Author: Kathleen Muhle

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January Meeting Agenda

Front Row: Theresa Crutchfield, Margeret Molloy, Pam Walton, Anne Mullins, Ellen Taylor
Middle Row: Jim Evrard, Arlane Sponaugle, Angela Shepherd, Kathy Muhle
Back Row: Chuck Dugand, Don Rutledge, Mike Dunderdale, Jim Schepens
Missing: Maggie Halleck

Beginning a new year, a new decade and a warm welcome to our 2020 Team! The agenda has the 2020 list of board members and committee volunteers. And welcome to our two newest volunteers; Theresa Crutchfield and Mike Dunderdale.

Download the agenda to review all the club details. A short summary of some important information: We need a volunteer to take over the Club Store. Jim Schepens is taking on Programs and needs to pass this on to another club member. If you are interested please contact him at vp@kwphotoclub.com. He has it all set up with contacts and should not require a great deal of time or work for the new Club Store Coordinator. There is also a signup sheet for members to show an interest in areas that they would like to join our team and help. Please look for it at the next meeting or send me an e-mail at president@kwphotoclub.com to add your name to our list. We are small but mighty and appreciate all helpers.

Memberships are due for 2020, see details in the agenda or click down on the “Membership” tab on our Webpage. I want to thank Hospitality for working to have refreshments available at every meeting. They still have many months available so make sure to check the signup sheet at the next meeting.

Chuck talked about keeping us with our group via our website and our Facebook. Where any postings on our website have to be done via a board member. Any member can post to our Facebook with the exclusion of selling items or services and no politics. We are a social group that meets for photography only. Please respect our guidelines.

Workshops are coming, another topic that Chuck talked about. He will start the year with a workshop on Lightroom Classic and Mobile. He will go over basic information for new or old users. Lightroom is always adding new features. Additional workshops scheduled include: Know your Camera; iPhone Photography; Macro Photography and Children’s Portraiture. You’ll be notified via our Website and meeting when new workshops are scheduled. If you would like to be a workshop leader (always looking for new leaders and new topics) contact Chuck at admin@kwphotoclub.com.

Something new and exciting is coming and more details will be posted separately. Jim Evrard will be hosting a Special Interest Group (SIG) on Portraits. Jim has done several workshops on portraits with limited participation from attendees. With the SIG, you will be involved with setup, photography, posing. We are still working on the itinerary for these workshops. I have reserved the Kings Point Pool Room for the 4th Saturday of February, March, and April (Feb 22, Mar 28, Apr 25). Depending on the interest in this SIG we can add additional months as needed.

Activities are well underway for 2020. Anne Mullins has met with her team and they have many exciting outings planned. The first is actually happening today “It’s a Saints Day Outing” and what a beautiful day to have an outing. Houston weather at its best. Look at the agenda for a summary and our website for more details. An out-of-town trip that is coming up fast, Fredericksburg trip, March 31 to April 2. Each member must make their own lodging reservations and Fredericksburg is a popular destination so book soon to be included. The Eventbrite signup is on our website.

One last event that is coming up in February, a personal tour of the Baker Exhibit at Rice University with Darrell Hancock. Please watch for news posting regarding this event.

2019 Santa Photo Shoot

December was a really busy month and I want to thank Santa and all the elves that helped with our Santa Photoshoot: Santa, Mark Walton; Photographer, Emily Murphy; Photographer helper, Pam Walton; Outside shooter, Jack Shilt; Elves; Connie Emerson, Don Rutledge, John Gray, Margaret Molloy, Bill Beard, Bill Sim

Programs for 2020 are well underway. Though Connie Emerson has left the post she arranged for the first 4 programs. Jim is the new Program Coordinator and for the May program, he wanted to do something different. The May meeting will be the first-ever KWPC Sell, Sway or Giveaway for Photo Equipment! More information to come but start looking over all the equipment you have bought and decide if you can make a few dollars on it or just want to give it away to reduce your clutter.

Emily did an excellent job with her program “Life Cycles of a Butterfly and Macro Photography”. She has agreed to allow the Powerpoint to be posted on our Members Only Resource section. More on her talk with a separate posting.

Finally, a note about a long-time member Leon Guinn. He has had significant health issues in the last few years and is undergoing additional treatments. If you wish to have his address for a private note or would like to be included in any future visits please send an e-mail to admin@kwphotoclub.com.

Welcome, everyone to a new year with lots going on and excellent opportunities to get out with a group to polish up those photography skills or attend a workshop to learn something new. I hope to see you all this year at our monthly meetings. Keep your eye on the viewfinder and have fun.

“Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
― Marc Riboud

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November’s Meeting Agenda

We had a full meeting this month including our annual board of directors election. Congratulations to Anne Mullins and Pam Walton who were unanimously elected last night. Leaving the board in January is Connie Emerson who has been active for many years and will be sorely missed. The agenda had many items to review in addition to a mouth-watering talk by Chris Summers on Food Photography. I know I talked very fast but the attached agenda can be used as a reference for everything that I went over. It even has some updates from the meeting so let me know if you can catch the updated items.

Some highlights you will find in the agenda include: Membership fee reminder (January begins a new fiscal year for the club), Lake Houston Area Chamber featured photos from several members in their Community Guide and Directory, 2020 news about our library workshops and club activities, Santa Shoot Dec 14th and the Christmas Social on Dec 17th.

The agendas are a resource for you, a quick overview of club events, past, and future, to keep you informed and help plan your calendars so you can attend more events with the club. The events section of our website is where you will RSVP for a workshop. The Members Only section will have RSVP links for our day trips and out-of-town trips. One of the many perks of joining our social club.

We would love to hear from you about our speakers, assignments, activities or any other topic related to the club. Please send those to me at: president@kwphotoclub.com

I would also like to say it was nice to see Leon Guinn attend last night. Many of you know the last year has been very hard physically for him and I must say he looked really good. Welcome Back, Leon! We do miss our members and just because you can’t be at the meeting does not mean you cannot contribute to the Share and Learn. This lets us know that you are still with us in spirit. Wishing everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday!

“The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score and the print the performance.”
– Ansel Adams

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October Meeting Agenda

I’ve uploaded the meeting agenda as a reference to our club events calendar and to give absent members a review of our club’s activities.

We are quickly coming to the end of the year. At our next meeting on November 19, the club will elect two new board members. Current nominations for our Board of Directors:

Anne Mullins – Our Activities Coordinator and currently serving on the board

Pam Walton – Our Membership Coordinator

The nominations are open to any club member. If you would like to run for the board please contact me at president@kwphotoclub.com to add your name to the ballot.

I’d like to also thank Connie Emerson who is leaving the board for all her years of service for the club. Connie has worn several hats over the years as Membership Coordinator and Program Coordinator. As Program Coordinator, she has provided us with month after month of outstanding programs. She and David will continue as members but taking a back seat and letting others get involved with our club. Thanks to Connie and David for adding your talents and time to make our club what it is today.

Our final workshop for 2019 is scheduled for November 9th. This is an open panel discussion on photographic equipment. Chuck calls this “The Photographers Wishlist”. Chuck will moderate with the remaining panel to talk about the specific photographic equipment and apps they use for different types of photography. This will include portraits, macro, wildlife, landscape. It should be an interesting discussion and we hope participants will get ideas for that special Christmas gift or stocking stuffer to make any photographer jump for joy.

A few more activities for 2019. November 2 a revisit to Glenwood Cemetery and Houston Murals. The first visit was during the heat of summer and humidity. Sunrise will be at 7:30 so we are hoping to get to Houston by 7 AM to catch the sunrise over Houston. Afterward, we’ll find a few more murals to photograph and possibly the Astro’s murals that are currently being created. If interested please sign up under events/activities > field trips.

December we will have our 3rd Annual Santa Shoot! This has been well received by our community and is great fun to participate in. Chuck is waiting to hear what date and will be sending out information soon. Finally, with 2020 just around the corner, Anne Mullins will be holding a 2020 Activities Planning meeting. If you would like to join her group, have a great idea for a field trip, please contact her at events@kwphotoclub.com.

The next meeting is on November 19th! One of our own, Chris Summers, will be presenting “Food Photography”. Share and Learn assignment “What is in your Backyard”! More on that in the next post. Our holiday social will be held on December 17. As in the past, the club will provide the meat and members attending bring the extras (salad, rolls, drinks, side dishes, desserts). And, for your entertainment, we will have a video of select share and learn photos and events and activities. It should be fun and hope you can arrange to come and possibly have a photo taken.

A final thanks to all our members who helped with this month’s meeting. Refreshments by Dale Barrack, Bill Staney, David Emerson and Margaret Malloy. And thanks to our door greeter Mike Dunderdale.

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August 20th 2019 Agenda

The August meeting was very well attended, the signup sheet had over 45 names on it which was awesome. I do think our speaker, Ruth Hoyt, attracted several members, new and old and a few guests. Excellent talk and her PowerPoint slide show will be uploaded to our Members Only Resource section for your review.

Door Greeters needed! We have one member, Mike Dunderdale, who has volunteered to be a Door Greeter, however as he cannot come to every meeting we need a few more volunteers. Please e-mail me to add your name as a Door Greeter. Due to church policy, the door cannot be unlocked at any time. So a member must be on hand to open the door. This is also why you need to arrive between 6PM and 6:30PM. Once the meeting starts there is no one manning the door to let you in.

Title: Miracle in a Tiny World

Our “Behind the Lens” presentation this month was presented by Emily Murphy. She presented “Miracle in a Tiny World”.

Check out the slides in the attached agenda to read about her settings and click on her video below to see the transformation from a tiny egg to an emerging butterfly.

Would you like to do a “Behind the Lens” presentation at the September meeting? If so e-mail me at president@kwphotoclub.com and I will send you the form.

The agenda is a summary of events, past, and future, that our members have enjoyed and opportunities for learning or socialization in the future. Use the agenda along with the calendar for signups and to make notes on your calendars so you don’t miss out on any field trips or presentations. We are a growing club with many new members so come early to a meeting, socialize and think about what you can do to help make our club even better. Thanks for everyones support and help!

Agenda-201908 WPDownload

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May Meeting and Agenda

I was flying to NY on our meeting night so Jim Schepens, vice president conducted it. The attached agenda is a supplement to our web page giving you a summary of our events and workshops since the last meeting and those coming up. So use it as a review of the meeting and to find out what is going on if you could not be there

Some slides that might interest you:

Online payment of membership dues has been very well received. Jim Evrard will give a quarterly treasurers report next month so stats and figures will be discussed then.

A Directory of our members has been mentioned by several people. What do you think? I hope to put together a survey by our June meeting and to post it on the web site to facilitate your responses and questions.

Finally, as mentioned in a previous News post I am changing our Share and Learn to a Learn and Share. This will give you an opportunity to share your work with a “Behind the Lens” summary and more time on the floor of the meeting to talk about it and answer questions. This is strictly voluntary so no pressure but I have hopes that some of our more experienced members would participate at least once. Experience level is not a criteria so anyone can participate. Check out the “Learn” slide from Chuck Dugand.

Next months program by Paul Gregg, “Guadalupe Mountains National Park — A Visit and a Vision” and your Learn and Share for June 18 – “Sunset to Sunrise and Everything in Between”. Hope to see you in June and until then something to think on:

“We are making photographs to understand what our lives mean to us.”
— Ralph Hattersley

Agenda-201905 WPDownload

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April Meeting Agenda – Drone Photography

For all our members that could not attend, I’ve attached the April agenda as a summary of our meeting. This is a resource for what we have done and what we are planning to do so use it as a reference.

This month I put out the sign-up sheets for Hospitality and Volunteers. We are a small club, currently 55 members and we need everyone to pitch in. Out of the 55 members, 14 have brought refreshments and some have brought more than once. That is not a very good percent. For 11 months of meetings, 3 members per meeting, that is 33 members. We have more than enough members for each to bring one item a year. Hospitality has openings for the remaining months except for May. If you did sign up please let Maggie know if you will be attending. This last meeting the member who signed up for drinks did not attend thus no drinks. Send me a note at (president@kwphotoclub.com) if you can help. We appreciate your generosity.

We also need door watchers. For years Darrell Hancock stayed by the door to let in our members. The church will not allow us to leave the door unlocked so someone must babysit it. We had one volunteer last night, Kelly Roxburg, but Chuck would like a few more. It is not a difficult job and it just means that you arrive early and come up 5 minutes after the meeting starts. It is also important for our members to come on time otherwise they may be locked out and miss the meeting entirely. Contact Chuck
(admin@kwphotoclub.com) if you’d like to help him out.

Our speaker, Mike Allison of Raptor Aerial Services LLC was resourceful and very knowledgeable regarding drone photography. He talked about some of his experiences with flying drones, like his first flights and how he got the buttons mixed up and flipped the drone. Also learning that a 40 mph wind can stop all forward motion from the drone.

Chuck Dugnad and Mike Allison with Mike’s drone display

I was surprised by how drones are being used today. Mike mentioned he has done mapping, also used by farmers, law enforcement, movies, real estate and I read today that drones were used to fight the Notre Dame Cathedral fire. The FAA has authority for commercial drone flying with knowledge and certification requirements. Mike had quite a range of drones on display, one question we all wanted to know, what was the price range for a drone and camera. His reply, from a small drone around $700 to several thousands of dollars. Not much different than a good camera and lens. Excellent participation from the audience and we might see a few more drone photos in the future!

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March Meeting Agenda – April Share and Learn

Jim Schepens, our Vice-President, conducted the March meeting as I was in Utah. He had so much to do that the t-shirts did not get distributed and he asked me to remind all our members that if you ordered a t-shirt please contact him to pick it up. You can reach him at: vp@kwphotoclub.com

The second thing he mentioned is we need more people to help. I like to take photos at the meeting and of the speakers. I’d like to know if several of our members would like to take that over. Please contact me at: president@kwphotoclub.com if you are interested so we can talk.

The attached agenda is a good month in review and is a good summary reference for what we have done and what we are planning to do. From club events and workshops to outings. Anne Mullins and Bill Beard created a video of the Houston Zoo outing that has been posted on our Web site. This is something I’d like to see continued. For April we have so much going on that it will be a challenge for Bill to fit everything in. I’m asking participants of these outings to send me 10 of their best photos for these videos. Send them just like you do for share and learn adding your name to the file and putting the field event on the subject line. I’d also like to create a gallery with these photos for all our members to enjoy.

Bee on a Bluebonnet; ISO 200; 100mm; f/4.0; 1/250 sec In 2014 Blackland Gully, in front of my house, was filled with bluebonnets. Sadly, that is not the case today. The Reserve at Kings Point reseeded and the amount of flowers is very thin. One can only hope that as these throw out seeds next year will be better.

April share and learn “One Leg, Two Legs, Four Legs or more”. Basically anything animate or inanimate with a leg or legs. Good subject for macro photographers. Everyone who went to High Island got plenty of shots of bird legs so they have plenty to chose from for the April 16th meeting. Deadline for sending in your photos, Monday April 15th, 5PM.

Wishing you a very happy spring with lots of photography clicking this month. See you in April.

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January’s Speaker, Jay Mangum “Blending Natural and Artificial Light in Night Images”

Jay Mangum, a club member, was our featured Program Speaker this last month. His talk was on one of my favorite subjects, night photography. However, he added artificial light to his portraits to bring a more dramatic scene to life.

With some great equipment tips, fantastic night photos and photo settings he prepared us for our next trek into the wilds with camera and tripod. Some of his safety tips included checking the weather before heading out for a long hike. Bad weather can be really bad when you are in an open field with no cover. Carry extra flash lights and triple the batteries and if planning a long hike, check it out during the day for potential problems. Walking at night is so different than walking during the day. Safety first as we all want to get home with these award winning photos.

Jay was kind enough to let me post his PowerPoint so you can take your time reviewing and learning from his experience. Excellent talk by one of our own!

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The Revised Kingwood Photo Club Bylaws are Approved

After several months of working to revise the Bylaws of our club, the attending members passed the motion to approve them last night.  My thanks to all who helped to review and submit changes.  And thanks to the member last night who voted to approve them.  As I’ve stated before this is the first step in becoming a tax-exempt organization so we still have a path to follow and hope to have everything completed in the first quarter of January.

As per the revised Bylaws, we will be voting for six directors at the November 13th meeting. Currently on the ballot will be Jim Schepens, Jim Evrard, Chuck Dugand, Connie Emerson, Anne Mullins and myself, Kathy Muhle.   If anyone would like to add their name to the ballot please send an e-mail to president@kwphotoclub.com.  

 

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March Program – Father Joseph Barbieri and Astrophotography

Everyone who attended our March Program “Astrophotography – Photographing the Heavens” enjoyed this heavenly journey.  Father Joseph Barbieri was a fantastic speaker and engaged the audience with his banter and common sense approach to this topic.  He brought up the condition called “Photon Starved”.   In summary the condition occurs when clear night skies needed for photographing the stars is measured in hours – not nights.  Symptoms are many including frequent checking for weather conditions, grumpy from lack of SD or CF cards filled with photos waiting to be processed and general disappointment in everything weather related.  My husband liked his down-to-earth approach with a moderate budget (I already squashed the idea of the 12-inch telescope) and advise to contact a local astronomy club.  I found one for Kingwood – North Houston Astronomy Club.  Connie Emerson, our Program Chair,  stated it was a suggestion from a club member recommending we contact Fr. Joe for a talk.  It took almost a year but that suggestion started the ball rolling.  So, anyone that sees or hears of a potentially good speaker for our monthly programs – contact Connie with the contact information!   Many of the photos were taken at the Dark Site in west Houston that the Astronomy Clubs own so you don’t have to travel far just clear skies (winter months are best though cold).  Father kindly allowed us to post his Powerpoint, so enjoy the Heavenly show and be amazed!  Astrophoto presentation

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