Retzer Nature Center
Camera Club
August 2015 Newsletter
August Meeting – Wednesday, August 5, 2015, 7:00 PM
This month we will be selecting member images for the PSA Wisconsin Showcase. Each year PSA member clubs from Wisconsin join in this friendly photo competition for bragging rights. Our club has done quite well in the past. Over the last five years, we have consistently been in the top five out of fourteen participating clubs. Last year we placed second!
As a club we will be submitting seven member images. At our August meeting we will be selecting the images from among your best images. So what we need is for each of you to send me one of your best images! Images can be of any subject and from any time period. The key thing is for you to send a strong image that is technically good and will be of general interest as it is being judged. At the meeting we will vote on the seven images to represent our club. Images should be sized at 1024 (Horz) x 768 (Vert) pixels with a maximum size of 800KB. If you are not sure how to do that, don’t let that stop you. Submit your image anyway and if it is selected, we will resize it for you. So, pick one of your great images, and email it to Rick Vollbrecht at Rvollb@wi.rr.com. When you come to the meeting, expect to see some of our member’s best work!
Member Image Sharing:
Members are encouraged to submit several (up to five) images to share with the club for gentle critique. This is a great way to get suggestions for improving your images and developing your photographic skills. In order to give everyone a chance to share their images during the year, we will select several individuals who will be featured at each meeting. Other individuals may also provide images which will be shared as time permits
This month we will feature images from our July 16th Wildflower Shoot at Retzer and our August 1st Frame Park flower shoot. If you were on either of these outings, please submit up to five of your images from each outing to share with the club.
Please email your images to Rick Vollbrecht(Rvollb@wi.rr.com ) by next Tuesday. This will help to streamline theprocess of viewing member images. We look forward to seeing your images.
2015 Club Programs:
Our 2015 programs are listed below:
September 2, 2015 – Creating images using HDR
October 7, 2015 – Creating digital slide shows with Lightroom.
Creating photo books
Creating photo montages
November 4, 2015 – Shooting the night sky, painting with light (outdoor shoot at Retzer)
December 2, 2015 – Holiday Party. Review Scavenger Hunt images and member’s favorite 2015 images. Spouses and guests are invited.
Field Trips:
Photo field trips are a great way for us to share our common enjoyment of photography, learn some new techniques and share in camaraderie while getting to know our fellow club members. If you have some ideas of where you would like to see us go, please let us know. Better yet, why not offer to coordinate a field trip. It's not hard - find a place you would like to go, pick a date and we can announce it to the club.
The tentative schedule for photo outings:
August 1st – Frame Park flower gardens
August 4th – Chicago Botanical Gardens
August 15th – Midwest Freestyle Kayak Championship in Wausau
August 26th – Downtown Milwaukee night shoot
Summer – Evanston, Illinois lighthouse and Bahai Temple
Summer – Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford
Summer – Tiffany Bridge and Beckman Mill in Beloit
Photo Scavenger Hunt:
We will once again be conducting a photo scavenger hunt! Photo scavenger hunts are a fun and challenging way to get your imagination and creative juices flowing! The rules are simple:
1. Capture one image of each topic.
2. Be creative - think of a unique way to express the topic.
3. Images should be taken between now and December 1st. We will review them at our December meeting
4. Have fun!
Here are the topics for our 2015 Scavenger Hunt:
1. Delicate
2. Decay
3. I can’t believe I captured that!
4. Graffiti
5. Doorway
6. Bloomin’ Beautiful
7. Stormy
8. Shadow
9. Bridge
10. At night
Club Logo:
We would like to design a logo for our club. This would be something we could use on our Newsletter or other communications. We are also considering offering members the opportunity to purchase club apparel (shirts, jackets, etc) that would display our logo. So, dust off your design skills and let us see what you can design! Even if you are not good at drawing, just give us a rough sketch or a description of what you have in mind. Get your ideas in to Elizabeth Whitcomb or Rick Vollbrecht.
Future Events of Interest:
John & Barbara Gerlach Photographic Seminar – Saturday, October 24th, Midway Hotel, Brookfield. Sponsored by Unlimited Vision Photo Club. This is an all day, intensive photo seminar from which you will come away with new tools and ideas to improve your photographic skills. It is appropriate for all skill levels from beginner to advanced. The Gerlachs are well known in the photographic community and present a very informative program. This is an opportunity not to be missed! A brochure with registration information is attached.
If you are aware of any events of general interest, please let us know so we can share them with the club.
Photo Contests and Exhibits:
Old World Wisconsin 2015 Photo Contest – Due date: October 16, 2015. Photos must be taken at Old World Wisconsin. Categories include: Pionee Life, People, Ariculture, Nature, historic Structures. For more information go to: http://www.friendsoww.org/photo_contest.htm
WACCO Fall Competition – November 2015. Watch for further details at the WACCO web site: www.wicameraclubs.org.
5th Annual WACCO Exhibit – January 16 – March 12, 2016 at the Reuss Federal Building in Milwaukee. Deadline is December 19, 2015. See the WACCO web site to see a catalog of past entrants. Details will be posted at the WACCO website (www.wicameraclubs.org) in the future.
If you are aware of any photo contests, please forward the information to Rick Vollbrecht at Rvollb@wi.rr.com
Photo Ops:
As a club, our members have a wide variety of subjects that we enjoy photographing. This newsletter can serve as an excellent way to share various photo opportunities with club members. If you know of interesting subjects or events that may interest other club members, please forward those to Rick Vollbrecht so they can be included in future newsletters. If you are interested in having others join you, that information can also be included. It is fun to shoot with a group.
Photography Classes:
A variety of non-credit, reasonably priced classes on photography and Photoshop are available at Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC) and UW Waukesha. Check their web sites for more information.
WCTC: www.wctc.edu
UW Waukesha: www.waukesha.uwc.edu
Art’s Cameras Plus has an extensive list of classes covering everything from camera basics to photographing in a variety of situations and use of Photoshop Elements. Check out their web site: www.Artscameras.com . If you are aware of other photography classes or seminars, please forward the information to Rick Vollbrecht
Websites of Interest:
Retzer Camera Club blog: www.RetzerCameraClub.blogspot.com
Friends of Retzer Nature Center: www.FriendsofRetzer.org
