The Club welcomed a good turn out of members and four guests to our final “competition night” of the 2012 / 2013 season.

President Dave Noordhoff reported that the following have agreed to let their name stand for election to Club offices:

• Dave Noordhoff – President
• Vince Gagnier – Vice-President
• Chad Barry – Vice-President
• Carson Plant – Treasurer
• Melanie Denis – Secretary
• Angel Rublik – Secretary
• Tere Deslippe – Executive Assistant
• Chris Jorgensen – Executive Assistant

If there are any further nominations, please contact Chris J at:
chrisj@mnsi.net.

The executive have also appointed the following:

• Herman Giethoorn – CAPA Co-ordinator
• Les McCracken – Print Manager
• Margaret Chrysler – Welcoming Manager
• Dennis Skipper – Slide Projector and Film Manager
• Kathryn Parent – Facebook Manager
• Paul Schmoldt – Competitions Manager
• Gavin Stuart – Assistant Competitions Manager
• Jim Pollock – Web Site Co-ordinator

If anyone else would like to volunteer, please contact Dave at:
Dave@Noordhoffs.com

Treasurer Larry Kearns gave his year end financial report, audited by Chad Barry. The report was unanimously accepted with gratitude from the membership. Thank you gentlemen.

Our featured speaker of the evening was Gavin Stuart, who gave a well organized and thoughtful presentation on Shooting In Manual: How and Why

• Manual Mode is very useful in difficult shooting conditions
• Manual settings give a great deal of control over your exposure
• Start by deciding what you most want to control; depth of field or motion.
  For stationary objects, decide on the depth of field you want and set the aperture accordingly. For moving subjects, choose a shutter speed that will freeze the action the way you want it to look
• Select the lowest possible ISO to keep noise to a minimum
• Use your camera’s control dials to move the needle to the middle of the scale

Judging was held for the Novice group in the Movement category while the Intermediate and Advanced members entered Black And White photos. The scores from those entries will be revealed at our next meeting.

Our final gathering of the season is slated for May 14th when competition awards will be announced. A special presentation by Frank Vadovic is sure to be a treasured highlight. Don’t miss it!

Chris J reported that there is still time for nominations for next season’s offices for President, two Vice-Presidents, Treasurer, Secretary and Executive Assistants. Paul is looking for someone to train as Co-Competition Manager. This is your club. If you can help make it better, why not step up? E-mail your nominations to Chris at chrisj@mnsi.net.

Our final Workshop Meeting of the season kicked off with Dave Noordhoff’s Western Parks Sampler slideshow, which featured his collection of photos taken on his four tours of the American Southwest. The beautiful rock formations, the spectacular colours and abandoned towns were of particular fascination to our members. Great job Dave!

Laird VanderEnde used his 15 Minutes Of Fame to showcase his talent in a multitude of shooting scenarios. His flower, insect, scenic and butterfly shots showed how he uses the creative ability from his woodworking career to capture some truly amazing photographs. Well done, Laird.

The Club’s “Prince of Prints”, Les McCracken, reviewed and critiqued the printed photos brought in by our members. As always, his comments were thoroughly enjoyed by all.

Members are reminded that they should bring their cameras to our next meeting on April 23^rd if they would like to learn more about shooting in Manual Mode following Gavin Stuart’s presentation.

Chris J closed the meeting by offering our thoughts and prayers to Frank V. Get well soon dear friend. We’re thinking of you.

All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for the inability to notice.

President Dave Noordhoff welcomed 50 members and 2 guests as well as one new member. The Club was reminded that there is no membership fee for students and we encourage anyone currently attending classes to join us for free.

Dave was fortunate enough to be able to photograph the comet Pan STARRS while he was in Florida recently. You can see his photo in our Club Photos section.

Nominations are now open for the May 14th elections for the office of President, two Vice-Presidents, Treasurer, Secretary and Executive Assistants. If you would like to stand for office or nominate someone, please contact our Elections Co-ordinator, Chris Jorgensen .

Due to a scheduling conflict, ALL COMPETITION ENTRIES for our meeting on April 23rd, namely Novice -”Movement” and Intermediate And Advanced – ”Black and White/Monochrome Open”, are due FRIDAY APRIL 5th @ 8 PM. As always, e-mail them to Paul Schmoldt.

The Club’s long-time friend, Don Martel, introduced our guest speaker, Evelyn Symons, a free lance photographer and journalist for Sun Media. Evelyn presented a fascinating slideshow featuring her photos of news events, sports, nature, scenic and portraits. She then spoke about the importance of TELLING THE STORY by giving us tips on how to do so.

• Be ready for anything regarding light, weather and event changes
• Get high or low whenever possible
• Make good use of deep or shallow depth of field
• Take the time to really look at a scene
• Use lines, textures, patterns and reflections
• Get to know something about your subject
• Keep an eye for subjects at your feet
• Take different shots of the same thing
• Keep experimenting
• Take note of places you’d like to re-visit
• Don’t worry about making mistakes
• When you think you’ve seen it all, keep looking
• Take a fresh look at the familiar by looking up, down, behind and shooting from different angles.

The Club wishes to thank Evelyn for her thought provoking presentation and we look forward to having her and Don visit us again in the near future.

Judging was held for our CCC Competition for Novices’ Repetition as well as Intermediate and Advanced members’ Movement entries. High scores were achieved in the Novice group by Diane Guay, Chad Berry and Cathy Dent. In the Intermediate and Advanced group, Dave Noordhoff, Frank Vadovic, Jim Pollock, Melanie Denis and Margaret Manson led the way. You can see the top scoring pictures of the night on our Club Photos page.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday, April 9th. See our Meeting Schedule for details.

A snapshot merely shows the world what your camera sees,
but when you create a composition, you show the world what you see.

This month’s featured photographer is Diane Schives.

Dividing her time between her family, her dogs and being a substitute school teacher, Diane is also a keen student of photography. She puts her vivid imagination and excellent composition skills to good use when capturing her beautiful nature photos. You can see some of Diane’s work on our Photo In Focus page.

In Dave Noordhoff’s absence, Vice-President Vince Gagnier welcomed 42 members and 4 guests to the March 12th Workshop meeting.

Frank Vadovic was our featured Photo Fixer, who showed The Club how he could make several shots more interesting by simply cropping them differently using Photoshop, Elements or acdsee. Well done Frank.

The highlight of the evening was Margaret Manson’s 15 Minutes Of Fame slideshow which featured some of her most outstanding work. Club members were treated to her beautiful nature, landscape and people shots that she has taken on her world-wide travels. This wonderful collection of straight-out-of-the-camera photos showed what a remarkable photographer we have in our group and gave those of us who rely on post processing something to think about. Congratulations Margaret!

Les McCracken reviewed our print displays which followed a “Humour” theme. Oddly, several photos were reportedly taken in Ireland, while others were more of a personal nature. Some talk of “pay-back” circulated among those in attendance.

Judging was completed for our CCC competitions held over from last meeting, with the Novice group submitting in the Panorama category and Intermediate and Senior members showing their entries for Repetition. Several interesting and innovative images were entered. You can view the top scoring shots of the evening on our Club Photos page.

Our next meeting will be on March 26th, when photojournalist Evelyn Symons will be our guest speaker.

There are always two people in every picture:
the photographer and the viewer.

Despite the inclement weather, a good turnout was on hand to welcome three guests and one new member to The Club.

Judging was held for upcoming CAPA competitions in the Open and Nature categories, with some excellent photos being chosen as our entries.

Dave Noordhoff led a demonstration of different ways to carry cameras, lenses and accessories with the help of Vince Gagnier and Jim Pollock. The Club was shown several products, including equipment made by Think Tank,
Cotton Carrier and Black Rapid. Paul Schmoldt showed us some of the essensials he carries in his gadget bag, including cleaning cloths, bandages, kneeling pads and plastic bags.

Due to the icy road conditions that were developing, the meeting ended early and the judging for the CCC competitions will be held at our March 12th gathering.

This month’s featured photographer is Noel Courtice.

Since joining the CCC about four years ago, Noel has been an enthusiastic contributor to our competitions, especially CAPA. Now retired from his career as a pharmacist, Noel seized the opportunity to take an African Safari a couple of years ago and returned with many once-in-a-lifetime pictures. The beautiful garden at his home also provides him with excellent photo opportunities. A small sample of Noel’s work can be viewed on our Photo In Focus page.

This month’s workshop meeting kicked off with our Photo Fixer segment, featuring Bill Godfrey. Bill demonstrated how he uses Nik Software to enhance tonal contrast, boost detail, introduce lens blur, add an oval vignette, change the shot to black and white and put a border around the picture. You can download a fully functional, 15 day trial of Color Efex Pro 4, Silver Efex Pro 2 and Viveza. Free on-line tutorials are also available. These programs are a staple of many of our Advanced members.

Paul Schmoldt presented CAPA’s best shots from this year’s Altered Reality competition, which contained some truly inspiring work. Great job on the slideshow Paul!

A video demonstration on How A Camera Is Made gave us all a deeper appreciation for the technology that we often take for granted. You can see it again here:

Les McCracken reviewed our displayed prints and complimented several fine efforts.

Our newest member, Chad Barry, showed The Club how he achieves variations of a picture by adding clouds using Photoshop layer masks, changing the shot to black and white, turning a photo into a night scene and overlaying a texture. There are several good tutorials available on YouTube for those interested in learning Chad’s methods.

Our next meeting on February 26th will be highlighted by CAPA competitions for Open and Nature. The CCC competition for the Novice group is Panorama, while the Intermediates and Seniors will enter photos that feature Repetition. See the Meeting Schedule page for more details.

Photography is the art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place.