• Meeting host Julie Faas introduced our guest speaker, Kathy Karn.

Kathy is a visual story teller, photographer, conservationist, and author of The Wisdom Of Elephants, a large, coffee table, photo memoir book about her encounters with Elephants. She spoke to The Club about her experiences photographing wildlife in Africa, which included fascinating photos of lions, kangaroos, and the geography of Kenya.
We want to thank Kathy for her fascinating presentation. It was thoroughly enjoyed by all of us.

• Our next meeting will be a LIVE meeting at Evangel Community Church, 76 Sandys St. Chatham on November 22^nd 2022.

– Antony Chodas from Camera Canada in London will bring us up to date on What’s New In Photo Equipment.

– Mike Blazek will be featured in What I Shoot.

– We will review our November Photo Challenge results.

– All members are invited to bring a photo print of any subject, any size for display and discussion.

– If you have photo related equipment that you would like to sell, bring it in. We’d love to have a look at it.

“Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt

• Club member Dave Noordhoff spoke to The Club about Lightroom’s new features.

• Brian Marchand was featured in our What I Shoot segment, where he showed us his scenic, architecture, nature, travel and automotive photos. Thanks Brian. We enjoyed your show.

• Entries from our October CCC Photo Competition were reviewed with Rochella Mulhern (2x 23.5 pts) and Kim Charron (22 pts), getting high scores in the Novice Division’s Photographer’s Choice, Black And White category. In the Flowers category the Intermediate group was led by Penny Rintoul (22.5 pts) and Catherine Dawson (2x 22 pts). Cathie Wright (23.5 and 23 pts) and Martha Gilliar had top marks in the Senior Division and Jim Pollock (25.5 and 24 pts), Tere Deslippe (2x 24.5 pts), and Linda Pepper (23.5pts) attained the high scores in the Salon group. Thank you and congratulations to all who entered. We saw many entries that can only be described as outstanding! You can see the top scoring photos on our Club Photos page. To view all of this month’s entries, check out the YouTube video below.

• Keith and Mike appraised some of the printed photos that were brought to our meeting, with several of them receiving high compliments.

• Now that live meetings have returned, we are pleased to restart highlighting some of the many talented members of our club. This month’s Featured Photographer is Cathie Wright.

Cathie shared a brief biography and some examples of her work for our Photo In Focus page.

• Our next meeting will be held via ZOOM on November 8^th, 2022 when our guest speaker will be Kathy Karn, who will share her experience in photographing elephants in Africa.

“The only thing that gets in the way of a really good photograph is the camera.” – Norman Parkinson

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• Meeting host Julie Faas introduced our guest speaker, Cheryl Belczak

Cheryl spoke to The Club about how she goes about creating her beautiful flower images, both in the field and in the studio. Some of her techniques included using a tripod for inside work, shooting in Manual Mode for complete control over the exposure, and using a dedicated macro lens paired with extension tubes to get close enough. She also explained her use of Photoshop layers to achieve her desired blend of subject and background.

The Chatham Camera Club would like to thank Cheryl for her wonderful presentation.

For a review of some of Cheryl’s work, check out her YouTube video

• Our next meeting will be a LIVE meeting at Evangel Community Church, 76 Sandys St. Chatham on October 25^th 2022.
– Dave Noordhoff will demonstrate Lightroom’s new features.
– Brian Marchand will be featured in What I Shoot.
– We will review our October Photo Challenge results.
– All members are invited to bring a photo print of any subject, any size for display and discussion.
– If you have photo related equipment that you would like to sell, bring it in. We’d love to have a look at it.

“A photographer’s work is given shape and style by his personal vision. It is not simply technique, but the way he looks at life and the world around him.” – Pete Turner

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We kicked off The Chatham Camera Club’s 88^th season with a live meeting at Evangel Community Church, 76 Sandys St. Chatham. 42 members and guests were in attendance.

• Our President, Cindy Taleski gave us an introduction to this season’s schedule, which will include photo challenges, guest speakers and instructional nights.

• Ric McArthur presented his Auditor’s report on The Club’s finances. Thanks to our treasurer Julie Faas, we are in good shape.

• Tere Deslippe went over the outstanding Photo Challenge categories and guidelines that she came up with for this season. Thank you Tere. You have certainly provided us with some excellent photo possibilities. If you would like to enter this season’s Photo Challenge, check out the instructions in our CCC Challenge Standards, Guidelines and Procedures handbook 2022-23 season RV1

• Dave and Keith reviewed the nearly two dozen prints that were brought in for display and discussion. If you would like to participate, your next chance will be on Tuesday, October 25^th. We’d love to see some of your work. Any size, any subject is more than welcome.

• Several members brought in some of their used equipment for sale for our Buy/Sell event. If you have photographic equipment for sale, you can bring it to any meeting this season.

• Club members were treated to a slide show of The Club’s activities over the past summer. Photos from Retro-Fest, Joy’s Garden, and our instructional night at Maple Leaf cemetery, showed off some of the solid photographic talent we have in this group. A special thanks to Linda Pepper for putting this show together.

• Entries for our first Photo Challenge of the season are due by Saturday, October 15^th at 10 PM. You can find a reminder on the requirements for entering on our Photo Challenge Instructions page.

• Our next meeting will be held via ZOOM on October 11^th, 2022 at 7PM when our guest speaker will be Cheryl Belczak. She will present a tutorial on Botanical Photography.

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Two dozen members and guests gathered at Maple Leaf Cemetery in Chatham for an instructional evening and fun photoshoot. Dave Noordhoff demonstrated how different apertures and focal lengths affect the depth of field. Keith Blackwell showed how to freeze and blur motion by using a selected shutter speed. Jim Pollock went over how to effectively use a hotshoe flash and off-camera flashes to enhance outdoor portraits. From the feedback we received, the event was a huge success and benefit to all who attended. A special thanks goes out to our models, Carly, Sophie, and Olivia for their time and their patience. You can see some of the photos from the evening on our Club Photos page. For some more tips, check out this page on Outdoor Photoshoot Posing Tips And Techniques.

Over a dozen members and guests made the trip to Greenhill Gardens to photograph the flower gardens, the lotus pond, and the scenery. You can see some examples from our day on our Club Photos page.

Our next Walk-About will be an instructional shoot at Maple Leaf Cemetery on Tuesday, August 23^rd. Members and guests are all welcome to attend. Details coming soon.

Our final ZOOM meeting of the year featured our Awards Night, where the results from this year’s Photo Challenges were announced.

Excelling in the Novice Division was Gord Myers, who finished first overall. Second place was granted to Penny Rintoul, and third place went to Cindy Taleski.

Top spot in the Intermediate group went to Jeff McDonald. In second place was Jana Smith, and Wendy McDonald took third place.

The Advanced members were led by Mary Craig in first place, Martha Gillier in second, and Butch Dompierre finished third.

The Salon group saw Linda Pepper awarded first, Jim Pollock took second, and Tere Deslippe was the third place finisher.

Photo Of The Year, as selected by the Windsor Camera Club, as well as the Peoples Choice Award, as voted on by Chatham Camera Club members, went to Cindy Taleski for her outstanding photo from the “Through A Window” category.

You can see the results of this year’s awards on our Club Photos page.

Thanks to all who entered this season’s Photo Challenge. We hope that you took advantage of the opportunity to learn and grow from the experience.
A special thanks to Tere Deslippe, our Photo Challenge manager, who put in endless hours of work to provide us with this club feature. We appreciate your efforts Tere. You’re the very best!

If you would like to get a head start on next season’s Photo Challenges, the categories are

• Minimalism
• Flowers
• White On White
• Seeing Red
• Symmetry
• Open (Black and White for Novices, Colour for the rest)

President Cindy Taleski thanked the members of the CCC executive, Pat Beaton, Julie Faas, Barb Ferren, Tere Deslippe, Wendy McDonald, Jeff McDonald, Linda Pepper, Mary Craig and Jim Pollock, for their hard work and dedication to The Club.

Over the summer, The Club is planning several get-togethers that we call “Walk-Abouts”, where we will meet at an interesting photo-op and share our techniques for finding worthwhile subjects, achieving proper exposure, and using interesting compositions to attain the best possible result. Times and dates will be announced by e-mail as they approach. Whether you’re seeking mentorship or companionship, please join us when you can.

• Dave Noordhoff spoke to The Club about The Sunny 16 Rule and how we can apply it in digital photography.

A throwback from the film days, the Sunny 16 Rule says that if we set our aperture to f/16, we can obtain a proper exposure by using a shutter speed that is 1/ the ISO. ie; If our ISO is set to 100, dial in a shutter speed of 1/100 and use f/16 as our aperture, and the exposure should be correct. This will make an interesting experiment for all of us to try. It’s bound to give us a better understanding of how our cameras meter system works. You can see a summery of Dave’s lesson about The Sunny 16 rule HERE
Dave also discussed several different photography exercises to try over the coming months in an effort to stretch our photo creativity.

• How high can your camera’s ISO setting go before we start to see unacceptable grain?
• How slow of a shutter speed can you hand hold before camera shake ruins our photo?
• Break the habit of photographing what we like to shoot and try something out of our comfort zone.
• Experiment with Getting Everything In Focus (Or Don’t) by using aperture settings to change the depth of field.
• There Is More Than One Right Answer to get a proper exposure. Try different settings and see what you get.
• What’s Your Guess? Shoot in one of the Automatic Modes and guess what settings your camera chose.
• The Decisive Moment (Or Place) is the perfect time or angle to take a photo. Experiment with finding that out.

As always, Dave did an exception job in researching is lesson and presenting it in a way that we can al learn from it. Thanks Dave!

• Clark Warner was featured in our What I Shoot segment.

Clarke showed us a sample of his excellent portfolio, which consisted of nature, scenic, aircraft, floral, marine and abandoned building photos. Awesome job Clark. We were expecting your photos to be great, and they were!

• Entries from our final CCC Photo Competition of the season were reviewed. The scores and final standings will be revealed at our next meeting.

• Dave and Keith reviewed some of the “digital prints” that were sent in for display and discussion.
   
We saw some very nice work from our members and our compliments go out to all who submitted their photos. We’ll do this again next season, so keep that in mind over the summer!

• During the “digital print” segment, Jim showed us a couple of images he created using a Twirl Technique.

If you would like to learn how to do this, check out this YouTube video.

• Our final meeting of the year will be held via ZOOM on May 10^th at 7 PM. Plans for our summer Walk-Abouts will be announced, as well as the results from this year’s Photo Challenges. Special citations will also be given for Photo Of The Year and the People’s Choice Award.

“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.” – Robert Frank

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