Newsletter of the Silver Spring Camera Club, SSCCPhotography.org
Winner of the 2008, 2011, and 2012 PSA Henricks Award for best newsletter!
Key Events
Dec 7 – Winter Social & Speaker night (6:30 p.m.)
Dec 14 – Competition night: Low Light Photography (7:30 p.m.)
Dec 16 – Field Trip: Mormon Temple – Festival of Lights (6:00 p.m.)
Dec 21 – A Closer Focus meeting (7:30 p.m.)
Dec – No Board Meeting this month
“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”
― Salvador Dalí
BILL SCHAFER TO SPEAK ON “PHOTOGRAPHS AS ART” IN DECEMBER
Bill Schafer will be our speaker on December 7, with the subject “Photographs as Art”. Our meeting will start an hour early, at 6:30 p.m., with our Winter Social.
Bill Schafer and his wife Cheryl are the owners of Moments in Time Photography. Bill has photographed with large format, medium format, and 35mm in film and digital. Recently, Bill has been inspired to move into digital and color techniques. (read more)
COMPETITION COLUMN
The competition on December 14 will be on the Low Light Photography theme:
The term “Low Light Photography” encompasses images that has been made when the ambient light that illuminates their subjects is low. So, for example, an image taken outdoors at sunset or during the night qualifies as low light. The term also includes images that have been rendered in “low key.” Low key refers to a style of photography that utilizes predominantly dark tones to create dramatic looking images. Low key lighting intensifies the contrast in an image through intensely reduced lighting in some part of the image. Accordingly, low light photographs can be made either indoors or outdoors, at any time of day or night, and may contain an artificial light source that has been supplied by the photographer. The term “low” in this definition is not susceptible to a specific, quantitative valuation: Rather, its parameters are left to the subjective determination of the judge.
Please be mindful that electronic submissions for projected images must be received no later than 11:59 p.m. on December 7th. The images should be emailed to: SSCCphotography@yahoo.com. (One important detail – In order to participate in the competition, you must have paid the club’s annual dues before the competition.)
Please refer to the Member Handbook and/or 2017-18 Competition Topic Definitions for the definition of each of the competition topics:
- December – Low Light Photography
- January – Open
- February – Anything Washington D.C.
- March – Open
- April – Architecture Photography
- May – Monochrome Photography
- June – End of Year Competition (special rules apply)
To learn the nitty gritty about the competitions, please refer to the Competition Rules and the Member Handbook, both of which are accessible from the SSCC website.
As always, if you have any questions about the competitions, please feel free to contact Larry Gold at competition@ssccphotography.org.
TONY SWEET IS OUR DECEMBER 14 JUDGE FOR LOW LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
We’ve had a change in our judge for December, and are lucky to have Tony Sweet as our judge for Low Light Photography!
Tony Sweet is a Nikon Legend Behind the Lens.
After successful careers as a jazz musician/educator, and professional magician, Tony settled on photography as his chosen means for personal expression. Beginning as a film photographer, Tony has become facile in image editing software and plugins and is an in-demand speaker throughout the United States and Canada on creativity in the digital age.
A CLOSER FOCUS (DECEMBER 21)
An opportunity to share ideas, images, questions, and inspirations
For the December meeting please bring in a couple of your images from your work – a recent field trip or any picture you are proud of or have questions about. We will spend about half an hour sharing.
Half an hour will be an open forum discussing issues at hand:
- David Terao will continue where he left off last time presenting the features of the new Photoshop CC 2018 and Lightroom Classic.
- Gene Luttenberg will discuss “point of view”, a topic on photographic composition.
- We will also discuss what makes an image a photograph.
There will also be half an hour for 10 minute presentations by members: further information about PSA, a book report, gallery review, equipment or gadget sharing.
Future topics might include: compositional strength, HDR, abstract images, or anything else photographic you want to bring to the table. This is an opportunity for you to provide input to the SSCC experience.
If you would like to be on the agenda, please email me at:
davidwesleypowell@gmail.com
DECEMBER 16 FIELD TRIP: MORMON TEMPLE – FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS!
The impressive Mormon Temple and its surrounding grounds shine brightly with more than 650,000 sparkling holiday lights. Each night, a different local musical group performs a live concert in a state-of-the-art theater. See a life-sized outdoor nativity scene, an indoor exhibit of international crèches, and Christmas trees in international themes. (read more)
♦ CLUB NEWS ♦
SSCC MEMBER SNAPSHOT: JAMES RAGUCCI
Like many new SSCC members, James Ragucci found his way to our camera club via the internet. James had been living abroad (in Germany) for several years, and when he returned to Maryland he was interested in joining a DC-based camera club. SSCC turned up as one of the top results of his internet search. (read more)
BOARD MEETING
The SSCC Board met on October 26, 2017. Read about it in the following link:
HONOR FUND GRANT AWARDED
The Honor Fund committee is pleased to announce that Dave Mullen will receive the Honor Fund grant this year. Dave organized the Help Portrait shoot, which will make and distribute free family portraits to families that would otherwise be unable to afford a professionally produced photograph. Well done, Dave!
The shoot will take place on Saturday, Dec. 9 at A Wider Circle; volunteers are still needed – see the following article.
To donate to the Honor Fund, please contact Bruce Schaefer, the club Treasurer, bmschaefer@verizon.net.
HELP-PORTRAIT AT A WIDER CIRCLE – VOLUNTEERS NEEDED ON DECEMBER 9
The Silver Spring Camera Club, again in conjunction with The Nora School, will be participating in Help-Portrait on December 9 at A Wider Circle (9159 Brookville Rd # C, Silver Spring, MD 20910) in Montgomery County. Help-Portrait is an international organization that offers free family portraits to families that would otherwise be unable to afford a professionally produced photograph. We will be working from 9 a.m. (setup) until about noon, then lunch at Armand’s.
What we need are photographers, lighting setups (probably just one in addition to mine), and re-touchers (in Photoshop after the shoot). I’ll take care of the printing and delivery to the clients prior to the holidays. It’s a good opportunity for folks to play with studio lighting, posing, and Photoshop.
Please send an email to Dave Mullen at dave@nora-school.org if you are interested in helping.
Best,
Dave
FIELD TRIP TO FOREST GLEN NATIONAL SEMINARY ON OCTOBER 28
We had a perfect day for this visit to the National Park Seminary. The folks from SSCC joined a general group with the volunteer tour guide, Frank. I’ve enjoyed Frank’s tour before, he is super knowledgeable about the history of the place and loves to talk and answer questions. After the two hour tour that included a rare visit inside of the original chapel building, Frank offered to take people on an extended tour. This was about an hour extra that involved crossing the glen (of Forest Glen fame) and visiting the ruins of the Villa and Castle buildings. Quite a sight, perfect for a Halloween party. Plenty spooky even in the daytime. I ended up taking over 500 pictures in about 3 hours, maybe a new record for me.
The tour ended so late we all bailed on drinks or a meal afterwards. We just went home tired, but happy.
– Andrew Rein
♦ FEATURES ♦
KERNELS OF KOREN
Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. It’s the law! In fact, it’s the first law of thermodynamics that says matter, any substance that has mass and takes up space, is just rearranged into different forms, never created or destroyed.
Photography’s magic lies in its ability to capture a representation of matter for a period of time long after the matter of the subject is transformed into another form. Whether it’s a person, place or thing, the matter – composed of light photons – reacts with a light sensitive device then it’s transformed into a final fixed piece of matter as a photograph. Nothing is really created, the original matter is still there, just rearranged to another form. So, when we “take” pictures, “capture” an image, or “create” art, we’re just rearranging the existing matter in the universe to make it pleasing to look at. One day all that matter will be rearranged again to form something else, perhaps a rocket or even another human.
Why the metaphysics? Just to make you appreciate the impermanence of what we see and feel and enjoy it while it’s here. Grab a camera, go out and rearrange some of the universe’s matter.
♦ MEMBER ARTICLES ♦
A BLAST AT WALLOPS – BY DENNIS FREEMAN
Several of us (Michael and Laura Koren, Dave Mullen, and I) spotted a Meetup announcement by Road Runner Photography Tours to attend a NASA rocket launch at Wallops Island, Virginia on Saturday, November 11. I had always wanted to attend a large rocket launch, and this sounded perfect. But, NASA showed who’s boss. (read more)
♦ COMPETITION WINNERS ♦
COMPETITION: NOVEMBER 9, 2017 – OPEN
November’s competition was the Open topic. Matthew Schmidt was our judge that evening.
There are four main categories: Novice Prints, Novice Projected (i.e. digital images), Advanced Prints, and Advanced Projected. Awards are given for first, second and third place, and honorable mentions – the number of awards depends on the total number of entries in the category.
ADVANCED PRINTS
- 1st Place: Jim Turner – Wilson Bridge Remake
- 2nd Place: Jim Turner – Yellow Gerberas
- 3rd place: Larry Gold – Acadia Fall
- Honorable Mention: Oliver (Pete) Morton – Lotus Blossom & Bee
- Honorable Mention: Bob Greenberg – Balancing Act
Advanced Prints ~ Jim Turner ~ Wilson Bridge Remake
This shot of the Wilson Bridge was taken on a partly cloudy day. I cleaned up the look of the bridge to make it look more abstract and applied motion blurs to the sky and water to simulate a long shutter speed. Shot with a Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 lens at 45mm, f/11, ISO 100, 1/80s.
ADVANCED PROJECTED
- 1st place: Bob Peters – Rainy Day
- 2nd place: Kate Woodward – Selling Pencils since 1790 (Prague)
- 3rd place: David Blass – Saturday Morning Ride
- Honorable Mention: Bob Catlett – Red Kayak
- Honorable Mention: David Terao – Grabby Feet
NOVICE PROJECTED
- 1st place: Shy Shorer – Windows
- 2nd place: Shy Shorer – Wet
- 3rd place: James Ragucci – Traveling through Gold
- Honorable Mention: Sherm Edwards – Wayside
- Honorable Mention: Karen Prentice – Maine
Novice Projected ~ Shy Shorer ~ Windows
The picture was taken in downtown Denver in the morning. The sun had reflected the glass façade of the building across the street on the abandoned building in the photograph which created a second pattern on the already patterned view of the windows. The picture was taken on Sony A77, using Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 35mm, ISO 100, f/4.5 and 1/400sec.
