Dear members,

I hope all is well with you and your family. It was good to see a number of our members attend our first zoom meeting. It was a different way to meet and we did have a few technical difficulties but we manage to get back on track (sorry to those few we lost). It is still a great way to stay in touch with everyone.

At our committee meeting held Monday night we decided the following:

  • Meeting Monday 4th May via Zoom –
    • presentation on Architecture run by our member Jeff Akers
    • Top Shot Winners for Creative to give a talk on how they created their winning entry (same as we do at our meetings)
    • Discussion Time – discussion on photography queries members might have eg printing – a zoom meeting notification will be sent out soon
  • Meeting Monday 18th May via Zoom – Open & Set – Nature. Per the Australian Photographic Society definition. See https://www.a-p-s.org.au/index.php/nature-definition – a zoom meeting notification will be sent out a few days before
  • Committee Meeting – Monday 25th May via Zoom
  • Meeting Monday 1st June via Zoom –
    • Presentation on Astroimaging for Beginners by Kym Haines – a zoom meeting notification will be sent out a few days before
    • Question time/Discussion
  • Meeting Monday 15th June via Zoom – Competition Open & Set – Architecture – please note we have added an open category for this competition – a zoom meeting notification will be sent out a few days before
  • Outing for Monday 29th June to Strathfield has been postponed
  • ** Please note for the Competition for 16th November Our Club – we are looking at changing this to Our Isolation. This will only be changed if we are not able to hold any outings for this year. I suggest everyone start taking photos suitable for Our Isolation – we will update this when we get closer.

As our club is reliant on members we need ways to get our club exposed to attract new members, we have decided to add the Top Shop winner’s photos (low resolution and with permission) for each competition to our facebook page with an editorial/technical info from the photographer.

I know we are in isolation but we feel that it is still a great time for photography. There are so many tutorials you can be watching on YouTube about your camera or about certain aspects/techniques of photography. There have been so many offers of ‘free learning’ which we can take advantage of – Nikon is one that has some tutorials for free and I have learnt things from watching these videos presented by professional photographers. Not to mention the books out there. Then take your camera outside and photograph what is around you and there is a lot – this will get your ‘eye’ looking for great shots.

Practice, practice and more practice is a way of learning and now is no different – get your camera, go outside and practice or practice inside shots eg still life – make your own light box, take a torch outside, try photographing birds or flowers or rain or light techniques. My advice is pick one technique and practice that. A good book for basics is Understanding Exposure and Understanding Shutter Speed both by Bryan Peterson and there are plenty of others out there. Get to know your camera so you are not wasting time in the field searching for settings. The more photos you take the more you learn! There is a saying ‘Practice makes Perfect’!! Be creative and most of all be you!

I will send out a zoom invite for Monday night and I look forward to seeing you all then.

Till then take care.

President Nancy