Thru The Lens. To Promote the Art of Photography & Showcase the Images of DCC s Members. July Editor - Jay Hoppenstein, MD

Transcription

1 Thru The Lens July 2014 Volume 80, No. 7 To Promote the Art of Photography & Showcase the Images of DCC s Members Editor - Jay Hoppenstein, MD Navigato@aol.com Page 1 THRU THE LENS July 2014

2 Bill Naifeh - July Presenter Bill Naifeh is an intellectual property attorney in Dallas, Texas (see He is also an avid photographer. Bill currently supports the arts by offering photography services on a pro bono basis to many local artists, performers and theater companies (e.g. Rover Dramawerks in Plano, Texas). Although he occasionally accepts assignments for a few select individuals, he usually shoots only for pleasure. He loves photography and often provides his services for fun (although his wife is not opposed to paying clients either from photography or law). Bill bought his first SLR film camera in preparation for a trip to England in Before the trip, he practiced with the camera. To his surprise, shock and horror, his first photographs (where the camera setting was set on the green dot) were not the masterpieces he envisioned. From that frustrating experience, he realized there must be something more to photography than just using an SLR camera with the settings set to automatic. So, he started taking SLR photography courses, his first photography courses were at places like Fun Ed, then at SMU and Richland College. Thru The Lens Staff Cameraon Raw Folk Al Plane Cab L Release Dia Fram Trey Pod Newt R.L. Density Memo Ray Folk Al Length Lynnsey Cap Quality Control Focus Groups Personal Injury Disclamer PG Ratings Sharpness Czar Lighting Archives Long Range Planning Security After the crash of 2008, his law practice (or more accurately, lack thereof) gave him extra time. So, he began to work with professional studio photographers and has since expanded his range of subjects from exclusively travel and landscapes to portraits and events. He joined the DCC in 2009 which allowed him to compete for the first time. He also has taught (Continued on page 3) Inside this issue: Bill Haifeh - July Presenter 2-3 New Members 4 August Presenter, Marea Downey 5-6 Competition Topics 7 Call for Cover Images for TTL 7 New Scoring System 8 Click - Steve Reeves 9-11 PSA Annual Conference 12 Field Trip & Meeting Schedule 13 May Competition - Open Classified Ads & Advertisers Explore the Trinity 19 Officers & Committee Chairs 21 Meeting Schedule 22 Cover Image Yellow Balloon Jerry Martin 1 Page 2 THRU THE LENS July 2014

3 (Continued from page 2) Bill Naifeh non-credit courses on travel photography at Richland College in Dallas. His law practice has been keeping him increasingly busy. So, he has not had the time to devote to photography or his websites over the past couple of years. He has several websites displaying his photography for instance, his general site is He has a travel photography blog at and a travel photography site at Bill will be speaking on his background, studio photography, and his philosophy regarding DCC competitions. Page 3 THRU THE LENS July 2014

4 Welcome New Members Charles Jones Erskin Chris Greaves Otto Feiler Harold Walker Harvey Weiner Page 4 THRU THE LENS July 2014

5 August Presenter - Marea Downey Marea Downey was born and raised in Surrey, just south of London, England. She attended St. Anne's College, and gained early work experience managing the Photo Library for Shell s Public Affairs unit. Marea married Marlan Downey, an American oil executive, and moved to Texas in Her photography efforts were limited to pictures of her family and to world trips until her three sons entered university, and she could return to her love affair with the camera. Over the last ten years, she attended photo workshops by such legendary National Geographic photographers as Steve McCurry and Joe McNally. She has also worked with several notable English photographers, David Noton, Charlie Waite, Guy Edwardes and Antony Spencer. In 2006, she joined a National Geographic trip around the world with their photographer, Bob Krist. These outstanding professionals helped her elevate her photographic skills, and many have become friends. This pursuit of excellence has allowed Marea to become certified as a Master Photographer by the Plano Photographic Society, and she was named their Photographer of the Year in She was qualified as a judge by The Photographic Society of America, and has been asked to judge several club photography competitions. Marea was also invited to give two photographic seminars at Midway College in Kentucky. In March 2014 Marea was invited to exhibit her work at the Mall Galleries, just off Trafalgar Square in London. Her work has been published in "Outdoor Photography", "Cornwall Today", as well as travel guides and newspapers. She published two wellreceived books of photography on Cornwall, "For Love of Cadgwith", and "In the Heart of Cadgwith". The National Portrait Gallery in London acquired one of her portraits. In 2012, she provided 78 images for the bestselling book, "The Fisherman's Apprentice", authored by Monty Halls, which accompanied the six-part BBC series by (Continued on page 6) Page 5 THRU THE LENS July 2014

6 (Continued from page 5) Marea Downey things she has learned from the friends and professionals who have helped her to take her photography to the next level. the same name. Her most recent project was a book on the activities of a Central Texas ranch, owned by a notable oil executive. Much of Marea s time is spent in charitable work, where her extraordinary talents can benefit others. For many years she has worked with the Advanced Art students at Fairhill School in Dallas, helping the students demonstrate their special talents in annual statewide competitions for excellence in photography. Marea Downey, a member of the Plano Photography Club, in the Master division for competition entries, will discuss her work, what inspires her, and how she plans and creates an image. The Photographic Society of America has qualified Marea as a judge for camera club competitions. She will share some of the guidelines she has been trained to observe as a judge, and will also pass along some of the Marea lives in Dallas with her husband of thirty-five years, also spends time at their ranch near Farmersville, Texas, and always tries to reserve three to four months a year for her hide-away cottage in Cadgwith, Cornwall, England. A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY - No Going Back! Page 6 THRU THE LENS July 2014

7 DCC Competition Themes Motion Blur August 12, Depiction of a subject that is in motion with corresponding motion blur created in camera. This includes images where the subject is moving and blurred, the background is blurred due to panning with a moving subject or both. It does not include images of still objects blurred by moving the camera, images of moving objects without motion blur and blur of any kind added in during post- Humor - October 7, Images depicting something funny and in good taste. This includes visual puns, funny candid moments and other images that might make the judge laugh. Warning, there s no guarantee that the judge will get the humor in your image and undoubtedly they will factor that into their scoring. Also, the title of your image may be just as important as the image itself. Offensive jokes, Humorous subjects out of context and images of people laughing are examples of invalid entries. Abandoned - December 9, Images of a structure or structures, from the inside or out, that has been abandoned, permanently closed or is otherwise in a state of decay. This includes houses, businesses, farm related buildings, etc. It does not include automobiles, garbage or other discarded pieces of equipment, vehicles or general use items. For example, a mobile home would fit the theme while an RV would not. The Four Seasons - February 10, An image that evokes the mood of one or more of the four seasons. Images must include an element of the outdoors and may be an urban, rural or natural setting. Entries must also convey an obvious seasonal attribute. Generic landscape images where the season is vague are not allowed. Also not allowed are images of items or indoor settings related to a given season but without an out of doors element. For example, snowscapes, spring flowers in a garden, and fall foliage would be allowed while images of a decorated Christmas tree in a living room, flowers in a vase or a studio still life with sunglasses and suntan lotion would not. TTL Cover Pictures Wanted The Dallas Camera Club s online monthly newsletter, Thru The Lens, TTL, invites members to submit an image to the editor of the TTL, Jay Hoppenstein, Navigato@aol.com, as an attachment for consideration to become one of the monthly Cover Pages for an issue. Use DCC Cover Page as the Subject line. The image must be sized exactly 8 1/2 inches wide and 11 inches high to fit precisely on the cover. Images that are not so sized cannot be used as a cover image. The image should be composed to emphasize a single point of interest and have an uncluttered background to allow for the TTL text overlays. Use previous cover images as a guide. Jay Hoppenstein, Ed. Page 7 THRU THE LENS July 2014

8 Competition Topics & New Scoring System MONTH May 2014 June 2014 July 2014 August 2014 September 2014 October 2014 November 2014 December 2014 January 2015 February 2015 TOPIC Open Things in a Row Open Motion Blur Open Humor Open Abandoned Open The Four Seasons Exceptional Superior Excellent Commendable Above Average Average Below Standard Page 8 THRU THE LENS July 2014

9 Click Steve Reeves My image, Coachella Valley placed 2nd in the Masters Monochrome Print division for May 2014 and because it s processing is a little unconventional I thought I would share its story with you. This image was made earlier this year during a March road trip to San Diego. On the way back we stopped in Joshua Tree National Park and spent the day exploring the low and high deserts. Keys View is one of the vistas in the park and we were there near sundown. One problem that plagues the parks is the amount of pollution floating around. As many of us know, a good landscape image can frequently be spoiled by this haze. The first image you see here shows that. This is an unedited frame that I shot a few minutes before the one used in the final print. Nikon D800, ISO 100, f/8, 1/400th Manual Exposure -1⅓ EV Lens: Nikkor mm f/2.8 with a circular polarized filter. This shot is a little underexposed but I wanted to make sure that I had really good detail in the clouds. I aimed for a single shot (no HDR) that would get me that detail without losing too much detail in the shadow areas. I knew that going into Lightroom I would have a much easier time bringing up those darker areas than I would recovering blown out cloud highlights. As you can see, the main problem wasn t latitude. It s the haze. While we were there waiting for sunset I took a number of shots. Each time trying different techniques and bracketing to try and get good contrast and increased clarity. Because we also shoot film, I happened to have a red 25 filter with me. This is a filter typically used when shooting black and white film and has the effect of increasing contrast, especially when shooting blue skies with white clouds. The red filter darkens the blues in the sky while letting the whites of the clouds stay nice and bright. I knew that in lightroom and photoshop and other processing applications that it s possible to mimic the effect of a red filter (as well as other colored filters) but I was curious if there would be a difference between shooting with one in the first place ver- (Continued on page 10) Page 9 THRU THE LENS July 2014

10 (Continued from page 9) Click sus applying the effect after the fact. Below you can see the image as it was captured in-camera with a red filter on the lens. appears that the highlights in the clouds are blown out, but bringing the overall exposure down a stop and a half in Lightroom recovered the highlights as you can see in the detail shot below. Keep in mind that we re now about 3 full stops below what the meter in the camera was suggesting. I won t suggest that using the red filter made the image easy to process. Quite the opposite. Getting the image from this red mess to the final print version required a lot of tweaking in Lightroom to get the contrast and tone curves just right. I used two adjustment brushes to control the contrast in the sky and the shadow levels in the foreground mountains plus a gradient filter on the middleground to increase the contrast there. This is on top of having already maxed out the contrast slider to 100 for the image over all. If anything, this was an exercise in throwing out a lot of rules that I ve learned over the years in favor of seeing if I could pull it off. Nikon D800, ISO 100, f/8, 1/15th Manual Exposure -1⅓ EV Lens: Nikkor mm f/2.8 with a circular polarized and red filter. At this point I d put myself in a position where a color image is obviously out of the question. I was hoping for a strong monochrome image anyway, so that was fine. The exposure settings on the camera are almost exactly the same between the two shots above. The only difference beyond having the red filter on the lens was to slow the shutter speed down from 1/400th of a second to 1/15th which had the effect of increasing the exposure by about 5 stops. Quite an increase! It s also worth noting that for all of these shots I had my camera set to mirror lockup which helps minimize camera shake. With longer lenses this can make a real difference. It (Continued on page 11) Page 10 THRU THE LENS July 2014

11 (Continued from page 10) Click Steve Reeves [I m really pleased with the final version of the image. The haze that was present on that day is barely noticeable. There might have been a much easier way to accomplish the same thing. Possibly a more appropriate filter that I could have used or even a more direct editing option in post-production. If there s anything to be learned from this endeavor I would say that it s to give yourself the freedom to experiment. Try different things, even odd things, and see what happens. Even if they don t pan out you at least learn from them. Also, I can t stress enough the value of learning to shoot your camera in manual mode. Even if you never choose to actually shoot manually, having a firm understanding of the relationship between ISO, shutter speed and aperture will make you a better photographer. In experimental situations it can make a huge difference in the chances for success. Page 11 THRU THE LENS July 2014

12 PSA 76th Annual Conference PSA Member Benefits PSA Journal full-color monthly magazine (mailed & online) and annual Who's Who in Photography publication Opportunity to submit articles for potential publication in the PSA Journal which is written by and for members Three noncommercial ads each year (no more than 5 lines or 175 characters) in the PSA Journal at no cost Access to My PSA free web site services (e.g., Image Evaluation, Mentors, Consultants, resource links, up -to-date product and book reviews) Free online Individualized Photography Course, Advanced Photography Course, and Image Analysis Course Free Study Groups: online for digital images and via mail for prints Free services (e.g., Species Identification Service, Photo Travel Planning Service, Digital Product Information) Annual Conference with workshops, field trips, photo shoots, and featured speakers at reduced registration fee Listing in and access to online Membership List following login Publication of photos on the PSA web site (e.g., a photo in the New Member Gallery on joining, in the Show Your Stuff Gallery on renewing for year two, and in ROPA Galleries following receipt of a PSA Distinction) Creation of a personal photo gallery on the PSA web site for posting up to twenty (20) images and a biography Page 12 THRU THE LENS July 2014

13 DCC Field Trip & Meeting Schedule 2014 DCC Meetings dates are in Red within the Calendar Fossil Rim Wildlife Park Field Trip - July 19 from 4:00PM to 8:00PM We have arranged to have an exclusive Dallas Camera Club only photography tour of Fossil Rim Wildlife Park. The tour will be in two vans and will begin at 4pm on Saturday, July 19th. The tour guides will take us to areas where the animals may be seen coming out of hiding for the cool evening air. It will also include some of the back areas, not open to the general public, where some of their exotic creatures, such as rare varieties of wolf, are kept and are not ordinarily on display. The fee for the tour is $58.50 per person and is limited to 18 people in total. I will pay the total entry fee myself so each of you will need to pay me personally at the DCC meetings either by cash or check. I will accept the first 18 who pay, guests are allowed. Please contact me at gpkelly@sbcglobal.net or if you have any questions. Fossil Rim is located 3.8 miles west of Glen Rose, Tx on Hwy. 67. Turn left on County Rd 2008 and go 1.3 miles. Information about the park and the variety of animals that can be seen there is at For those who are interested, we will meet afterwards at the Big Cup Eatery, 226 SW hwy 67 at Hereford St. in Glen Rose for a late snack. July 2014 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat August 2014 Page 13 THRU THE LENS July 2014

14 M a y O p e n st P l a c e Monochrome Prints Advanced Chris Kobos NY Flyer Rocking Hard Beginners Don Haig Echoing Sand Dunes 2 Masters Bob Johnson Costal Dream Page 14 THRU THE LENS July 2014

15 M a y O p e n st P l a c e Advanced Chris Kobos Carolina Wren Color Prints Beginners Don Haig Echoing Sand Dunes Masters Bill Hayes Reflections Page 15 THRU THE LENS July 2014

16 M a y O p e n s t P l a c e Advanced Reid McNabb Glimmer of Light Projected Images Beginners Jonathan Garza Flying Coach Masters Harry Rumberger Trash in the Trinity River Page 16 THRU THE LENS July 2014

17 PSA offers its members access to individualized critiques from experts via Personal Evaluation Services. In addition, PSA holds monthly competitions in various categories for members. Members also receive discounts on various software packages. The PSA Journal magazine can be viewed online by signing in to the Member's Only section of the PSA Website - Jerry Martin, gjerrymartin@gmail.com, PSA Representative for the Dallas chapter, will be glad to give you a PSA membership application, if you are interested. Classified Ads print head plugged up. Levi Systems Inc. has quoted $ for a print head installed. Gary Cowles X-RITE COLORMUN- KI DISPLAY Monitor Calibration software and colorimeter. Will calibrate LCD monitor, laptop and projector. Great if you are having trouble getting your prints and projected images to match what you are seeing on your monitor Asking $80. [B&H # XRCMUNDIS price is $169.] Frank Richards f-richards@sbcglobal.net Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM, $325. Both caps and all the original packaging. Contact Nancy Miller, , n-miller@msn.com. Canon 7D, updated from Canon Customer Service $1,100; BGE & Grip: Together, $1295. Logan Mat Cutting Kit $49 (Originally, $69.95) Like new. In Box. Includes Bevel Mat Cutter 24 inch Straight Edge and Guide, Mat Knife, Instruction books, Practice Mat Board and Rub-on decorations. Jay Hoppenstein Navigato@aol.com Canon EF mm - $560; Cannon EFS 15-85mm - $500. Together $1060. All in mint condition. Total Package - $2355. John Fowler jfowler@utdallas.edu Free Canon Pro 9500 Mark II Printer. Needs new print head. Canons photo printer handles up to 13 x, has 9 color ink tanks and produces high quality prints. Not used a lot, which maybe why Page 17 THRU THE LENS July 2014

18 The Images and original articles in the TTL Newsletter are copyright protected and may not be reproduced w/o permission. Page 18 THRU THE LENS July 2014

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21 Officers, Board & Chairpersons Gary Kelly Wayland Threadgill GSCC Competition Coordinator Paula Buzenius Ray Salinas Membership Chairperson Teena Armes House Manager Gary Cowles Assistants Ronald Anthony, Denny Farmer Bird Contest Coordinator Dennis Fritsche GSCCC Print/Projected Competition Coordinator Suzanne Graham Outside Competitions Caren Mack Study Groups & Mentoring Project Club Photographer Virginia Sumrall President Jerry Martin Past Co-Presidents Dave Ruddick-Davis Wayne Vanderbur Vice President/Programs Kay Hale Secretary Barbara Briley Print Chairperson Susan Burciaga Projected Images Chairpersons Susan Burciaga Audio/Visual Producer TBD Competition Record Keeping Ashley Bischoff Frank Richards Bob Johnson Dennis Fritsche Training Houston Brown Website Manager Houston Brown Historian Steve Reeves Pandab PSA Representative Jerry Martin Website Dallascameraclub.org Treasurer Adela Rochier Newsletter Editor Jay Hoppenstein, MD Committee Chairpersons Field Trip Chairpersons Resource Center David Boomstein Project Managers Page 21 THRU THE LENS July 2014

22 Dallas Camera Club Visitors are always welcome. STARTING IN JANUARY DCC meets the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month, usually in Shearith Israel Synagogue located at 9401 Walnut Hill Lane, Dallas, Texas, in the Toplitz Room. Directions: From Northwest Hwy turn North on Douglas Ave. Drive about 1 mile and turn left into the North parking lot just before Walnut Hill Lane. From Walnut Hill Lane driving West, turn South onto Douglas Ave just before the Toll Way, drive about 100 yards and turn right into the North parking lot. Follow the walkway into the building from the parking lot, enter the foyer and ask the information person at the desk to be directed to the Toplitz Room. Pre-meeting tutorials 6:30 to 7:30 PM Meetings begin at 7:30 PM & end at 9:30 PM. On the second Tuesday of the month competition entries from the previous month are judged. On the fourth Tuesday a guest speaker delivers a presentation. Monthly, field trip Audio-Visual programs may be shown at any meeting. Guests are Welcome Page 22 THRU THE LENS July 2014