The Lake Houston Area Photographers Club
Join us for a fun evening with Pam Walton sharing many different ways you can use your digital photos for personal items or gifts. Pam has gathered information from several members and will share the items and vendor or vendors they have used or that she has personal experience with. Maybe you will be inspired to do more with your digital photos!
And so much more!
We might know how to compose elements in an image and how to produce the colors and tones we want, but how do we raise our photography above simply producing well-exposed, well-edited, well-arranged, 2-dimensional visual sentences? When does the photograph go from descriptive to lyrical? How do we express the reason we took the photo? How do we help the viewer feel what we felt and thought when we decided to press the shutter at that moment?
Our speaker, Ian McVea’s, time with us is designed to discuss concepts we can bring to any of the dozens of the photo disciplines (landscape, portraits, abandoned buildings/cars, birds, architectural, bugs on flowers, etc.) that can elevate our photos and communicate our vision. To write poems with light.
Ian McVea is a Irish-born, Texas-based photojournalist and photography educator. Growing up in Ireland, India, South Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Ethiopia, and Algeria, he developed a love for photographing the world around him. He joined the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper in 1989 as a staff photographer, later becoming a photo editor and then Director of Photography.
During that time, he photographed six Cowboys head coaches, five U.S. presidents, four Van Cliburn International Piano Competitions, three governors of Texas, two supermodels, one queen of England, and countless Friday night football games, ribbon-cuttings, and restaurant reviews. He covered the Oklahoma City bombing, the Shuttle Columbia disaster, and hurricanes Katrina and Rita for international wire services.
While on staff at the Star-Telegram, Ian taught photojournalism classes as an adjunct professor at TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism, and, on leaving the paper in 2012, he began a full-time career teaching Commercial Photography in the Arlington ISD.
His images have been part of recent exhibits at a number of Texas galleries and art museums, and have received honors from the Dallas Press Club, National Headliners, Houston Press Club, The Texas APME, and the Texas Photographic Society.
He is an accredited member of the Royal Photographic Society, the NPPA, ASMP, and the Association of Texas Photography Instructors.
Ian has two married daughters who share his passion for analogue photography.
Our speaker, David Valdez, was the Chief White House Photographer to George H.W. Bush 1989 – 1993. He will join us via Zoom and share his photos, stories and his part in USA History.
Our speaker, David Valdez, was the Chief White House Photographer to George H. W. Bush 1989-1993. He will share his photos, stories and his part in USA History.
David Valdez was born in Alice, Texas. After graduating from high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Valdez enlisted in the U. S. Air Force, where he was trained as a photographer. He served with the 836th Combat Support Group for four years, and then earned a BA in journalism from the University of Maryland in College Park. While he was a student there, Valdez was employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a photographer. He left the federal government to become Chief Photographer for the United States Chamber of Commerce. In 1983, he became personal photographer to Vice President George H. W. Bush. In 1988, President Bush appointed Valdez Director of the White House Photo Office and his Personal Photographer. During this administration, Valdez traveled to 75 countries and all 50 states with the President. In 1997, Valdez published George Herbert Walker Bush: A Photographic Profile. David Valdez has had many photos published in Life, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, National Geographic Traveler, People, Sports Illustrated, Paris Match, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post and countless other books and publications around the world.
Hope you see you!
The agenda is a great resource for what the club has done and plans for future activities and workshops. Three new members have joined so the club continues to grow. This month two activities were featured on the Facebook page. We are coming into the hot months of summer so planned outdoor activities are limited. I have an activity in August to photograph the full moon over the City of Houston on August 19th if the weather cooperates! If you are interested in the June 21st Ship Channel Cruise, there are only 10 tickets available online. For questions please contact Jim Schepens at jlskep@aol.com.
The Cove Craft Beer and Wine was flooded but they saved our photos from the flood. We’ll have an in-person speaker next month, David Valdez. His program will recount his years as The President’s Photographer! Should be interesting. The next meeting will be June 18th, the assignment is “Landscapes with People” and a thank you to the members who shared photos in May.
The May meeting included a fantastic program by our speaker Bryan Hansel. Zooming in from northern Minnesota his presentation included examples of Composition, Additive, and Subtractive. Starting with the simplest scene at your location add one or more compositional elements to bring more interest to the scene. His photos show the process that he follows by walking around and finding additional elements to enhance the photo. Subtractive is just the opposite. You photograph the entire scene then you begin to subtract elements until the composition is the strongest.
Simplicity – Flow – Relationships, how do these all relate in a photo? The first rule of composition: There are no rules, dito for the second rule and the third rule is refer back to rules #1 and #2. He read a quote from Edward Weston “To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.” Three things are needed for a good photo: Simplicity of subject matter; Visual Flow and balance to create direction for your viewer and Relationships between all elements.
Simplicity incorporates shapes, forms, lines, patterns, textures, and colors. Straight lines add energy compared to curved lines that slow the viewer’s eyes and are more calming. Looking for repeating patterns and textures can be regarded as very strong compositional elements. Color can be very impactful. Whether it is a bold single color or a combination of colors. The color wheel can be of great help when dealing with colors
These are some of the color combinations that he talked about with examples of his photography to add emphasis to the subject matter.
Flow is another element to consider. How do you balance a photo, is the visual weight balanced on the left and right sides of the photo? Visual weight will draw your eye like a bright area, a contrasty area, people are weighty and motion. Dark areas hold little weight. As an exercise, take a photo and draw an imaginary line down the middle. Does it feel balanced? A well-balanced photo will help move the eyes of the viewer around the photo.
Relationships include three points in a landscape – foreground, middle, and background. Foreground, what is in front of you, is the introduction to your photograph and the first item that grabs your viewer’s interest. It can help direct the eye to the subject of the photo, the middle, or the background. The height of your tripod can modify the relationship between the foreground and the background. If the background is uninteresting moving closer to the foreground can be more impactful. Focal length can also modify the relationship between foreground and background. Take photos at different focal lengths by zooming in but keeping your foreground in focus to see the effect.
Finally, he talked about Style. Style includes photographing subjects that we like and how we visualize them. As we develop our skills we’ll see repeating patterns in our images and realize that is part of our style. He mentioned that he likes photographing in natural areas and he likes putting a canoe as a foreground element in them. He showed a very early photo that was totally unlike any of his current photos but was a good example of how he has developed his style.
Mike and I attended a Milky Way photo tour with Bryan and he was an excellent teacher, he has lived in MN for decades and knows all the best spots. We were very lucky that the skies cleared so we had beautiful night skies on the shores of Lake Michigan. Below is his information for anyone interested in one of his workshops or signing up for his blog that he e-mails out. He said teaching is a way to give back to his teachers and it motivates him as a photographer. A very nice person and an excellent teacher in a workshop.
Hope to see you all next month! Stay safe and hopefully, we’ll dry out in a few days.
We are now upstairs with plenty of room for members!
Composition for Landscape Photography
Speaker: Bryan Hansel
https://www.bryanhansel.com
Infrared photography is a journey into a wondrous land of photography where what you see is transformed into another dimension with your camera.
Infrared, or IR photography, offers photographers the opportunity to explore the world of the unseen. Infrared photography creates unique images capable of portraying things not normally visible to the human eye.
Learn how infrared photography can give another dimension to your vision of the world.
Do you think you’re photographing in the right dimension? Well, consider this if you dare…
Infrared photography is a journey into a wondrous land of photography where what you see is transformed into another dimension with your camera.
Infrared, or IR photography, offers photographers the opportunity to explore the world of the unseen. Infrared photography creates unique images capable of portraying things not normally visible to the human eye.
Learn how infrared photography can give another dimension to your vision of the world.
Silvana Della, our April speaker, is a software engineer by trade. She began her fascination with photography as a very small child. The early fascination turned into a lifelong obsession. Decades later her passion never faltered, but her view of the world evolved. Photographing what the eye can’t perceive is what she loves best to capture.
Past President of the Stony Brook Camera Club in Franklin, Massachusetts, she is the recipient of many photography awards. Her images have appeared in Lighthouse Digest, Yankee Magazine, and the Boston Globe, and were featured in Nikon’s 100th birthday celebration. She has presented and judged at camera club councils, camera clubs, and art associations throughout the US.
Silvana helps others expand their own photographic vision through her photography workshops, photo walks, photo tours, private instruction, and club presentations on various photography topics including infrared, Milky Way, black & white, nightscapes, deep space photography, and time-lapse. She challenges photographers to consider that there is much more in a scene than what is visible to the human eye and to tap into the power of their cameras to discover it.
To her, life is best summarized by the quote “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.” – from the 1958 film “Auntie Mame”.
Good photography can change hearts and minds. Join professional photographer Sean Fitzgerald for a presentation on how to photograph prairies for maximum impact, with a particular focus on often overlooked Texas prairie ecosystems. Learn valuable tips to take better photos using a variety of techniques to help you tell the stories you want to tell.
Good photography can change hearts and minds.
Join professional photographer Sean Fitzgerald for a presentation on how to photograph prairies for maximum impact, with a particular focus on often overlooked Texas prairie ecosystems. Learn valuable tips to take better photos using a variety of techniques to help you tell the stories you want to tell.
Sean is a Texas-based nature, conservation and travel photographer working primarily in editorial and commercial assignments, stock, and commercial fine art. He also leads photo workshops for Ted Turner Reserves. He is a past president of the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA), a current member NANPA and American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), and currently helps lead photographer advocacy efforts on copyright reform and public land access.
For more information, go to www.seanfitzgerald.com.
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