Everything is bigger in Texas, or so the saying goes so this month’s assignment should be an overwhelming success. From our club’s activities through the years to the rich history of Texas there are so many photographic opportunities. We’d love to showcase your photos and hear the stories that define Texas to you. I’m thinking rodeo, bar-b-que, courthouses, unique places, state parks, cityscapes, lakes, wildlife and so much more. And what about all those KPTA activities over the years? We have had wonderful activity chairpersons who have worked to schedule local photographic events for us. And we have had excellent programs that talked about photographic subjects in Texas. Have I jogged your memory of the photos you’ve taken?
2023 Share and Learn Assignments
For all those who want to know what future assignments are I’ve put a schedule together for you. All photos are due by the afternoon of our meeting. Please resize your photos as explained on our website. To have your photos uploaded to the gallery they must be resized. Please submit only three photos, our hybred meetings (in person and virtual) must end by 9 PM due to the Church building restrictions.
Tim Sullivan our VP will be hosting the meeting on April 18th. I will be traveling that day and not be able to attend. Finally, Happy Easter everyone!
Our November meeting is on the third Tuesday, right before the Thanksgiving holiday so mark your calendars!
This month’s assignment is “Celebrations”! What do you celebrate? From family events to national holidays to get-togethers. Whatever you define as a “Celebration” can be included.
Our grandson was married last weekend (already married a week, how fast time flies) with all the bells and whistles in the bride’s backyard. We enjoyed the beautiful weather for the day and night and I tried to get some photos of the dancing. I was wanting to get some motion into the photo and lowered the shutter speed to 1/80th of a second. That was probably too low as many are too blurry. I was using my nifty 50 lens so zoom was via my feet. An awesome night celebrating their new lives. Mike and I left around 9 PM, but the bride and groom left around 12 midnight! Way too late for a couple of grandparents! 🙂
Upload your photos via the “Share and Learn” button with the weekly club e-blast or from the member’s page on our website. Our meeting is Tuesday, November 15th so photos need to be uploaded prior to 5 PM that night. Send us your “Celebration” photos to share your special events.
Posting this article from Austin so it will be short. In September we are going to “Fill the Frame”. The subject is going to make up the majority of the photos. If you attended our August speaker he gave an excellent program on macro photography. If you could not attend I’d recommend watching the video. Macro photography is all about getting close to the subject. As close to your subject as your lens will allow you. This will enlarge the image to show all the details of the subject. The list of subjects is endless, from flowers to insects to food to anything that interests you. You are only limited by your imagination.
We will be meeting in the Church and on zoom so your photos will be due by noon on Tuesday, September 20. Everyone is doing a great job uploading them to our Dropbox using the Share and Learn button and I thank you!
Take a look at the macro world and discover a whole new world to photograph. More on this subject in my next post.
Summer is quickly coming to an end and schools will soon be starting the new school year in mid-August. Where did the summer months go?
So why “Summer”? Why not celebrate the lazy hazy days of summer. So many of my fondest memories growing up occurred in summer. From trips to the pool to the beach to watching thunderstorms and savoring the fruits of the garden! Fresh corn on the cob and tomatoes, yum! That is still a summer favorite.
The heat of Texas is not much different than the heat in Nebraska. The biggest difference is here we have climate-controlled houses, not so much growing up in Nebraska. I can remember standing in front of the window air conditioner trying to cool off.
What photos do you have that celebrate summer? Our August 16th meeting will again be Zoom only. Please have your photos uploaded using the “Share and Learn” button on the Club’s Monday e-mail blast by Tuesday AM. Before uploading please resize your photos for the Gallery using the directions on our website.
For the July assignment send me “Your Favorite Photos”. How many favorite photos do you have? Last month our program was on a photo printing service called “Fracture”. Printing photos on glass! What favorite photos would you want to print and display on your walls? Show us three of those photos and tell us why each is a favorite.
Your photos will be due by the morning of July 19th. The Share and Learn will be using the club’s Dropbox. I hope you will take up the challenge to review your photos and share some of your favorites with us!
My photo of the hippos was taken at the San Antonio Zoo during a thunderstorm. The hippos are usually above water but with the thunderstorm, they submerged and with the glass wall visitors could see them floating with the fish. A special moment during a family outing to the zoo.
This should be a fun assignment. Pictures tell stories of shared times, special events, love, sadness, celebrations, or just a quiet day. As I mentioned in a previous post this assignment was the result of listening to a song by The Byrds (my age is showing) “Turn! Turn! Turn!”. A few interesting facts, the song was originally recorded by Peter Seeger and later sold to The Byrds in 1965 who electrified it. In an interview with Peter Seeger, he stated the lyrics were taken from a passage in the book of Ecclesiastes (3:1-8). It has also been modified by Judy Collins’ in 1969, Dolly Parton in 1984, and in 2005 “Those Were the Days” and Vern Gosdin’s 1984 album “There is a Season”.
Songs can be inspirations for our photography or an echo of an event. Hearing a favorite song can be a time travel moment where we see the past. Seeing photos of a past event can be another time travel moment where we hear the sounds of that event. Each brings remembrance of a day in a different way, an exercise for our brains.
Below is an article on storytelling that I thought has some useful information on elements to include when telling a story in a visual way.
The meeting will again be a hybrid with in-person at the church and a zoom link for everyone else. Chuck will not be at the meeting so I’ll be depending on others for the technical support. I’m not certain if I will put the Share and Learn in the slide show as I’ve normally done or try to run it from Dropbox. So I’m asking that you upload your photos by Monday, June 20th latest, and don’t forget to resize your photos for the Gallery/Header. Chuck has instructions on the website and he includes the link to our “Share and Learn” button on his weekly e-blast. So send us down memory lane with your favorite stories, old or new!
“Great photography is about the depth of feeling, not the depth of field.” – Peter Adams
Who doesn’t have hundreds of photos featuring Texas flowers! Driving the roads in spring we are treated to a kaleidoscope of colors from the bluebonnets to the red Indian paintbrush and Indian blankets to the pinks of Pink evening primrose to name a few. Yellow Sunflowers and Mexican hats flower after the spring flowers have been seeded for next year.
The number of Texas flowers is way too numerous to mention here so I’d encourage you to take a walk outside or through your photo catalog and share your stunning Texas flowers and maybe surprise us with some that are rarely seen.
The meeting is on May 17th in person and on zoom. Photos need to be in the club dropbox by the morning of the 17th. The weekly e-blast has the link for the “Share and Learn” on the right-hand side. Please resize your photos for the Gallery and Header upload. Chuck has posted resizing instructions on our web. Get out while the weather is nice or take some time with your photo catalog. But most of all enjoy this assignment! We’ll see you next month 🙂
With the last pop-up a downtown walk I decided to follow that theme with the next assignment, “Street Captures”!
This can be anything that captures your interest in the city; people, buildings, statuary, animals, signs, etc. This should be an easy assignment and I hope to see some photos from the last club activity.
Below is an article that gives you some tips that you might find helpful.
Our next meeting is on Feb 15th. Photos will be due in our dropbox by Monday, Feb 14th, Valentine’s Day! Please follow directions to reduce the size of your photos, instructions by Chuck on our website. My next update will have more information regarding the meeting venue, in-person or virtual.
Looking forward to seeing your favorite street captures!
From comments I’ve heard we were all ready to see the tail lights of 2021. Whatever your thoughts a new year brings us new goals, resolutions, and back to normal schedules after the holidays. So what is in store in 2022 for the photo club?
After our successful Christmas Social, I see us moving slowly back to in-person meetings. January will be zoom as our speaker is zoom. Connie Emerson will be posting an announcement on that shortly. After January our speaker’s preference will determine if the meeting is zoom or in person.
Anne Mullins has sketched out monthly activities for the first quarter and Jim Schepens and John Gray are putting details together for an overnight trip to New Mexico in October. One of the highlights for this trip will be hot air balloon ascents, an item on my bucket list that I’d love to cross off. We are also planning a closer-to-home overnight in Fredricksburg at the beginning of April for Bluebonnets and night photography. This is dependent on weather and spring flower blooms.
Workshops are coming with Chuck kicking off the year, getting to know your camera. I gave my grandson a camera for Christmas and he could definitely use this course. I’m planning a Night Photography Workshop the last Saturday in February in anticipation of the night photography trip in April. I also want to talk about using star trackers and hope to have some input via my husband Mike.
Finally, January Share and Learn assignments are coming up soon. Your assignment, if you choose to accept, Starbursts. It just so happens that I was featured in the Photo Bootcamp Magazine for a starburst photo that I entered. I was also the featured photographer in the magazine. I got an e-mail from Steve Hansen congratulating me on the article, with the holidays and all I’d not really thought about it. So thank you Steve for bringing it to my attention. I’ve linked the magazine below. I joined several years ago and it gives you the opportunity to have your photos reviewed in a nice way. You might want to look into the magazine for a way to grow your photography experience with monthly assignments and positive feedback for photos that you post. I was very honored that they chose me for this spread.
January meeting is zoom, please look for Chuck’s e-mail and reply to have him send you the meeting link. Assignments are due by Monday, January 17th.
Wishing you all a very prosperous and exciting New Year. May you record the wonderful world that we live in and the beautiful people and animals that make up our world. Make someone’s day by focusing on them. Happy New Year and hope to see you on the 18th.
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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