Silver Spring Camera Club

Beth Koller – On the Edge

 

Member, Photographic Society of America
Winner of the 2008, 2011, and 2012 PSA Henricks Award for best newsletter!

Tanya Riseman and Sherm Edwards, Editors, Cable Release, at cablereleaseeditor@ssccphotography.org.
 

KEY EVENTS

The following scheduled events will be conducted online as Zoom teleconferences, except for the Field Trips. Look for announcements and invitations by e-mail, Meetup, and on the club’s Website.

  • July 21 – Photo Forum (7:30 p.m.)
  • Aug 18 – Photo Forum (7:30 p.m.)
  • Sep 1 – Speaker Night (7:30 p.m.)
  • Sep 8 – Competition – Open Competition (7:30 p.m.)
  • Sep 15 – Photo Forum (7:30 p.m.)

If Montgomery County Schools close due to inclement weather, Silver Spring Camera Club meetings and outings will be canceled.  See montgomeryschoolsmd.org for closure information during the work week.  For Mon-Fri AFTER 5:00 pm & on the weekends, call 240-777-2710 or 311 from within Montgomery County.  Sign up for text alerts: AlertMontgomery and choose both a local MCPS school and  ‘Community Use of Public Facilities Alerts’. Note that this policy does not apply to online meetings!

For general information about the club, contact us at:  info@ssccphotography.org

A list of the club officers and committee chairs, and their emails, is located here:  Officers and Committee Chairs

More information is available in the Silver Spring Camera Club (SSCC) Member Handbook:  

SSCC-Member-Handbook-2021-2022-2Download

PLEASE CONSIDER PROVIDING MATERIALS FOR THE SEPTEMBER CABLE RELEASE:

If you’d like to share an article, announcement, or Letter to the Editor about anything photographic please email them by August 24. This issue is a great opportunity for articles about summer projects and travel! Email items or questions to Tanya Riseman and Sherm Edwards at  cablereleaseeditor@ssccphotography.org. 

DEADLINE: BY AUGUST 24th TO  cablereleaseeditor@ssccphotography.org.

MEETINGS AND FIELD TRIPS

MEETING LOCATION

All meetings will be online by Zoom teleconference until further notice. We are hopeful of being able to meet in person in the next Club year.

COMPETITION COLUMN

Competition topics for next year:

In addition to the usual, Open, Nature and Monochrome categories, there will be three other competition topics next year:

“Yellow Photography” encompasses images where the color yellow is primarily what draws the attention of viewers to them. While yellow need not be the color of the subject of the image, the color must contribute significantly to what makes the image special. 

“On the Job” photography encompasses images which capture individuals engaging in employment or other labor activities, whether paid or unpaid.    

“Long Exposure” photography encompasses images where the photographer’s use of a “long” exposure is evident.  While there is no specific shutter speed that constitutes a “long” exposure, its use somehow shows the effect of passing time, be it smoother waters or light trails. For this competition, the use of post-processing techniques that simulate long exposures is not permitted.

Please refer to the website link for the definition of the Open, Nature, and Monochrome topics. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Larry Gold, the Competition Chair, at competition@ssccphotography.org.

ELIZABETH GRAY – JUDGE – END OF YEAR COMPETITION

Elizabeth Gray

For our End of Year Judge, we were pleased to have Elizabeth Gray, a professional photographer from Vancouver, Canada.

After 25 years of teaching structural engineering at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, she and her husband moved to the southern US for five years. While in the States, she combined her two passions, photography and teaching, and started her photography education business. Elizabeth shoots a variety of genres, including birds and wildlife, landscapes, and architecture. Most recently, she has been concentrating on street photography and documentary wedding photography. To see her work, read her blog, and for links to articles she has written for Photography Life, check out her website at http://photographybyelizabethgray.com.

PHOTO FORUM

Thursday, July 21, 2022, from 7:30 – 9:30 p.m.

“Photo Forum” is our monthly opportunity to share ideas, images, questions, and inspirations on a wide variety of photographic topics.

This is an online event.  We will meet using Zoom – look for the meeting link in an email and via Meetup. 

Open Forum Discussions:

  • What’s on your mind?

Presentations: 

  • “Video Editing, An Introduction” by Dave Powell
  • “Tethering your Camera to your Computer, and Why” by David Blass
  • “New Lightroom and Photoshop Masking Techniques – Make your Photographs Pop” by Pete Morton: Pete will work with you live on Zoom! Either Pete can do the edits or you can work on your own computer and share your screen. If you want Pete to do the edits send your single RAW or JPG image to Pete before 5:00 p.m., WEDNESDAY, July 20.   (Pete.Morton@yahoo.com).
  • “Understanding Basic Sliders by Looking Under the Hood”  by Tanya Riseman

Image Sharing:

We will have member image sharing.  This month’s theme will be “Open” Send any images you want to share, or would like feedback on.

Send up to three images.  Your jpg images can be up to 1 MB size each.  (please use our digital Competition specs: ssccphotography.org/competitions/digital-entry-specifications/ ) .    Send your images to Dennis Freeman before 5:00 p.m., WEDNESDAY, July 20.   (dennisfreeman4510@msn.com).   

This is expected to be a great evening of sharing and learning. What topics would you like to explore? Topics can be wide ranging, such as photo book reviews, an aspect of your own photography that you’d like to share, reviews or discussion of shows, photo gear, software, etc.

Please join us for a fun and educational evening!

CLUB NEWS

BOARD MEETING

The SSCC Board met on May 26, 2022. An archive of the minutes of board meetings can be found here.

ELECTED SLATE OF SSCC CANDIDATES FOR CLUB YEAR 2022 – 2023

On May 12th, the club elected our leadership for the upcoming year running from September 2022 through June 2023. The following slate of candidates will hold the 7 elected positions:

  • President: Catherine Honigsberg, incumbent
  • Vice-president: Dennis Freeman, incumbent
  • Secretary: vacant currently, open to nominees!  Like you!
  • Treasurer: Bruce Schaefer, incumbent
  • Director: Bob Catlett, incumbent
  • Director: Pete Morton, incumbent
  • Director: Michael Koren, incumbent

Nominations for the empty secretary position may be made by any member including themselves. Please contact the nominations committee through Bruce schaefer bruceschaefer9@gmail.com.

CLUB DUES ARE RISING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MANY YEARS

The Silver Spring Camera Club board members voted at the May 26, 2022 meeting . It was motioned to raise the dues due to increases in payments to speakers and judges. The new rate package of dues for the 2022-2023 club year is now: $50 for individuals, $80 per family, and students $35.

SPRING PICNIC

Thanks to Renee and Bruce Schaefer for organizing the picnic.

PHOTOGRAPHERS’ WORDS OF WISDOM

Larry Brauer suggested including in the CR a quote or two from this site: https://photographylife.com.

“Whatever happens in front of the lens stays. What’s captured during the encounter is all that exists.” – Gregory Heisler

FEATURES

CONFERENCES AND EXPOS

MEMBER ARTICLES

Editor’s note: It can take considerable effort (and maybe some courage) to put together an article for the Cable Release. If you find something in an article that inspires, intrigues or informs you, let the author know if you can. You can also send your reactions in a “Letter to the (CR) Editor.” Send to cablereleaseeditor@ssccphotography.org.

Andrew’s Travel Tips

By Andrew Rein

Andrew Rein in Prague

Andrew shares his terrific travel tips including a pre-trip checklist, recommended tablet, GPS directions to download, international calls and data, overcoming jet lag, and how to solve travel problems. (Read more)

Who Needs a 60 Megapixel Camera!?

By Will Rabinovich

These days the full frame mirrorless camera lines from the major manufacturers all have “normal” resolution models with between 20-33 megapixels (Canon R6, Nikon Z6II, Sony A7 IV) and high resolution models with between 45-60 megapixels (Canon R5, Nikon Z7II and Sony A7r4). A reasonable question to ask is whether these high resolution models offer anything besides bragging rights. I mean, who needs 60 megapixel images anyway?

Well, as the owner of one of the behemoths (the Sony A7r4), I thought I’d take a crack at the answer. I believe that you need to think in terms of two kinds of resolution: Display Pixels and Processing Pixels. (Read More)

How to Add a Label with Metadata to an Image

And Why You Should Do So!

By Tanya RIseman

I intend to document a mountain of family photos, digitally photographing/scanning the hardcopy prints, and then labeling people and places in the file’s metadata. Keywords are great for searches within Lightroom, Bridge, and other software. Titles are nice for briefly indicating the occasion. The caption is a great place for including who is in the photo in which order, as well as other details. A generalized label might consist of the title, caption, keywords, and filename. Digitized images are certainly less bulky than the originals and easier to share than one-of-kind hardcopy photos.

In this fairly technical article, I explore different ways to automatically place this selected metadata below an image. But the purpose is far from nerdy. Many people, like my relatives, are minimalists. Don’t want to use, learn, or pay extra for sophisticated software (like Lightroom) to look at their photos and captions. Don’t know what metadata is. Would be happy to look at some of it if it’s in front of their noses. This is why I like the label below the photo. Bonus, you can flip through the images quickly. You can always crop out the text and margins before printing.  (Read More)

COMPETITION RESULTS

MONOCHROME – MAY 12, 2022

May’s competition was Monochrome, for projected images only.  Elizabeth Gray was our judge.  Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the competition was held remotely over Zoom.

ADVANCED PROJECTED

  • 1st Place: Bob Catlett~ Street Person
  • 2nd Place: Lisa Auerbach ~ Frog at Tregaron
  • 3rd Place:Koller~ Cockeyed View
  • HM: Koller Capitol ~ Reef Tree
  • HM: Renee Schaefer ~ Mystery Man

Lisa Auerbach ~ Frog at Tregaron

Image 2 of 5

If you like frogs, Tregaron Conservancy is the place to go. It is near the Cathedral, with on-street free parking. It is a good place to take children as well. The frogs are abundant and seem to pose for the camera.

NOVICE PROJECTED

Kim Keller ~ Torrid

Image 1 of 5

This photo was taken in Chicago on a cool, wet day. I struck up a conversation with the sax player, and he let me take his photo. I saw the billboard and was glad I only had to ask him to take a few steps to get good alignment with it. I thought B/W was best for this photo because I really wanted to view to notice the connection between the musician and the billboard, and the colors weren’t contributing to that.

2022 SSCC END OF YEAR COMPETITION: JUNE 9, 2022

We held our Yea End Competition and Celebration on June 9 via Zoom. The event began with a social half-hour with breakout rooms. David Blass provided the Zoom hosting and image presentations. Our presenters were Catherine Honigsberg, Larry Gold, Renee Schaefer, David Blass, Pete Morton, David Powell, and Lisa Auerbach, Marc Auerbach, and Andrew Rein. Thanks to everyone who contributed!

Year End Competition:

We were extremely privileged to have Liz Gray as our End of Year judge. Many of you probably remember the amazing presentation by Liz earlier this year on “Using Exposure Creatively.”  

Winners of the End of Year competitions for Novice and Advanced Projected images were selected by our judge several weeks before the event.  Club members were invited to submit up to 5 images that they previously entered in a Projected competition during the season.  We had Honorable Mentions plus First, Second and Third place for both Novice and Advanced levels 

ADVANCED PROJECTED, END OF THE YEAR COMPETITION

Elizabeth Koller ~ On The Edge

Elizabeth Koller ~ On The Edge
Image 1 of 8

Being a kayaker, I enjoy photographing kayakers and canoeists. If one knows how to read the water, it is easier to anticipate what might happen to the boat and paddler and that might impact your location positioning. Paddlers also have some idiosyncratic things they do with body position and facial expressions. In this case, the rock wall on the lower river left (going downstream) was undercut and tended to trash paddlers. This paddler tipped his boat to put a curve into his trajectory that would keep him away from the wall–AND provided the benefit of a more frontal view of his face. This paddler had a more aggressive stance in his torso position (and not leaning backwards) and had excellent boat/equipment colors: blue, black, and red. I took multiple images in bursts during several runs using a gimbal type tripod head. (Sometimes the anticipated location is ahem changed by circumstance, i.e., carnage and the shot is missed or different–and is why I shoot free hand with a shorter lens for closer shots.) This one was one of several of this paddler that I could have used. Noise was reduced during post processing.

NOVICE PROJECTED, END OF THE YEAR COMPETITION

Kim Keller ~ Barn Swallows

Kim Keller ~ Barn Swallows
Image 1 of 7

I was lucky to come across this moment at Brookside Gardens. I played with various shutter speeds, and this capture at 1/3200 was my favorite. I tried different apertures as well, and f8 gave me the parent and first young one in focus and a nice fade on the young one in the background. The birds were engrossed in their activities and I was surprised at how little they noticed me and how long the feeding went on.

Len Tuchin Award for Best in Show:

The Len Tuchin Best in Show Award is selected by our judge for the best image from the winners of the Novice and Advanced projected category.  Len Tuchin joined the SSCC in 1966 and was active in the club for 19 years. He served in several club positions, including Monochrome Program Chairman, Vice President, President and Board Director. Len also served the club as its auctioneer extraordinaire for what used to be the club’s annual equipment auction. He became SSCC Master of Photography in 1978 and ended his career with 705 points – the highest on record for any SSCC member.  The 2022 Len Tuchin Best in Show Award was presented to:

Elizabeth Koller for “On the Edge”

Koller ~ On the Edge

Joyce Bayley Award for Best in Show, Nature:

The Joyce Bayley Award is presented for the “Best of Show” during the October Nature competition as determined by the Judge.  This award was named to honor Joyce Bayley after her death in 1997.  She joined SSCC in 1981 and was known for her beautiful nature photographs and the prize peonies she developed.  She was an active contributor to the club and served as President.

The winner of the Joyce Bayley Award for October 2021 is:

Wendy Kates for “Savoring Nectar”

Wendy Kates, – Savoring Nectar

STAR Awards:

The Photographic Excellence, or STAR, awards are based on the total number of points a member accumulates in competition.  A STAR is awarded for each 35 points earned.

Photographers of the Year:

Photographer of the Year is awarded for Novice Projected, Advanced Projected, and normally Novice Prints, and Advanced Prints. We had no prints in 2021-2022, so we just had the two Projected awards. The awards are given for the most points earned for that level & category during the club year. This year the Photographers of the Year are:

Milestone Awards:

Milestone Awards are given to individuals who have been members of SSCC for 5, 10, 15, 20 and higher multiples of five years. This year the following members have milestone anniversaries:

Service Award:

The Service Award is nominated and voted on by the Executive Council for the member who we feel as contributed the most during the club year. The Winner of the 2021-2022 Service Award is Dennis Freeman:

As the SSCC vice president, Dennis has done an outstanding job supporting the president and ensuring that the camera club functions smoothly. Additionally, whenever a club member has a question or problem with his/her photography, Dennis is always ready to help. It is difficult to envision SSCC being as successful as it is without Dennis’ involvement!

COURSES, CALLS FOR ENTRY, AND EXHIBITS

PHOTOGRAPHY COURSES AND WORKSHOPS

Needed: Someone to author the Classes and Workshop List for the 2021-2022 Cable Release club year. Please let Catherine [president@ssccphotography.org ] know if you might be interested. This is an opportunity to inspire the learning of club members. In the meantime, we will show some online sources.

New! Here is a list of all the 2021-2022 judges and speakers along with courses and workshops they offer.

Thanks to Joe Willmore from the Shutterbug Excursions Meetup group for this list:

These online course providers are listed in every issue:

Also offering free webinars—on photography printing—is Moab Paper. See: https://www.moabpaper.com/moab-tv?rq=tv I have never taken one of Moab’s webinars, but Moab is a main producer of artistic photo papers. Other vendors are offering free webinars, but they tend not to give advance notice, so the ones I have located are offered only in April.

Please let us know of other online opportunities you discover by emailing us at cablereleaseeditor@ssccphotography.org. Especially welcome would be reviews of courses or workshops you have attended.

CALLS FOR ENTRY

by Dennis Freeman

The following offers a number of competitions for your consideration this month. Some of these sources having standing calls for entry, and others are one-time calls. Some offer cash and prizes, and others don’t. 

See the full Calls for Entry article here. (Read More)

EXHIBITS AND EVENTS

WASHINGTON POST

Here is a link to the online Washington Post’s lists of D.C., Maryland, and Virginia photography-related exhibits and museums. The various photography-related exhibits appear in different parts of the online paper, making a simple search or link unreliable. You can search within:

Photography section: Photography
Going Out Guide: Going Out Guide
Art Section: Art

Take a look at what our sister camera club, the NIH Camera Club, has going on.  Here is a link to their site.  There you can find their newsletter, the Cameraderie: nihcameraclub.com

NIH Camera Club

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Member, Photographic Society of America