Minutes for November Club meeting

[anna mccolm]

Pierre welcomed returning member Nate Poetker, new member Paul McElroy and checking-us-out visitor Meriel Galloway. Meriel is looking for help downloading and maybe editing her photos from a trip to Africa.

Kahsia is showing photos of South East Asia at Country Grocer this month. Doug will be collecting names soon for 2019 - the café walls are available for Club members to show their work every second month. In the past some people have shared wall space.

Gallery 8 is having its 10th annual Exhibition of Small Works in December (opening night Friday Nov. 30th 3pm - 6pm) and Avril Kirby is showing some of her work.

David Borrowman recommended a show currently at Artspring called 'Love Story'. Works from 18 women and at least two of them are photographers.

Photofest will be next year from June 13th - 26th. The club and photosynthesis will both have their annual shows at that time and other galleries and studios will be involved. A map is in the works to include all venues and the deadline for being on that map is the end of January. If any Club member knows of someone who might wish to be part of this please tell them to get in touch with Pierre: [e-mail]

The Lobby Show at Artspring is fast approaching. There has never been a cost for showing photos here but Ross suggested a $20 fee from each participating photographer to boost the Club's funds. This was approved by a show of hands. Pierre encouraged people who have not shown their work before to 'take the plunge' and throw something up on the lobby walls. January is quite a busy month at Artspring - the High School have all their shows (music, dance and drama) at that time as well as concerts and opera so there is a fair amount of traffic in the Lobby.

Volunteers are needed for organising the show and Wendy,Avril and Pierre will do the hanging. Wendy will take care of the labels. Information needed for the labels are your name, the name of the photo, a price and an email address. If something sells Artspring takes a 10% commission.

Pat (treasurer) reminded us that Club dues are coming in January. The coffers are low and Pierre mentioned that money is needed for a) buying a better projector and b) offering to pay for ferry costs and supper for any visiting off-Island person who comes to speak to the Club.

Club members can go in with Photosynthesis members to bag groceries at Country Grocer for half a day. This is quite lucrative. No dates were mentioned but, when arranged, it will be posted on the Website.

Avril mentioned that since 3 members of the club lived at Brinkworthy (Evelyn Smith, Sylvia Beech and Margaret Benmore) we are entitled to use their Clubhouse for monthly meetings. This would save us the cost of paying the Lions Club $50 for the room rental. Someone (Avril?) will look into this and report back.

Kahsia set this month's Photowalk. It will be in Burgoyne Bay on Monday Nov. 19th from 12.30pm - 2pm. Last month's walk at the vineyard was a great success.

Some people are still not getting messages from the Club. Wendy reported that Ning did find a bug and are working on it. She will do a test - sending Club members a message via Ning and the same message using her own list of member's emails. We should let her know what we receive so she can see the scope of the miscommunication.

Ross mentioned another possible, more secure Website we could use but it would cost more.

Next month's meeting is a Pot-luck Party so please bring something delicious and maybe a bottle of something warming. Send festive photos to Derek for the Photo display. There will be the usual business part of the meeting followed by eating and drinking and merriment.

Pierre introduced David Borrowman, an Island Photographer and currently president of the Arts Council.

David is a self-confessed tecky and I am not so please forgive the absence of technical details he gave us as some of it went over my head and some of my notes (written in the dark) don't make any sense in the cold light of day!

David's influences are; John Deniston (a Sports photographer and one time editor of the Vancouver Sun) who helped David move into the digital world

                                  Scott Kelby, who writes about using Lightroom and Photoshop

                                  Freeman Patterson and....

                                  Simon Henson whose course on design David attended. He gave David the vocabulary to see what elements make up a 'good' photo.

David does a lot of work with and for local artists and photographs in their studios, at Art openings and in Artspring. He showed us B&W portraits. He often holds the camera down low, at waist level and this has the effect of the subject looking at the photographer but not directly into the lens.

When photographing large works of art (such as Deon Ventner's abstract pieces) he stitches many images of the work so he can include all the detail. He uses HDR a lot.

He recommended not using a tripod for photographing fireworks and playing instead with the movement possibilities that come from a hand-held camera. Blurry fireworks can be quite beautiful.

[Curt Firestone]

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