developments February 2015

Transcription

1 developments February 2015 Volume 04 Issue 02 Upcoming Events: Tuesday, DAPC 1st Tuesday Meeting - Costa Rica and Theme Submission - 7:00pm, Southwest Environmental Center. See page 1 and 2. Sat & Sun Storm Sermay Open Studio Solarridge St. Las Cruces. See page 5. Tuesday, DAPC January Meeting - Backyard Birds and 10 Minutes With - 7:00pm Southwest Environmental Center. See page 2 and 5. Tuesday, DAPC 1st Tuesday Meeting - 7:00pm, Southwest Environmental Center. Tuesday, DAPC February Meeting - 7:00pm, Southwest Environmental Center. In This Issue Nature Photos from Costa Rica... 1 How To Submit Photos for Theme... 2 Birds in Your Backyard... 2 Photo Theme... 3 Bosque del Apache Field Trip... 4 Photographers Playbook... 4 Open Studio Minutes With..,,,... 5 DAPC Contacts... 5 DAPC on Facebook... 5 All DAPC meetings take place at the Southwest Environmental Center, 275 N. Downtown Mall, Las Cruces, New Mexico. Located on the southwest corner of Main and Las Cruces. For more information about the Soutwest Environmental Center visit and consider becoming a member. Caiman Photo by Ray Bowers NATURE PHOTOS FROM COSTA RICA by Ray Bowers On February 3rd, Ray will show colorful photos of birds, plants and reptiles taken during two trips to the rain forests, volcanoes and lower wetlands of Costa Rica. He has always had an interest in the tropical rain forest, and after his daughter visited Costa Rica, Ray and his wife took a trip there in December He returned to Costa Rica again in February 2014 on a photo-shooting trip. Ray is a retired science teacher from Columbus, Ohio. He has used images taken in his classrooms to illustrate biological ideas. Since retiring he has volunteered for State Parks to provide them with images of plants and animals that they can use to promote their parks. He has given presentations to the local Native Plant Society and Audubon Society, and was honored by the Mesilla Valley Audubon Society with some of his images in their 2015 calendar. Bromelia Photo by Ray Bowers

2 Chestnut-Mandibled Toucana Photo by Ray Bowers HOW TO SUBMIT PHOTOS TO DAPC S MONTHLY THEMES by Lisa Mandelkern and Debbie Hands The monthly Theme slideshow is a staple in the yearly program of the Doña Ana Photography Club. Participating in the club s Theme of the month is one way of many to explore possibilities, and to photograph outside your comfort zone. It is also great fun to see how other photographers have tackled the task. The Theme presentation is always done at the second meeting of the month and you do not need to be present at the meeting to submit photos. Also at the February 3rd meeting there will be a short presentation by Lisa Mandelkern and Debbie Hands, who will introduce newcomers to the process of submitting photos to the Themes. They will talk about the general theme guidelines first. Then they will demonstrate how to make copies of edited photos that meet the requirements of the projector. Submitted photos should be in JPEG format and be around Broad-Tailed Humming Bird Photo by Nirmala Khandan 2 Masked Tree Frog Photo by Ray Bowers 1MB. Lisa Mandelkern will talk you through the process of exporting photos in Lightroom, and Debbie Hands will show you how it s done in Adobe Photoshop. BIRDS IN YOUR BACKYARD by Nirmala Khandan At the February 17th meeting, longtime DAPC member Nirmala Khandan will present a three-part talk on Backyard Birds: Attracting and Photographing Them on February 17. The first part of his talk will cover tips and techniques that he has successfully used to attract common and some rare avian visitors to his backyard. These techniques include providing food and setting up an outdoor studio to capture sharper and cleaner images on a consistent basis. The second part will cover camera settings, lighting, and post-processing tips to get high quality images on a regular basis. The third part will focus on special techniques for photographing hummingbirds. Khandan, a native of Sri Lanka, has been on the faculty at NMSU since 1990, and has been a DAPC member that long. He is a selfeducated photographer, with interests in nature, wildlife, and travel photography. His images have been exhibited, along with other DAPC members, at several local shows. One of his backyard images won a national award in the Nature s Best Photography magazine 2008 Best Backyards issue. Quail, Eye to Eye Photo by Nirmala Khandan

3 computer program (as a graphics application) that activates and controls a particular function; a means to an end (a book s cover can be a marketing tool). ( com/dictionary/tool) As photographers selecting subjects to photograph for this theme, you might think of a tool as a product. House Finch, Up Close Photo by Nirmala Khandan Pyrrbuloxia/Desert Cardinal, A Rare Visitor Photo by Nirmala Khandan THEME OF THE MONTH TOOLS What is a tool? According to ( com/browse/tools), as a noun a tool is (1) An implement, especially one held in the hand, as a hammer, saw, or file, for performing or facilitating mechanical operations; (2) Any instrument of manual operation; (3) The cutting or machining part of a lathe, planer, drill, or similar machine; (4) the machine itself, a machine tool; (5) Anything used as a means of accomplishing a task or purpose ( Education is a tool for success. ); (6) A person manipulated by another for the latter s own ends; (7) The design or ornament impressed upon the cover of a book. Merriam-Webster defines tool as (1) A handheld device that aids in accomplishing a task; the cutting or shaping part in a machine or machine tool; a machine for shaping metal. (2) Something (as an instrument or apparatus) used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession; an element of a As you consider photographic technique, think about potential issues that could arise. For example, when photographing watches there s a need to eliminate or control reflections. Some photographers use an EZcube light tent with reflective acrylic risers to enhance sparkle. Using some source of continuous lighting works much better than flash. Daylight with some additional lighting source (e.g. LED) works best. Having a good macro mode on your camera allows you to sharply focus on a small item from a short distance. Table Top Studio suggests a process for 3D object photography that sounds relatively easy and fun. (I have not tried it, however.) You place your object on the center of a turntable and decide how many views you would like to shoot. They recommend six for getting started. The EZspin turntable has the circle marked in degrees so you can photograph at specific angles. They also say you can just snap the first photo and then rotate however much you want, for the second image. The process continues until you have turned the object 360 degrees. A tripod seems essential for this project. To animate the set of photos using Photoshop, you drag the photos together to create a single image of six perfectly aligned layers. Save it as an animated. gif or flipbook to get a rotating image. For the purpose of the tool theme slideshow, you could simply select three of the images you take to show different views. See the following Website: photography.htm#nb The following websites show photo/image examples of tools: photos.asp?ss=hammer Equipment---Instruments/ 3

4 FIELD TRIP TO BOSQUE DEL APACHE by Anne Chase On Dec 5th, Anne Chase led six other DAPC members on a weekend trip to the Bosque del Apache. It was lucky timing because the full moon was rising just at dusk and setting just at sunrise. On Friday evening, on our first tour around the South Loop, there were mule deer. One of us got a lovely image of a buck. I think he knew we were only shooting with Canons and Nikons! The herd watched us, but still posed very nicely. At sunset, we captured the snow geese and sandhill cranes flying across the rising moon. From there we made our way to the Owl Café in San Antonio, where we had the famous Green Chili Cheeseburgers. Will Keener donated a dollar bill and we all wrote our names on it and tacked it to the wall. Next time you go there, look for the DAPC dollar! We had a dramatic sunrise on Saturday, with amazing color. All of us got the Blast Off of the snow geese. What a noisy bunch of birds! Then, we shot reflections of the cranes on the water. There was a bald eagle on a dead tree in the middle of the pond at the viewing platform and a Cooper s hawk on a tree right by the road. Some of us then went back into Socorro to fix a slow leak in Hillard William s car tire. On the way into Socorro, we photographed a small Catholic cemetery decorated for Christmas. Unique! Do not get a flat tire on a Saturday in Socorro! After bouncing around trying to find an open shop, we explored Socorro and found the oldest Mission Church in NM. We took some shots there. The light was a bit flat, so we returned later to try again. On Sunday morning, after shooting another Blast Off, Hillard went off to shoot the Very Large Array. It was foggy (very unusual), so he got some very special shots. Editor s Note: Photographers who participated in the field trip were Anne Chase (organizer), Gary Spencer, Hillard Williams, Jim Rodgers, Kristi Dixon, Will Keener, and Steve Eberlein. Very Large Array Photo by Hillard Williams THE PHOTOGRAPHER S PLAYBOOK Chuck West described himself as a Snowbird member of the DAPC at the January 20th meeting. He suggested that the Newsletter include information about the book The Photographer s Notebook: 307 Assignments and Ideas (2014) by Jason Fulford and Gregory Halpern (Eds.) published by Aperture. Goals of the book are to stimulate artistic curiosity, to embellish on ideas given in the book, and to encourage creation of your own photographic examples for self-critique and growing in terms of photo conceptualization. Readers may take suggestions from the book as an individual or small group activity or just ignore it. Chuck shared some examples from the book: 85 Extract the Magic: Choose an object that you normally wouldn t give a second Launch Photo by Kristi Dixon Crane Refl ections Photo by Anne Chase 4

5 10 MINUTES WITH EDOUARD BOUBAT Lisa Mandelkern will share information about French photographer Edouard Boubat ( ), an awardwinning photojournalist. In 10 minutes on February 17th, the DAPC audience will get a glimpse of the visual stories he told. STORM SERMAY OPEN STUDIO Five-Point Buck Photo by Steve Eberlein glance. Something that you see all the time, but don t find very special. Study it carefully and discover a quality that you like about it. Maybe its shape or color, or even the way it moves or feels. Think of a way to photograph it that will show the beauty in this commonplace object. Most often, if you just document the object as it is, its particular beauty remains invisible. You might need to alter something to make the viewer see what you see. Take the object out of its normal surroundings, or change its color, or make it look like something else. All it might need is some special lighting. You must provide the extra element that will extract the magic from the ordinary and make it visible. Chuck s thoughts on subjects: Leather chair Steering wheel Electric Shaver DAPC is on Facebook DACC has also set up a Facebook page and we are encouraging everyone to like the page and to submit your photos for quick review and comments from other members. Go to com/groups/ / to sign up or visit our website (daphotoclub.org) and connect from there. DAPC is a proud member of the PSA and we encourage you to consider becoming an individual member of PSA for more information please visit their website at and see what they have to offer. by Robert Williams Our very own Storm Sermay will be opening up her studio for the Love of Art Month event here in Las Cruces. Storm would like to invite everyone to pay her a visit at her studio, here are some of the details: Saturday, February 14th 10am-4pm and Sunday, February 15th 12pm-4pm 3382 Solarridge St. Las Cruces - (575) Storm will have all new work: landscapes with a new process that she has been working on and some street photography from Ecuador that she shot in April Fellow photographer and Border Artist, David Shaw will also be showing work at her studio. DAPC Contacts Photo by Storm Sermay President, Patrick Hulser president@daphotoclub.org Vice-President, Erik Winter vicepresident@daphotoclub.org Secretary, Kristi Dixon secretary@ daphotoclub.org Treasurer, Debbie Hands treasurer@ daphotoclub.org PR, Julie Schmitt publicrelations@ daphotoclub.org Programs Chair, Lisa Mandelkern programs@ daphotoclub.org Member Services, Fred Moore membership@ daphotoclub.org Photo Theme, Kristi Dixon themes@ daphotoclub.org Newsletter, Eileen K. VanWie - vanwieek@yahoo.com Newsletter, Robert Williams - robawil@gmail.com 5