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.

Our Photo In Focus feature this time around is Angel Rublik.

Traveling to our meetings from La Salle, Angel is an enthusiastic shooter who enjoys all types of photography. Always anxious to learn, she makes excellent use of her artistic ability and has made great strides in her knowledge in the year and a half that she has been with The Chatham Camera Club. Have a look at some of her work in our Photo In Focus section.

This month’s main meeting featured the judging of our CAPA entries for Sports Action as well as Club competition for our Novice group in the One category and Intermediate and Advanced in the Panorama category. The top scoring images by Colin Cooper, Angel Rublik, Dave Noordhoff, Harry Arneill, Doug Cooper, Paul Schmoldt and Mike Blazek, can be seen in our Club Photos section.

Jim Pollock showed us the various tools he uses to modify flash, including:

• Gary Fong Light Sphere
• Flash Bender
• Flash Gels
• Flash Bracket

Our next meeting is on February 12th, when printmakers are asked to bring in a print of their choice. (Open)

Photography is no more about cameras than mathematics is about calculators.

Our first meeting of the new year, called Novice Night, was an evening of instruction in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Elements. Adam Harpula, Dave Noordhoff and Jim Pollock provided tutorials that were designed to show the power of these programs and encourage those not shooting in RAW to venture into a brave, new world. Several members expressed their thanks and we look forward to doing more of the same in the future. Because of the length of both programs, Margaret Manson graciously agreed to re-schedule her 15 Minutes Of Fame to another meeting.

Our topic for print display was Black and White Portrait, which saw several fine examples of this type of photography.

Dave Noordhoff gave a brief tour of our website and urged us to explore the pages and links provided.

Our next meeting, on January 22nd, will feature

• CAPA Judging for Sports Action
• Club competition for Novices: One
• Club competition for Advanced and Intermediate: Panorama

See our Meeting Schedule for details.

Good photos are like good jokes, if you have to explain, it just isn’t that good.

This time “Photo In Focus” features Jim Pollock. As a superb photographer, he enjoys bird photography as well as landscapes and taking portraits of his grandchildren and his lovely wife Jill. Winning 1st. place in the Club’s year long competition in the Advanced Division last season is among many of his accomplishments. Jim is also a CAPA trained judge (Canadian Association for Photographic Art) and as such, is quite often asked to evaluate entries in our competitions.

Jim is currently our Web Co-ordinator and has been Vice President of the Chatham Camera Club in the past. He enjoys going out shooting with “The Viewfinders” (as “Red” or “Captain Click”) and being an avid proponent of “Get Out Of The Green Box”, we can always count on Jim to advise other Camera Club members, be it on photo equipment or camera settings.

Jim is a very generous person and since retiring from a local utility company 3 years ago, he volunteers at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. He is also one of the most humble, modest persons I know, and time spent in Jim’s company is always a delight and never boring as he has also the gift of coming up with hilariously funny one-liners.

Please have a look at some of Jim’s images by clicking on this blue link “Photo In Focus” or the tab on the menu bar.

paul schmoldt, competition manager, CCC

Our final meeting of the calendar year featured Mike Blazek’s segment on High Key Portraiture, a lighting technique in which the background is two stops lighter than the subject. With the help of our lovely model, Chanel, Mike used a white paper background, a softbox as a key light and two shoot-through umbrellas to make several beautiful images. The Club offers its thanks to Mike and Chanel for a very informative evening.

View Mike’s Powerpoint presentation on High Key Portraiture

For more information about High Key Lighting, watch this YouTube video.

For something simpler you can do at home, check this out.

Our CAPA Co-ordinator, Herman Giethoorn, reported the scores from our latest submissions in the Nature and Open categories. Several good marks helped The Chatham Camera Club rank in the middle of the pack, which is quite respectable for an organization our size.

Thanks to Andy Stockdill for the pictures from our recent Christmas Breakfast. Great job Andy!

The Prince of Prints, Les McCracken, reviewed our displayed photos, pointing out several strong images. We would encourage all of our members to bring Black And White Portraits to our next meeting, Tuesday, January 8th, 2013.

Time did not permit Dave Noordhoff to show his tutorial on Removing All But A Little Colour, but you can view it now by clicking Leaving Just A Little Bit In.

Great gear is all very nice, but it’s the six inches behind the camera that makes a photograph.