Our guest speaker this evening was London Camera Club president Harry Cartner, who presented a series of themed photographic slides that featured Colour, Urban Art, Monochrome, Architecture, Landscapes and Night. These were followed by slide shows titled Franklin Island, Following Colour, Graffiti, Morning Has Broken, Imperfect, Impermanent, Incomplete and Sounds Of Silence. Each of these provided some much needed photo inspiration during these difficult times as Harry revealed that he took these pictures with various inexpensive cameras and cell phones. The members of The Chatham Camera Club would like to thank Harry for his entertaining and inspiring presentation. He has shown us that great photos can be found in a wide variety of urban and rural locations if we just take the time to see what is around us.
Our next ZOOM meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 27th at 7 PM when Russ Chandler will provide us with Tips On Bird Photography. Our own Martha Gillier will be featured in What I Shoot and we will review our October Photo Challenge.
“You don’t need great gear to take great photos, but you do need certain gear to take certain photos.” – Harry Cartner,
Kicking off our 85th year of existence, The Chatham Camera Club held their first ZOOM meeting of the season with 28 members logged in.
Club Secretary Julie Fass facilitated the meeting and gave us an outline of how the program works.
Club President Jim Pollock explained that although virtual meetings are not always comfortable for everyone, they are really the only viable option at this time. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Evangel Church is not allowing anyone to use their meeting room. Other clubs in Southwestern Ontario are also using ZOOM, but some have suspended their meetings altogether. The CCC executive has decided to carry on as best we can.
Julie Fass read Rick McArthur’s audit of The Club’s finances and reported that all was in order.
Photo Challenge Manager Jana Smith presented an excellent slide show of the photos we took at our outing at Petrolia Discovery a few weeks back. It was fascinating to see the different perspectives that our members came up with. Hopefully we can enjoy another event like that next Spring.
Jana also revealed the final Photo Challenge standings from the 2019/2020 season. They are as follows:
Novice
1st Place – Debby Venne
2nd Place – Erica Spotton
3rd Place – Al Little
Intermediate
1st Place – Julie Fass
2nd Place – Wendy McDonald
3rd Place – Butch Dompierre
Advanced
1st Place – Linda Pepper
2nd Place – Tere Deslippe
3rd Place – Mary Craig
Salon
1st Place – Jim Pollock
2nd Place – Keith Blackwell
3rd Place – Carson Plant
Picture Of The Year
Linda Pepper
Jana also reviewed the competition categories for the 2020/2021 season.
Theme
Description
Intermediate, Advanced Salon Due Date
Novice Due Date
Open Black And White
Anything goes, but image must be your own
– Image must be black and white
18 October 2020
Looking Up
Change your perspective on your photography, and look up!
– Capture interesting and thought-provoking images while looking up and challenging our perspective.
18 October 2020
15 November 2020
Perfect Timing /
Frozen Motion
This competition is to test your skill in either capturing the perfect image, relative to the situation, or freezing motion, or both.
– You can submit one for each topic above;
– Or simply choose one and submit two images to one topic, the choice is yours.
15 November 2020
17 January 2021
Silhouette
Again, this competition theme is to help us play with light, but this time, the light is the critical part of the image, while the subject is nothing more than a silhouette.
– Note the background that is illuminated may be the challenge.
17 January 2021
14 February 2021
Sunrays
This photography theme is designed to test your skill at capturing light (sunrays) while still keeping the rest of the image both in focus and with clarity, (you can see or determine what the image is).
– Although I could not find any examples, the sunrays could be through a window into a room, etc.
14 February 2021
14 March 2021
Ice / Frozen Nature
This may be a challenge if we do not have a cold enough winter, but the challenge here is to capture images of ice or frozen nature.
– May consider ice crystal formation, icicles, frozen rain-enhanced nature, etc.
14 March 2021
18 April 2021
Open
Anything goes, but the image must be your own
18 April 2021
Jim Pollock explained that The Club is still sponsoring on-line photo magazines that are available through the Chatham-Kent Public Library. Instructions on how to access them will be e-mailed to Club members.
Our next ZOOM meeting will be held on October 13th when guest speaker Harry Cartner will present “To See is a Continuing Gift”. Our members will be notified of the access code a few days before the meeting.
If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.
Around 18 members of The Chatham Camera Club got together for a Walk-About photo shoot at Petrolia Discovery, 4381 Discovery Line, Petrolia on Saturday.
You can see some of the images we captured on our Club Photos page. If you would like to share your photos, kindly send them to Jim at JimAndJillPollock@hotmail.com
The top scoring shots from all divisions for our April Photo Challenge have been added to our Club Photos page.
Thanks to all who participated. All things considered, we had another great season! Let’s hope we can get together for a Walk-About soon. In the meantime, we hope that you will continue to photograph what you can, keeping the safety of you and others in mind.
Due to the ongoing situation with Covid-19 virus, the Chatham Camera Club executive has decided to cancel the rest of the 2019 / 2020 season. If things improve, we may be able to get together for a Walk-About or two during the summer. If not, we plan on regrouping next September if we are able.
Jim
The top scoring shots for the March 24th CCC Photo Challenge have been added to our Club Photos page.
Did you know that there is a pretty good photo editor included with Windows 10?
• President Jim Pollock introduced our guest speaker, Chad Barry.
Chad is a former Club member and now a professional photographer who gave a presentation he calls The Rock – A Land Apart, an exploration of Canada’s most eastern province and its inhabitants. Chad showed some of the spectacular photos that he has taken in Newfoundland, including the Cape St. Mary’s bird sanctuary, small fishing villages, Gros Morne National Park, and some of the interesting characters he’s met along the way. The Chatham Camera Club thanks Chad for his entertaining and informative display and looks forward to seeing him again soon.
For more from Chad, check out his YouTube video on Five Things You Can Do To Improve Your Photography.
• Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 24th when The Sarnia Camera Club’s Ian Sanderson will be our guest speaker. With the rise in popularity of cell phone photography, Ian will teach us how to improve our efforts.
• Jana Smith will present her travelogue.
• We will review our March CCC Photo Challenge submissions.
(to be submitted by March 15th by 11:59 PM)
– Novice – Long Exposure (slow shutter photography involving long duration shutter speed to sharply capture the stationary elements of an image, while blurring, smearing or obscuring the moving elements. The long exposure could be either during daylight or night.)
– Intermediate, Advanced, Salon – Macro (extreme close up photography in which the size of the subject is greater than life-size)
• Members are encouraged to bring a print of any size, any subject for display and discussion.
Anyone can take a picture. A person with passion sees the photo before it’s taken.
39 members and 1 guest attended our February 25th meeting.
• The Club participated in something completely different for us when we held our first Do It Yourself Show And Tell night. Various members showed the rest of the group little tricks, tips and homemade gadgets that they use to make their photography experience a little easier. Among the things we saw were:
– hook your camera strap to just one side to keep it out of your eyes when shooting in portrait mode.
– use part of a pool noodle as a car window, camera rest
– use a business card or a piece of tissue to soften a pop-up flash.
– a home made softbox made of cardboard
– use a drink cozy to protect small lenses when transporting them.
– adjustable clips to hold flowers still outdoors
– a plastic bag can be used to protect your camera in the rain.
– a focusing rail to aid in macro, multiple exposures
– use an old Pringles can as a snoot for your flash.
– use hand wipes to clean the oil and dirt off of your camera.
– mount a stick and some bird feed on an old tripod to photograph birds
For a few more tips and tricks, check out this YouTube video
• We were treated to Patty Arsenault’s photographs of her missionary trip to Uganda in our What I Shoot feature.
Her pictures of the native children, their customs and other daily activities were quite impressive. Thanks Patty. We really enjoyed your presentation!
• Entries from our February Photo Challenge were reviewed with Pat Beaton ( 21 pts), Ryan Carrall (21 pts), and Bruce Hutson (21 pts), getting high marks in the Novice Division’s Windows And Doors category. High points in the Intermediate, Senior and Salon groups went to Wendy McDonald (24 pts), Tere Deslippe ( 24 pts) and Jana Smith ( 23 pts) for their Long Exposure shots. Great job everyone! We saw some excellent work. You can see some of the top scoring shots on our Club Photos page.
• Mike Blazek and Keith Blackwell reviewed some of the prints that were brought in for display and gave high praise to several of them. Our next print display will be held on March 24th and we would love to see one of your favourite prints, any size, any subject.
• Jim Pollock reminded everyone that his term as Club President will expire after the May meeting and that someone else needs to step into the position. The main duties involved are hosting the meetings, bringing the laptop and projector, and signing a few cheques. As President, you are free to assign some of these duties to any willing participant. Remember, the meetings are laid out by the scheduling committee and the current executive will still be around for help and advice. If you have an interest in keeping The Club going into our 85th season next year, please give some serious thought into volunteering.
• Our next meeting will feature pro photographer Chad Barry who will provide another of his educating and entertaining photography lessons called “The Rock – A Land Apart.” An exploration of Canada’s most eastern province and it’s inhabitants.
Not everything in every light and at all moments will translate into a great image.
