Our Featured Photographer for February is Dave Paddick

When it comes to weather and storm photography, Dave Paddick has set the standard for other CCC members to aspire to. Through practice and patience, Dave has developed his techniques using specialized equipment to track storm formations and movements and has achieved stunning results. He and Kathryn Parent can often be found at local events, offering their beautiful pictures for sale. You can see a brief sample of his work on our Photo In Focus page.

51 members braved the chilly temperatures to attend our January 27^th meeting.

• President Vince Gagnier announced that a year-end party is scheduled for May 22^nd at Smitty’s Restaurant in Chatham from noon until 2PM. If you plan on attending, please let Vince know by e-mail at: vgagnier@mnsi.net

• By request, Patricia Kral completed the critique that she started at the December 9^th meeting. Pat pointed out how colour, lighting and Depth Of Field affect where the viewer’s eye goes to in a variety of Club member’s pictures. Our thanks go out to Patricia for a job well done.

• Paul Schmoldt reported on our CAPA entries for Altered Reality and Light, which were judged off-site.
In the Altered Reality category, Carson Plant, Dave Stewart, Reagan Smolders, Paul Schmoldt, Laird VanderEnde and Jim Pollock had their photos selected for submission. For Light, pictures from Butch Dompierre, Mike Blazek, Keith Blackwell, Dave Noordhoff, Carson Plant and Dave Stewart were chosen. Thanks to all who entered.

• Our February CCC Competition was held for the Novice group in the category Nuts.
High marks went out to Reagan Smolders, Mary Craig, Bob Miller, Debbie Venne and Steven Taylor.

Wheels was the topic for the Intermediate, Advanced and Salon members,
with Melanie Denis, Lori Cooper, Collin Cooper, Jason Cooper and Jim Pollock receiving the top scores.

• Our next meeting will be Tuesday, February 10^th when Mike Blazek will present How to pose people for formal and informal portraits and Dave Noordhoff investigates Noise characteristics of your camera.

Members are invited to bring in a print for display of any size, any topic.

To develop the creative eye that it takes to create great photos we need to be on the constant lookout for unexpected opportunities.

When working in extremely cold weather, try not to breathe on your viewfinder or your lens. Moisture from your breath will freeze to the cold glass and can be difficult to clean off.

Despite the extreme cold, our first meeting of the calendar year brought out 48 members, 3 guests and 2 new members.

• Kathryn Parent was featured in How to shoot storms and other interesting weather, where she showed us some of her stunning weather shots and what it takes to capture them. Safety was one of Kathryn’s main concerns and she made sure that would-be weather chasers understood the dangers of potentially violent storms. Many of us find this area of photography to be absolutely fascinating and extremely difficult to achieve and we thank Kathryn for sharing some of her knowledge and techniques. Several of those in attendance said they were inspired to give shooting interesting weather a try.

Some of the resources that Kathryn and Dave use to find interesting weather are:
– WunderMap
– Intellicast.com
– AccuWeather.com
– WeatherBug.com

• Vince Gagnier and Dave Noordhoff reviewed some of the prints that were brought in for display. Club members love to see what others have been shooting and if you’d like to participate, your next opportunity will be on Tuesday, February 10^th. Any size, any subject is welcomed. Don’t be shy. We’d love to see some of your work.

The work of other people can be key in helping you to develop your own style, hone your skills and increase your knowledge.

Ten Questions To Ask When Taking A Photo

1. What story am I telling?
2. What is the visual focal point of this shot?
3. What competing focal points are there?
4. What is in the background and foreground?
5. Am I close enough?
6. What is the main source of light?
7. Is my framing straight?
8. What other perspectives could I capture this subject from?
9. How will the eye travel through this image?
10. How would holding the camera in the other format change this shot?

Our featured photographer for January is Barb Ferren.

A regular contributor to The Club’s competitions, Barb’s favourite subjects are her children and grand-children. Along with nature, sports and scenic shots, she has also shown a gift for capturing unique abstracts, several of which are simply outstanding. In her spare time, Barb also fits volleyball into her busy schedule. For a look at some of her contributions, see our Photo In Focus page.

54 members, including 3 new ones, welcomed 2 guests to our final meeting of the 2014 calendar year.

• President Vince Gagnier informed The Club that our Nicole Maynard has had one of her photos used for the cover of Trucking Today magazine. Congratulations Nicole.

• Our CAPA representative, Herman Giethoorn, gave us the results of the most recent “Digital Fine Art” competition, where Jean DeBruyn and Reagan Smolders each scored 24 and Carson Plant was given an Honourable Mention for his 28 point shot. As a group, The CCC placed 8th out of 27 competing clubs. Great job everyone!

“Jenny” by Carson Plant

• Dave Noordhoff’s Tech Talk was aimed at those who are challenged by resizing and renaming images for Club competitions. Step by step instructions were giving for
Photoshop,
Lightroom,
FastStone,
Elements
Canon’s DPP.

• Patricia Kral led a group discussion of our recent “Barns and Silos” entries where she suggested several ways some of the images might have been improved. Thanks to all who participated.

• Keith Blackwell reviewed his Technical Challenge #1 – Design Guides, by showing four excellent examples that were submitted to him. For more on this fascinating subject, check out Digital Photography’s page on Divine Composition.

• Les McCracken and Dave Noorhoff reviewed some of the prints that our members brought in for display. As always there were several beautiful shots that received high praise. If you would like to show The Club one or two of your favourite photos, your next opportunity to do so will be at our January 13^th meeting. We encourage all of our members to bring in a print and show the rest of us what you’ve been shooting.

• We’d like to remind everybody that entries for the next CAPA competitions, “Altered Reality” and “Light”, are to be sent to Paul Schmoldt at viking@mnsi.net no later than Friday, January 2^nd at 8 PM. 1 entry per category per member. All entries should be sized 1400 pixels Horizontal, 1050 pixels Vertical Maximum for ultimate projection impact – jpg format.

People insist on assigning limits to cameras and lenses, but the limits reflect more about the people who want to limit the devices than about the equipment’s capabilities.

Lens caps will transfer dust and debris to the lenses you mount them on. Cleaning your lens caps every time you clean your lenses is a very small chore, but it will help keep your expensive gear functioning at its best.

Our featured photographer this month is Keith Blackwell.

Coming to us from Strathroy, Keith is one of the most innovative and artistically gifted photographers in The Club. For the past two years he has helped put together our Technical Challenges that have covered a variety of topics that have given us all a chance to become more skilled and knowledgeable in the art of photography. Keith’s top quality images have set a standard that we can all aim to achieve. When not behind a camera he also enjoys sailing and ballroom dancing. Have a look at some of Keith’s excellent photos on our Photo In Focus page.

80 current members welcomed 1 new member and 2 guests to our November Main Meeting.

• The Club’s Bruce Warwick is now the Chairman of the local Time Capsule Committee, who are planning a time capsule that will be opened in 100 years. The Committee is looking for prints of local schools, churches and historic buildings. Submissions may be dropped off at the Chatham News, attention Editor, Dean Muharrem.

• Executive Assistant Shannon L’Ecuyier was featured in our What I Shoot segment where she showed pictures of her family at play, at the beach and at leisure. Also included were landscapes, old buildings, flowers, food, birds, bugs, butterflies, abstracts and panoramas. Our thanks goes out to Shannon for a job well done.

• Paul Schmoldt and Herman Giethoorn reviewed our CAPA “Nature” entries from last October. Although we submitted several excellent shots, The Club finished tied for 21st place out of 28.

• Martha Gillier critiqued a series of recently submitted photos and offered suggestions on how some of them could have been improved. Cropping out dead space, more attention to proper exposure and more accurate focusing were the main recommendations.

• Dave Noordhoff’s Tech Talk centered on Macro and Focusing
Dave reviewed some of his experiments which showed that in macro work, when you stop down to f-16, the depth of field increases, but sharpness falls off after f-11. This phenomenon is called Diffraction Limited Aperture. Thanks Dave for a clear and concise lesson that we can all put to use.

• The final CCC photo competitions of the calendar year had the Novice group offering “Barns and / or Silos” and the Intermediate / Advanced / Salon members showing the unusual topic of “Nuts”. As always, there were several original and clever creations submitted that stretched the bounds of our imaginations. The top scoring shots from the Novices were by Jacqueline Gruszka, Steven Taylor, Glen Spooner, Larry Taylor and Diana Donkers. The Intermediate / Senior / Salon group was led by Richard Armstrong, Keith Blackwell, Dave Noordhoff, Carson Plant and Chad Barry.

• Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 9^th.

Pack your gear wisely before every photo shoot. Remember, opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.

The world’s first digital camera was invented by Kodak in 1975. The 8 pound camera recorded 0.01 megapixel black and white photos to a cassette tape. The first photograph took 23 seconds to create. To play back images, data was read from the tape and then displayed on a television set.

Our November 11^th meeting was attended by 76 members and guests, including 5 new members.

President Vince Gagnier announced that The Club’s Bruce Warwick has become the Chairman of the local Time Capsule Committee, who are planning a time capsule which will be opened in 100 years. Bruce is looking for photos of Chatham – Kent to be included. Submissions may be dropped off at the Chatham News, attention Editor, Dean Muharrem.

• Our usual Christmas Breakfast will be replaced by a get-together at the end of the year, when more people are available.

• Our guest speaker, Ted Kloske from Henry’s Photo in Windsor, showed The Club some of the images he has captured of Urban Decay in and around the Detroit area in a slide show titled Deserted Beauty. The collection included shots from the Packard factory, the Fisher Body plant and Bob-Lo, as well as abandoned houses, churches, theatres and hospitals. The graffiti covered walls, broken windows, antiquated office equipment and archaic manufacturing tools made for a fascinating glimpse into the past.

These photo-ops are not without some risks however, including sketchy people, unsafe structures, potential trespassing fines and equipment loss. Ted offered these safety tips:
– Don’t carry a lot of expensive equipment. Use an old camera and an inexpensive lens, along with a tripod, a spare battery, extra memory card and a wireless remote trigger.
– Beware of black mould or asbestos, often found in abandoned places.
– Wear steel-toe boots and long pants. Carry a cell phone, bring food and water and make sure you have out-of-province medical coverage.

As always, Ted’s work left us with new inspiration to try to seek out scenes we may have overlooked in the past. The Chatham Camera Club wishes to thank Ted for making the trip to Chatham and we look forward to seeing him again soon.

The YouTube video below shows scenes similar to Ted’s slideshow.

• Keith Blackwell and Dave Noordhoff presented their Technical Challenge #1: Photographic Design.

The challenge is to find your photos or take new ones that include the photo design principles of The Rule Of Thirds, Diagonal Lines, Triangles, The Golden Ratio and The Golden Spiral.

An excellent review that explains Keith’s challenge can be found at Digital Photography School’s article on Devine Composition

When you have found examples of four of these design principles, overlay your shot with the correct lines, size them to the regular competition size of 1400 x 1050 and e-mail them to Keith at keithblackwell@xplornet.ca by December 5th so that he may review them during our January workshop meeting.

Remember, if you came to The Club to learn, this is your chance. Don’t just blow this off. Take a few minutes and get into this little project. You’ll become a better photographer for it, and isn’t that why we’re all here?

• Les McCracken commented on some of the prints that were brought in for display, with several gaining high praise, including shots by Dave Summerfield, Clarke Warner, Paul Schmoldt, Dave Paddick, Chad Berry, Angel Rublik and Carson Plant. If you would like to show The Club a favourite print or two, your next opportunity to do so will be on December 9th. Any size and subject matter is more than welcome.

Not everything in every light and at all moments will translate into a great image.

Always carry an extra camera battery. It’s not that you will often run out of battery, it’s that you will always worry about running out of battery.