirds & Variants for November. Our outing for October will be held on Sunday October 18^th (2pm) at the Harry Smith Conservation area in Ameliasburgh – a nice easy Autumn walk in the park.