Minutes of October 8th Meeting

[Avril Kirby]

Curt is away in Italy so Bob Rogers ably chaired the meeting.

According to the vote taken on-site re change of meeting days, Bob says, with an extremely marginal difference, our meetings days stay at status quo, every second Wednesday. 31 members voted.

Peter Paul Harnisch has posted a forum on the idea of separate photo critiqeing sessions and we will wait till he can present it in person at a meeting to hear what he has in mind and how he sees it working. It sounds like a useful learning tool for those of us who are not that confident in critiqueing other peoples' work in a helpful way.

Upcoming shows: Doug Wahlsten: Salt Spring Gallery from Oct. 18th to Nov. 1, with an opening reception on Friday, Oct. 18 from 5 to 7 p.m. The show is a closer look at nature, not macro but large.

Bob Rogers (and Ken Ketchum): lobby of Artspring for the month of November

Avril Kirby: Harbour House for the month of November. There will be a reception on Tuesday, Nov. 5th between 6 and 8 p.m. All welcome!

Slide Show-- Doug presented some examples of negative space and gave us an explanation of how important it is to a photograph. He talked about figure/ground (figure being the subject occupying positive space, ground being the background occupying negative space) and figure/ground reversal, as in the famous picture of a vase (or is it two faces?) In "The Last Supper" the V on Jesus' left seems to be an important bit of negative space and is reproduced in most takes on the Last Supper. It was an interesting talk and members felt they could have used it the month before we took on this challenge!

The slide show was great, as usual. Some of us struggled with the concept of negative space and others nailed it but it was a good learning tool for all of us, and the photos were excellent.

Points that came out of the slide show were:

1. Positive parts move towards you, negative move away.

2. The proportion of negative space in a photograph is important.

3. It's up to us to define our own spaces and figure out what they say in a picture.
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(Did I get that right??)

Next Month: November's meeting will be a talk by a lawyer/photographer on the etiquette and legalities of taking photos of people. There will be no slide show, as this has been a hot topic and there is lots to discuss on this subject.

December's Challenge: Light (other ideas for challenges, perhaps to be used later-- Eyes, Pareidolia, Emotion)

If I've made any mistakes or forgotten anything, please comment below. Thanks, Avril