Category: Resources

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February Agenda and March Assignment

March Assignment – Printed Photos

For all our members I’ve attached February’s agenda for your review. If you could not attend this will be a good overview of the topics discussed. Included are current schedules for this year’s monthly programs, activities, and Share and Learn assignments.

Speaking of the March meeting we are doing something a bit different. First, the March meeting will be our first hybrid meeting. We will meet in person at the Frist Baptist Church, 3500 Woodland Hills Drive, Kingwood, TX 77339 and we will continue to offer a zoom virtual option. Chuck has changed a few things to make this hybrid meeting a success.

Second, for our Share and Learn we give you the option of bringing in printed photos (do upload that photo to our Dropbox for our virtual members) or you and our members on zoom can upload photos that you have printed or would like to print. We hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to share your prized photos with the club. I try to make the topics broad enough that the photographer can be challenged no matter their skill level. We all started at the same place and as our February speaker Hector D. Astorga said, practice, practice, practice, and check out the video of our last meeting and Hector’s talk that Chuck uploaded. His photography alone is worth watching.

Additionally, there may be a local establishment that will give club members wall space to display their photos. This is very exciting and additional details will be coming soon. You could just display the photo or possibly post it for sale.

Additional agenda slides to look at is a new Resource website tab: “Favorite Photographers and Photo Tour Groups”. Pam Walton suggested this to assist our members in planning photography trips. We have many members who have utilized experienced photographers or tours and we are asking them to fill out a trip form with specific information that can be put into a spreadsheet for others to query. Look for the News Post “Our Favorite Tour Guides and Photo Trips” with a link to the form.

Our Activities Calendar has possible activities for each month. Next month a trip to the Houston Zoo is being planned and April has several activities that look like fun. Just having driven back from Austin we saw many patches of bluebonnets already starting to bloom! Last year was a very sad year for bluebonnets so this looks promising though we may need to plan for late March or early April. All announcements for activities will be posted on our website and on our Facebook page.

Lastly, Texas will have two solar events coming up. An annular Solar Eclipse on Saturday, Oct 14, 2023, and a total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024. If you are interested in photographing either of these events send an e-mail to me at president@kwphotoclub.com. I would be very happy to talk about photographing these events. You can also check out this educational site with lots of specific information and links for lens filters and glasses that you will need:

https://eclipse.aas.org/eclipse-america-2023-2024

A bit long in the tooth tonight but I hope you stayed with me to the end. The agenda link is below :).

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October Agenda is Available

We are missing the playback of our meeting due to my error in recording. Not certain what happened but only the agenda was recorded, not the actual meeting.

There are several announcements that I wanted to be certain all members are informed of so I’ve uploaded the agenda for you to review.

In November there will be the election of two directors. Randi Munsey will be rerunning for her director position, Pam Walton has decided to leave the board (but not the club) so the director slate will be updated before the November meeting.

The second reminder is the annual Christmas Party on December 13th. We will meet a week early at the Church due to the Christmas Holiday the following week. I’ll send out a separate post regarding the food and events for that night. Last year we had about 40 attendees, club members are encouraged to bring their spouse or a guest. We had fun seeing people up close and personal after so many Zoom-only meetings so I hope to see you all on Dec 13th.

I’ve already posted the Share and Learn for November “Celebrations” so check it out.

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January Agenda

There is lots of information in the January Agenda. If you are wondering what the club is doing and has done in the last month click on the attachment.

I’ll also give a plug for Pam Walton for our membership renewals. We need you and we want to continue to provide workshops, activities, meetings. The agenda has all the information you need to renew online or to send in your membership.

Enjoy the agenda and hope to see you in February. We have a great presentation on Astrophotography by Richard Wiblourn!!

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July Meeting Agenda

Chris Summers Winner of July Mini-Contest “Heat”

Getting all my uploads done early this month. I’m uploading this months agenda to share the information from the meeting to you who could not join us. Chuck will also upload a video of the meeting.

Check the Agenda for the Workshops, SIG groups and the weekly Photographers Zoom lunch.

Potential pop-up trips for August include the AIA Sandcastle Competition in Galveston on August 20-21 (weather permitting). Anne Mullins will not be available to coordinate this so if anyone is interested if you could contact Anne to coordinate the trip, Anne recommended an early day with lunch on the Strand.

The second surprise popup for August is a return visit of Union Pacific’s Big Boy on August 17th. This is the last working steam engine and the last time it was in Houston Mike and I visited it. What we noticed were all the pads under the engine to collect the dripping oil. So any opportunity to see this train running on the tracks has to be a must photo opportunity. Last time Connie and David caught some awesome photos close to their farm. More information from Chris Summers to come or you could search for the Union Pacific Big Boy announcement.

The Blue Angels are back for the 2021 Wings over Houston Airshow on October 9-10! Wings over Houston is selling early tickets at a discount and if you love to see these planes in action, have a new long lens to check out, this is a great event to attend. Chuck Dugand has already bought his Photo Pit ticket so if interested check with him for the date if you want company. Highly recommend it.

The August meeting was missing a program and speaker which gives the club the opportunity to have an open discussion regarding the upcoming trip to Rapid City SD. Lots to discuss and this will be followed up with a zoom meeting with the Rapid City Photo Club in early September. Steve Hansen and Jim Schepens are organizing this trip and it looks like we’ll have over a dozen members coming. Besides talking about SD we’ll also discuss the types of photography that are available (Landscape, waterfalls, sunrise, sunset, street photography) and answer any questions you might have. So all members should find this meeting interesting.

There will be no formal September meeting as most of the board will be in SD. Jim Evrard, our treasurer, is willing to host the meeting and we’ll try and see if any members can zoom in from SD.

Contest Gallery for July Mini-Contest “Heat”

July Mini-Contest “Heat” has brought the sun the last few days! Looking at the radar for today – mostly sunny Woo Hoo! Chris Summers was the winner with one of his two photos of the Namib desert. Steve Hansen thought out of the box with his “Hot Chillie” along with his “Spitting Fire” from Hawaii. Chuck Dugand’ chose his”Myanmar Evening” and “Arizona Sunset” to display heat. and I added a photo from the 2014 Wings over Houston “Shockwave – the only jet-powered truck”. Look closely, you can see the heat waves behind the truck, it was loud and it was hot! The last was also from Hawaii – Fire Dancer. Next month’s theme – “Blue”!

Thanks for all the support we have from our members. This club is here due to your support and participation. The board encourages any member to contact us who would like to volunteer to keep this club going! Thanks for reading this entire post and remember “Let your words be few and your exposures many”. Go out and enjoy the sun!

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January Meeting Agenda

Holiday food shots by Chris Summers

An excellent start for the club’s 2021 meetings with a fantastic presentation by Chris Summers and a review of activities to start the year off. If you didn’t attend the meeting you should listen to the program video Chuck made. The photos alone are worth a look.

January we had a board meeting to elect the current slate of officers for our club. We re-elected everyone to the same position as last year:

Congratulations to the officers. And, I’d like to thank each of them for all the work that they do.

Additionally, I’d like to thank all the members that serve as committee chairs and volunteers:

We are a social club and having members volunteer their time is a vital need to a successful club. My thanks to all of you for the great job that you do. We always have room for more volunteers so anyone interested in joining our team let me know at president@kwphotoclub.com. or check out slide 6 for the committee chair emails to contact them directly.

Memberships, a quick word about renewing. Chuck has posted several reminders and I’ll briefly mention that it is time to renew your membership. Without you the club does not exist so I hope you take a few minutes to go on line and either print a membership form and mail it in or pay on line via PayPal. Either one will work as we are not currently having in person meetings. Pam Walton is watching over this area and if you have a question about your membership please contact her at Membership@kwphotoclub.com.

Chuck has posted a video of the business portion of our meeting so you can hear the discussions regarding all the club activities coming up. The next Pop-up trip is Friday Jan 29th, at the Memorial Park Glades in Houston. This is a drive yourself event, meeting in the park parking lot at 10AM. The area has lots of picnic locations so bring your lunch for a socially distanced event. You can contact Anne at Activities@kwphotoclub.com for information.

Our next zoom meeting is February 16th, You will need to signup for the meeting to receive a zoom invite from Chuck. Hope you can all make the next meeting with a presentation by a Storm Chaser. More information to come. Take advantage of the pop-up on Friday, looks like a beautiful day.

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August Agenda Highlights

Our members enjoyed another successful zoom meeting in August. Logging in locally and from out-of-town to enjoy a few hours with our photography friends. Club news included updates on the newest and greatest additions to our web site, what pop-up activities to look for in the future, and a look back on our year to date events.

The members picked up photography tips from our guest speaker David Morefield of Fluffyshotme Fine Art Photography during his presentation of “Using White Balance Effectively” and enjoyed the Share and Learn segment “Foreground Mid-ground Background” with photos from 23 members. The meeting ended with the announcement for our Sept 15 program by Doug Sweet, Humble Camera Center owner, “Where is Photography Going” and our next month’s assignment “Man-Made Structures”.

The Agenda is attached for you to download and review. Have a fun Labor Day Holiday!

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July Meeting Agenda

We had another well-attended zoom meeting on Tuesday, over 40 members in attendance, and a record-breaking number of Share and Learn submissions! Wow, the club is showing that even with social distancing we can keep our social group active and growing. Thank you all for joining us and participating. And a big thanks to Chuck for his ever-impressive web skills, keeping our club virtually together.

Membership chair Pam Walton started the meeting by reporting that we had 5 new members join this month. We are now up to 80 members! Last year we started our Paypal online membership payments and with these virtual meetings, this has been a great benefit to keep our membership growing even without the person to person meetings.

Besides Membership, we heard a report from Activities Chair Anne Mullins. She is mindful of the current health concerns with traveling and social distancing so there are no formal activities planned for the near future. However, there could be some pop-up activities that will be posted on our web site or on our Facebook page. Some suggestions for a pop-up activity is a downtown architectural trip, local photo shot of Kingwood churches and within a 100-mile radius of Kingwood are many towns and sights that could be a quick day trip. Jim Schepens also mentioned a potential trip for next year to the Black Hills. Steve Hansen is currently in South Dakota and he was going to talk with Jim about ideas for that trip.

Chuck Dugand has been super busy during this pandemic. He has started a Wednesday Photographer Lunch with no agenda. Just meeting virtually with photography friends over lunch and talk about anything nonpolitical. This last Wednesday we talked about where our favorite places to go in our area for sunrise, sunset photos so he has created a google map under our resources. Look for his News article and Facebook article.

Another initiative of Chuck’s is a Mentoring Program. This is created to help our new and old members improve their skill in various areas of photography. We have had many members want to know how to operate their cameras or specific post processing issues so this is a start at bringing together a member with specific knowledge with a member that needs that knowledge. Checkout the Mentor’s Program tab on our website and let us know what you think of it.

Finally, Chuck also talked about the Post Processing SIG that has been ongoing. The lunch group discussed this and some suggestions were talked about to make it more interactive. Chuck does not want this to be a workshop so making it more hands-on is the goal. Look for more information from Chuck.

Jim Evrard talked briefly about the Portraiture SIG which has been badly hurt by this pandemic. Just because we cannot meet in person does not mean that each of us cannot practice portraits of family or friends. There are many good resources on the web and on our own resource page and we’ll continue to post articles on portraiture and lighting topics.

The August Workshop on “Re-envisioning your Image” is coming up. This is the final workshop of the series that Chuck presented (“Know your Camera” and “Creating Art”). He will focus on post-processing the image to tell the story we want to tell. Go to our website to signup for the August 1 virtual workshop. Now, putting out the hat for Chuck, he has done so many workshops and we are short a topic and leader for September and November. There are many topics that we have not heard from this year and he would greatly appreciate your help. Please consider contacting Chuck if you can help him out. Chris Summers is busy working on his October workshop “Children’s Portraiture” If you have seen any of his many posts on Facebook you know Chris has an excellent eye, that the portraiture of his grand kids are fun and expressive. Mark your calendars so you don’t miss this opportunity to hear how to take great family photos before the holidays.

Our July program “Architectural Photography” by Joe Aker owner of Aker Photography was filled with beautiful visions of buildings locally and all over the world. Look for a separate post on Joe’s talk and a link to the program that Chuck recorded. The talk was very well received and you’ll want to watch the recording if you missed it.

Finally, the next virtual meeting will be on August 18th. Jim Schepens has arranged for David Morefield, owner of Fluffyshotme Photography on “Using White Balance Effectively”. David is a local photographer that I actually met several years ago in Downtown Houston while doing some night shooting. Very personable and knowledgable. It should be an interesting talk.

Assignment for next month “Foreground, Mid-Ground, and Background”. Look for a separate post on the next month’s assignment.

It was so good to see so many of you even virtually. Please be well, stay cool and keep in touch with the club by watching for the Monday e-mail blast or follow us on Facebook. Check out a Wednesday Photographers Lunch for some laid back conversation and group chat.

The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.

Ansel Adams

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June 16th Meeting Agenda

Good job everyone who participated in our June meeting and sent in Share and Learn. I was traveling and not able to zoom in but thanks to Chuck he recorded Ken and Jimmy’s presentation for us to watch. The link below will take you to the youtube video.

The Evolution of Photography by Ken Frederick and Jimmy Hemphill

Chuck Dugand is doing the next two zoom workshops which are a continuation of his “Know your Camera”. On July 11th ( July 4th is a holiday so we opted for the next Saturday) Chuck will present “Creating Art – Rules of Composition”. Chuck will challenge you to think more critically about your photography using the elements of composition. What are they and how do they help engage your audience with your photo. Hint, one of these rules “Unique Angle or Perspective” is your assignment for the July meeting. So signup for a link for this workshop on our webpage. His last workshop will be August 1 “Re-envisioning your Image”

Chuck could use some help with these workshops as he still needs workshop leaders for September 5 and November 7. If you are brave enough to volunteer please contact Chuck at Admin@kwphotoclub.com and share your photography passion with the club.

The club started two Special Interest Groups this year. Post Processing SIG led by Chuck Dugand and James Himanga is using Zoom to continue these workshops. They just held a workshop on June 18th covering plug-ins and /or stand-alone editors. Look for the next PP-SIG monthly meeting announcement for July on our website.

The Portraiture SIG led by Jim Evrard and Kathy Muhle meetings are postponed due to the COVID-19 closure of the Kings Point Community Center. Jim is planning on sending out portraiture information via e-mail, News articles, and Facebook in the meantime.

Activities are slowly coming back. Texas is still not totally open so there is a tentative painted Church day trip planned for the 27th of June. If interested please contact Anne Mullins at Activities@kwphotoclub.com for more information and signup. Our last club activity was a day trip to the Cockrell Butterfly Center which everyone that went totally enjoyed. Anne said that the group included: Aurea Melendez, Margaret Molloy, Ellen Taylor Randi, Munsey, Anne Mullins and newcomer Aelyne de la Torre and Elaine Taylor. Bill Beard created a video of their photos which I will ask him to upload for you.

Finally, after our presentation and Share and Learn, next month’s meeting was announced for Tuesday, July 21. Jim Schepens has arranged for Joe Aker, owner of Aker Photography to present a program on “Architectural Photography”. Our Share and Learn assignment for July “Unique Angle or Perspective”! Check out the post on that assignment for some tips on getting unique photos or click the link below.

https://www.mybluprint.com/article/unique-perspective-photography

I’ve also attached the monthly agenda for your review. I hope you are all doing well and staying healthy and hope to see your faces on our next zoom meeting on July 21! Happy Father’s Day to all our fathers!

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May’s Meeting Agenda

The shutdown can’t keep a good club down and new members from joining us. This month Pam Walton welcomed three new members: Marnpimol Collins, Monica Ehrmann and Joan and Thorro Jones. Very happy to welcome these newest members to our group.

In this month’s agenda you’ll find a refresher for our upcoming workshop, SIGs, and club activities. There is also a reminder that between meetings stay connected to our club by checking your Monday e-blasts, our Website, and our Facebook page. Many members have posted photos on our Facebook page, courses to take, locations to visit basically anything photography related. Let us know what you discover as you wander down the road.

Club sponsored activities are still focused on using Zoom for virtual meetings and workshops. Group activities are beginning with the first official group activity to the Cockrell Butterfly Center on June 8th. This is a members-only activity with each participant purchasing their own $10 ticket purchased online prior to June 8th. Look for information and signup on our Web site.

The next Library Zoom Virtual Workshop will be June 6th on Macro Photography. If you have an interest in macro photography this workshop could give you some guidance for your first step or your next step. Whether you are looking for an inexpensive way to begin or thinking about some macro lenses I try to cover the basics and beyond. How-to topics include creating a timelapse with your macro shots, focus stacking to get maximum sharpness, and setting up a studio by Michelle Pakron. Lots of information for you. You do need to sign up on our website so you can receive the Zoom meeting link. Due to the virtual nature this is also for members only.

Chuck Dugand’s Post Processing SIG is again virtual. His May 21st SIG is past but look for information regarding his June meeting. For Portraiture SIG, Jim Evrard is looking at June 27th for the next meetings if Texas continues to open. With portraiture it does not lend it’s self to virtual meetings. More information on that meeting shortly.

I mentioned the June 8th visit to the Cockrell Butterfly Center. Anne Mullins will also schedule a meeting of the Activities Committee in mid-June. Look for an e-mail from Anne and if you would like to join her committee you can contact her at Activities@kwphotoclub.com

Our meeting also included two videos. Chuck Dugand created one with all the Front Step photographs, and really fun to watch. I had no idea so many creative people live around us. Chuck stated that Bill Beard gets the award for the most photographs. Bill created the second video with pictures from the Blue Angels flyover. Chris Summers stated this was a very popular event for us and we all set up at different places in the hopes of getting our shots of them flying over. I looked at my first shot time and last shot time and I had less than a minute to photograph them. We were staggered from the Los Cucos on I-59 to the Target in Humble and some over their houses. Great shots. I hope Chuck will put the videos on our Web site so you can all enjoy them. An interesting side note for the Blue Angels, one of the pilots graduated from Kingwood High School His parents still live in Kingwood! Check out the article in our local Tribune.

Our Share and Learn is still a vital part of our meetings and with the virtual meeting, if you have a microphone you can tell us all about your photos. Our speaker, Kathy Adams Clark talked about how she has kept busy during this isolation period. Our Share and Learn topic last month let us show how we are coping so it was interesting to see her perspective. More on her talk in another post. I’ve included the Share and Learn photos as part of the agenda as I’ve added notes about the photos or the member sent in notes on their photos.

Finally, our next virtual meeting will be on June 16th. Jim Schepens said the church is just beginning to open up so more on when we’ll be welcomed back in the month to come. The program that Jim has arranged is by Ken Frederick. A frequent speaker with us and this program is titled “History of Photography”. Ken is an engaging speaker and will keep you all entertained. Just a reminder that you will need the link to join the meeting, I think the link is going out to all members so watch for it a day before the meeting.

Next month our Share and Learn topic: “All about Texas”! The subject matter is up to you as long as it is in our Lone State. Composition still matters so think about the shot and how you want to tell the story. As I will be traveling these will be due Sunday June 14th. I hope you find time to get out with your cameras or just to enjoy the outdoors.

Agenda-202005Download

Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs. Ansel Adams

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April’s Virtual Meeting was a Success!

Screen shot of members as they signed on

The Kingwood Photo Club has now officially entered the virtual world! This was a tremendous feat of accomplished by our IT Guru – Chuck Dugand! This was a formidable task and I’m sure I tried Chuck’s patience many times during the practices leading up to the meeting. As the meeting went very smoothly all the trial runs with Chuck definitely paid off. Thanks, Chuck! We are forever in your debt.

Chuck told me after the meeting that we had about 33 members at one time so a really good showing for our first virtual. I’ve attached the agenda for your reference and if you were not able to attend you can checkout the club’s activities.

A quick summary of activities and notices, past and present, that were noted in the agenda.

Please use our Website and Facebook to keep up with club events between meetings. With so much uncertainty, Anne Mullins, Activities Chair, is not formally planning any outings. However, as we learn more about how Texas will phase in a restart of our economy there will be pop-up activities posted on our Web page and Facebook. Hopefully, by the May meeting, Anne will have some ideas for the remainder of the year and she can have her activities group meet for a planning session soon after our May meeting.

Our Special Interest Groups are on hold. Chuck has conducted one virtual Post Processing SIG. Portraiture SIG is waiting till we can again meet in the Kings Point Community Pool Room. For the portraiture we are in need of models. Our model from last year has left Kingwood so if you have a suggestion please let us know at treasurer@kwphotoclub.com.

Chuck is still planning our Library workshops with signups on our Website. Jim Schepens is presenting a virtual workshop on iPhonography in May. In June I’ll be doing one on Macro Photography that we think can be held in the Library, if not we’ll make it a virtual workshop. In October Chris Summers will present Children’s Portraiture. There are still 3 months that need a presenter; August 1, September 5, and November 7. If you’d like to share a photography skill with the public please contact Chuck at Admin@kwphotoclub.com. He will be most appreciative.

If you’ve been reading the articles that come out in our Monday’s e-blast you have read about our recent project: Front Steps. There is so much enthusiasm in our community for these photos. Chuck (our hardest-working member wearing many hats) still can use additional photographers to cover areas not currently covered. Our project will be featured on the Tribune’s Website and possibly in their Tuesday paper so we are looking for more appointments and don’t wish to disappoint any Kingwood resident. The time involved is minimal so please consider joining our group and bring some smiles to your neighbors. Go to our Home Page on the web site, click on the Front Steps Project button, and scroll down to see the photos that we’ve already taken. I think Bill Beard and Chris Summers are one and two with the number of photos they have already posted.

Our May program was originally all about members selling, swapping, giving away photography equipment they no longer use. That will be impossible with a virtual meeting in May so we are postponing this event. We also need input from you to gauge participation. Chuck has put together a small survey that he will post with a few questions. Once we get the results of this survey will be back with more information regarding this event.

Finally, our next meeting is on May 19th. We are planning another virtual meeting and our speaker, Kathy Adams Clark, has agreed to do a zoom presentation. She was our speaker for April and that meeting was canceled so we are very pleased that she could make time for us in May. Her topic “Lessons Learned in Isolation”.

I don’t know about you but I have cabin fever and looking at past vacations brings visions of future vacations. This leads me to the Share and Learn assignment for May: ” Vacation Visions”, where you’ve been, and where you’d like to go! More on that in another post. Stay well enjoy getting outside in our beautiful spring weather and an early Happy Mother’s Day to all our moms in the club!

Agenda-202004 WPDownload

The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!

Ansel Adams

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