Minutes for September meeting

[anna mccolm]

Pierre welcomed two new faces; Pat McMahon, a retired architect, has been on the Island for two years and uses her I-phone to take pictures and enjoys manipulating the images with aps. Ellen Vestigal had heard about the Club just hours before the meeting whilst submitting photos for the Fall Fair. She has been on the Island for 8 days and is married to the new minister of the United Church.

Avril is showing photos at Fernwood Café.

Kahsia is showing bird images at the Country Grocer Café.

Pierre is showing pictures at Embe Bakery's sandwich shop.

Jana is looking for volunteers again for a bagging session at Country Grocer on Monday October 7th. This 4 hour work shift divided amongst  8 people brings in around $350 which greatly helps the Photoclub's budget. Last time the work and the money was divided between Photosynthesis and the Photoclub but this time the money will be ours, all ours!

Please let Jana know  ([e-mail]) if you are available to do a 10.30am - 12.30pm shift or a 12.30pm - 2.30 pm shift. Or you can do the whole 4 hours.

Gwen has a camera bag that used to belong to Bob Rogers that doesn't work for her current cameras and would like to sell it. This initiated a discussion about different ways the club could include a market Place for buying and selling photography equipment. Some ideas that emerged were:

  -  renting a room for a sale and inviting the Island to participate.

  -  having a market place on the website.

  -  Bringing stuff to our monthly meetings.

  -  having a sale annually at the Christmas meeting or in the Spring, or both.

  -  10% - 20% of sales could be donated to the Club.

  -  Amy Melious organised an art and photography equipment sale last year. Someone is going

     to ask her a) how it went and b) if she is planning on doing it again.

The speaker for tonight's meeting introduced himself - Lucas Morton, a 17 year old landscape photographer. His website is: lrmcreative.wixsite.com/lrmcreative and his Instagram presence is: LRMCreative.

He uses a Nikon D3400 camera and a Tokina wide angle 11 - 16mm lens. He also employs a ND filter (made from coloured glass); 10 stops which is full, not gradual.

The photos he chose to show us were all beautiful and he nearly always uses a tripod in order to get long exposures. He manipulates the image afterwards using photoshop and lightroom to get the lighting right and to emphasise the elements in an image he wants to draw attention to.

He is a mindful young man - very aware of his intention when taking a photograph. He likes the idea of showing something that other people have not seen before, whether it's a special hard-to-get-to place or a different take on a familiar scene. He focuses on composition and looks for something (branches, rocks, flowers) to lead the eye to his subject matter.

Avril asked him if he had ideas to attract younger people to the club. He said that most young people interested in photography communicate via Instagram. Facebook, apparently, is just so old school! He mentioned short attention spans and said that hands-on experiences would be more appealing than sitting in a meeting, for example -  a field trip with a mentor to guide people in ways to use their cameras. Vocabulary is important for marketing to young people and he suggested using phrases like a 'Photo Tour' or a 'photo Expedition' - something that sounds dynamic.

Someone suggested sending an invite to the Club to the young people who came first, second and third (in their class) at the Fall Fair Photography exhibit.

 Harbour House had forgotten about our meeting and not set up the room so, as compensation, there was coffee and cake. 

Next months challenge is 'Mindful Landscape'. Avril will host as Pierre will be away on business.

[Avril Kirby]

Thanks Anna--comprehensive and well-written as ever.