April Club Meeting - What you missed!

Our meeting on Sunday was very well attended and we once again received great support and participation from many of you. In total, 36 of us submitted images for the night’s slideshows and presentations.

The session started with Ramesh presenting a summary of the latest array of Mirrorless Camera offerings, explaining their advantages/disadvantages relative to a standard DSLR. Excellent fodder for anyone currently looking to upgrade their camera equipment!

Our outing slideshow depicted a trip to the Frink Centre on what turned out to be one of the colder days of the winter, even though it was mid-March. Fifteen of us made the trek and captured some interesting and varied subjects ranging from an Indian Teepee and frozen forest to a busy beaver and even a great grey owl.

Our main presenter of the night was Mike Montgomery who introduced us to the Use of Layers in graphics editing, using Adobe Photoshop as his preferred application. The purpose was to get a good understanding of the basics – how layers worked and how you could use them to improve your imagery. The tutorial has been uploaded to our Youtube channel. Mike was not finished though, as he opened the second half of our meeting with a slideshow entitled The Bohemian Experience depicting the photographic wonder of areas of the Czech Republic and Austria.

Next on the Agenda was a tag-team presentation on Five Great Canadian Photographers, picking up from an on-going theme over the past year. Margaret discussed the work of Yousuf Karsh and Roberta Bondar, Bert discussed Freeman Patterson and I handled Edward Burtynsky and John Rowlands. All five have very unique photographic styles and subject matter, and all are well recognized in their respective fields.

Our final slideshow of the night covered our theme challenge - Shadows & Silhouettes. Thirty-three individuals submitted a wonderful array of images interpreting this theme. The individual images for this and our Outing slideshow have been uploaded to our public Facebook page.

The meeting concluded with providing theme challenges for the next 60 days- Water on the Move ... for April and The Awakening for May.

March Meeting - an Overview

We've now entered our fifth year of operation and our meetings keep getting bigger and better – although this one also ran a little longer than we had expected. The meeting covered a lot of topics starting with a discussion by Mike Montgomery of the inevitability of precious data/image loss and how to provide Backup protection. This is an important subject that we will address in more detail at a future meeting.

The evening really started to get interesting with a session entitled – Processing By Others. Following a short introduction from Ansel Adams, five of our advanced photographers (Doug Smith, Mike Montgomery, Marilyn Sprissler, Dave Tugwood & Chris Ward) took up the challenge which involved submitting one raw file image and having it processed by all five of them. Even they were surprised (and somewhat amused) by the results. It really was facinating how different, yet effective, each of the images were processed. Ansel would have been proud of the resulting “performances” of the raw file “scores”.

As usual, slideshows dominated the night’s agenda starting with our club outing to the Ranney Gorge area near Campbellford. Freshly fallen snow covered an icy trail with many a spill along the way – but that didn’t get in the way of some excellent image taking. Daphne Creasy and Janice Ruggles-Bolton treated us to a very different landscape with their Canyons & Beyond show featuring exotic scenery of Utah, Arizona and Nevada from their trip last fall to the area. Our theme challenge slideshow of the evening once again was so well subscribed that it had to be split into two sections. Thirty-three members contributed over 250 images in total to the Our World – First in Colour, Then in Black & White/Polychrome theme. The club outing slides, along with Part 1 and Part 2 theme slides have been uploaded to our public Facebook page.

The main presenter of the night was Chris Ward who took us through his Panorama techniques and processing wizardry to arrive at those large high definition images that he is becoming very well known for. We learned everything from how to avoid parallax to an extensive discussion of the use of layers and useful plugins for Adobe Photoshop. Chris talked to numerous examples of his work including one that took well over 100 individual images for the impressive pano. Chris produces beautiful works of art that take a lot of planning, execution and processing prowess.

The meeting concluded with providing the theme challenges for the next 60 days- Shadows & Silhouettes for March and Water on the Move ... for April. 

Thanks to all those who came out and especially to those who participated during the past month.

Competing with the Elements as well as the Super Bowl

Over thirty of our members braved the snowy conditions and forsook the stiff Super Bowl competition on Sunday to see and hear the creative works of many of our group. The evening showcased Alan Jenner’s recent experimentations with Smoke Photography. Not only did Alan show and tell us about this craft, but he also demo’ed the procedure and got some pretty impressive results to boot! Alan’s presentation materials are in the process of being prepared for upload to our Youtube channel for your viewing pleasure.

The evening started with a quick topic item on Tone Mapping where I explained one of the tools in your digital editing arsenal for handling the dynamic range issue and getting the most out of your camera’s raw file. That presentation will also be up on our Youtube channel in the next day or so.

Slideshows dominated the night’s agenda starting with our club outing to the Dunes in Winter (Sandbanks). Well it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day with no snow to be seen! Twelve of us put our cameras to work and the results have been posted to our public Facebook page – so go over and take a peak. Lewis Parker treated us to a topside view of the Grand Canyon that he took on a trip there last year. It truly is one of the natural wonders of the world. Our final slideshow of the evening had to be split in two as we had such great member participation in our Winter Ways ... theme challenge. Thirty-one members contributed well over 200 images in total to that theme. Both Part 1 and Part 2 slides have been uploaded to our public Facebook page.

We had one other significant agenda item – namely our What, Why, How segment where four of our own got up to talk to one of their images and how they crafted the fully processed version. Thanks to Mike Montgomery, Gail Hamilton, Doug Smith and Chris Ward for participating in this recurring feature.

As usual, the theme challenges for the next 60 days were handed down – Our World – First in Colour, Next in B&W/Poly for February and Shadows & Silhouettes for March. To clarify the February theme, we are asking for 4 pairs of images, the first in full colour and then the same image in B&W (or polychrome).

First Meeting of the New Year

Our first meeting of 2017 was attended by over 40 enthusiastic photographers – most of whom actively contributed to the many slideshows of the night.

The session started with a quick topic item directed to DSLR owners. Ian Dickinson demonstrated how to calibrate our lenses to ensure precise accuracy in focusing. The procedure utilized a small focussing target mechanism which can be down loaded freely from this Lens-Calibration-Tool link.

The first slideshow centred on our closest celestial orb – namely the moon and, in particular, the recent series of SuperMoons over the past few months. These images demonstrate the trade-offs photographers must make when capturing something so bright, quite often at the darkest hour of the night.

Our annual Show & Tell had participation from about a dozen of our members and featured everything from the latest mirrorless camera models to an antiquated dual lens film camera from sometime "BC". We were shown a number of very handy widgets including a photographer vest (converted fishing variety) and a clamp for securely supporting your camera when/where tripods are not appropriate.

 

The first half concluded with a slideshow of Part 1 of our Members Choice theme challenge. Over 260 images were submitted and as such it was decided to separate it into two slideshows. The quality of the imagery was incredible, featuring photos from exotic far-away places and those much closer to home.

Starting the second half of our meeting, Bert Jenkins depicted the cold majesty of our nearby Sandbanks dunes and shoreline (The Other Sandbanks) during the din of winter. Bert’s use of Black & White imagery not only suited the icy subject matter but also led nicely into our main art feature of the evening – a presentation by Margaret Liddon entitled The Art of Black & White Photography. Margaret touched on the importance of lines, shapes, shadows, patterns and contrast in achieving an effective monochrome image.

 

The final slideshow of the evening was a longer version of Part 2 of the Members Choice theme challemge. Slides from this meeting have been posted to our public Facebook page for your viewing pleasure. In addition, the two presentations will be available on our Youtube channel.

 

The themes for the next 60 days were handed down – Winter Ways – Pathways, Laneways, Roadways, ... for January and Our World – First in Colour, Next in B&W/Poly for February. For this later theme, we are asking for 4 pairs of images, first in full colour and then the same images in B&W.

Thanks again for all the participation and support.

2016 Awards Gala

It never ceases to amaze one as to how many people are attracted by an event promising gormet food at its core.  We had our largest turnout ever and were still able to comfortably seat and apportion all the delicious food.

The evening commenced with two slideshows which included images submitted by 32 members. Our outing show was the Firelight Lantern Festival, coupled with some images from Pumpkinferno at Upper Canada Village.  These venues were great tests of high ISO, hand-held, night photography.  The month's theme slideshow was entitled Abstract, which forced some people far out of their normal comfort zone.  In addition, we rapidly realized that we do have a number of really "warped" individuals in our midst!  Both slideshow image sets have been posted to our Facebook page.

The food tables were absolutely incredible.  The variety of superb entrees and delicious (low-cal???) deserts was endless.  Needless to say, no-one left the premises hungry.

In hour two, David Gilbert and I took to the stage, to recognize and reward some tremendous imagery from our members.  After reviewing in excess of 3400 images submitted over the course of the past 12 months, the very best were assigned to 19 separate categories, eventually ending up with four contenders  for each award category - not all that original (Oscars anyone?) but very effective just the same! In addition, the club recognized the 2016 Photographer of The Year - a most deserving award for our overall winner - Mr. Dave Tugwood. 

The categories and the winners are:

Award	Winner	Image Title
Use of Colour	Leonard Buffett	You Can't See Me
Exotic Locale	Mags Khandis	Living on the Edge
Floral	Robert Logan	Delicate
Monochrome	Bert Jenkins	Arctic Isolation
Capturing People	Inge Radden	Tyendinega Warrior
Mastery of Light	Myra Pritchett	O'Hara Cabin Light
Winged Creature	Ian Dickenson	Parula
Architecture	Larry Tayler	City Hall
Funniest Image	Gail Hamilton	Will I Ever Outlive This?
Nightscape	Dave Tugwood	Another Night at Point Petre
Display of Motion	Mike Gaudaur	Tree Shake
Abstract	Dave Tugwood	Neon Sticks
Slideshow of the Year	Doug Smith	China & S.E. Asia
Limbed Creature	Jan Swenson	Wild Horses
Master Manipulator	Margaret Liddon	Lost in the Forest
Street Photography	Janice Ruggles-Bolton	Pirate on the Loose
Local Landscape	Glen Dobson	Point Petre Sunset
At Close Range	Alan Jenner	Follow the Leader
Composition	Marilyn Sprissler	Pacific Pier
2016 Photographer of the Year	Dave Tugwood

Congratulations to all our 2016 CFC Award winners. The full Awards Presentation is now available for viewing on our Youtube channel.

Our next meeting will be on January 8th and our theme challenge for December is entitled Member's Choice.  Our January theme challenge is Winter Ways - Laneways, Roadways, Railways, Pathways, ... – do have fun with this one.

Thanks to everyone who came out to our annual Gala event and a very special thanks to Margaret and her helpers who created a great festive atmosphere for our special night.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays