Event Recaps and Galleries

27 people in attendance. 2 on Zoom.

The meeting started out with an editing tip by Austin explaining the difference between saturation and vibrance. We then moved on the the fundamentals program in which Austin presented the exposure triangle.

Business meeting:

• John gave the treasurer report. Dues were deposited. 
• Austin and Michelle went over some of the details of competition entry.
• Steve reported that the next meet-up is on Oct 6 at 5:30. First meet on Apple Blossom drive for some photography followed by heading to La Crescent for dinner. More details will be coming by email.
• Michelle reminded everyone to update profiles & mentors
• Sue needs judges for Oct 9. The judging signup sheet was passed around.
• The refreshments signup was passed around as well.
• Debbie, our new N4C submitter introduced herself and gave updates on the contests and results.

The main program was part workshop and part chatting with other members about photography and more. 

The meeting came to order at 6:36pm with 22 members present.

Pre-program:

Election of the Executive Board followed by a vote on the rewritten bylaws.

Brian presented the list of candidates for the Executive Board:

• President: Brian Narveson
• VP: Austin Miller
• Secretary: Michelle Cox
• Treasurer: John Zoerb
• Director 1: Terry Zalewski
• Director 2: Kristi Olson
• Judging Chair: Sue Retzlaff

A request was made for nominations from the floor. None were made. Brian asked for a second on the list of nominees and several people granted it. As all roles were running unopposed, the slate was presented as a whole. 24 members were present. 22 voted in favor. 2 abstained. Motion passed by majority vote.

Welcome to the returning officers and new VP Austin Miller. Thank you to Jerry W for serving as VP for the past couple of years. And a thank you to the current board for serving this past year.

The bylaws had been posted and a request for any suggested changes to be made in writing. Only one suggested change was made:

Article 6 section 3: Change "husband and wife" to "spouses". During the meeting, that was verbally amended to "partners" to be inclusive.

27 members present for the vote. 24 voted in favor of the rewritten bylaws including the proposed changed. 3 abstained. Motion passed by majority vote. The new bylaws will take effect in the 2021-2022 camera club year.

Business meeting:

• Treasurer report: Expenses and balance given.
• Website report: The N4C Video Essay contest is open. Details on the website. Also, the latest update broke user profiles so hold off on making any changes until the all clear is given. Also Mailchimp is deleting contacts and we are working on figuring that out.
• Photo outings: No updates.
• Volunteer event update: Looking into whether we are going to photograph the Solar Plunge that replaced the Polar Plunge this year.
• N4C update: We judged last month and we are not able to enter when we judged so there were no entries from our club for April. Thank you to Cyndy for running the judging.
• Oktoberfest photo contest: Hoping to have the first committee meeting in July. Volunteers needed for the committee.
• Summer program: Proposal made by Steve but he was not able to attend the meeting to discuss so further information will come by email.
• May workshop: Was going to be a milky way shoot but that is not going to work out so it will be scheduled in June.
• Next meeting: Meet at the International Gardens in Riverside park. Start with a flower shoot in the garden and then branch out to a downtown photo walk. Looking for someone to lead the walk. Contact Brian if interested.
• First meeting of next year: Tentatively planned to be a picnic instead of having a picnic over the summer. Details TBD.
• Member topic: John McCormick created a Facebook page for Hotrods and Harleys that lists all the local car shows so is a good source if you like to shoot cars and motorcycles.
• Member topic: Mary Ann brought up the free Lightroom app. 
• Suggestions wanted: The Leadership Team will be meeting in June to make the schedule for next year. We are looking for ideas on program subjects and presenters, including presenters from outside of the club. Please send any suggestions to the leadership team.

Main program:

• PSE hint by Sue.
• Sharing of this month's competition results.

Final note by John Z.: Be sure to pick up your prints, especially now so they don't get mixed in with EOY prints. The garage is open until 4pm or they can be left between the doors on the house. If you have any issues, call John.

Final note by Brian N.: Thanks to everyone for participation this year, especially in light of all the problems due to the pandemic and lack of in person meetings.

Jerry hosted the meeting due to Brian being out of town. 25 people attended in person and 4 on zoom.

Fundamentals: We gathered into groups based on camera brand and questions were asked and answered.

Business meeting:

Treasurer report.

• Membership - We have some new members.
• Website - Challenges will be late.
• Activities - Norskedalen next event.
• Talked about Park and Rec events.
• N4C contest winners were read off. Discussed entering N4C.
• N4C judging schedule is the same as last year.
• Discussed summer meetups.
• Next workshop matting and mounting.
• Cookie signup was passed around.
• Call for judges.

Main program: What makes a good image by Sue.

 

The meeting came to order at 6:43PM with 11 members of the Leadership Team present.

Oktoberfest update:

• Oktoberfest is taking over the photo contest completely. There will be no display and no prints; everything will be virtual. The subjects will be reduced to two student categories plus an Oktoberfest category. The contest will take place after Oktoberfest so people can enter photos from this year.

Went over items that were on the list last year that didn't happen:

• Website training - needs to happen this year.
• Mailchimp training - also needs to happen this year.
• Dave & Darci will look into collecting various photo ops.
• Brian will start linking to the N4C newsletters.

New ideas:

• Favorite places to shoot. This will be a collaboration between Kathy and Michelle with Kathy gathering the places from the membership and Michelle providing a place on the website to hold them.
• Classes for beginners. Possibly do classes through the Park and Rec which will give the club more visibility.
• Need to get the events on Facebook and Michelle has been hit or miss for that. Austin and Cyndy volunteered to take care of it and will be made group admins.
• Austin suggested adding special interest groups to the site. This is something that has been on the to do list but Michelle has concern that it won't be used as the forums we had previously weren't used. Will discuss with the membership to determine interest before adding to the site.
• Suggested having a meeting where people present their portfolios to the club to show off what they like to shoot.

Plan of the first meeting:

• Meet at 5:30pm for a picnic at Shelby park
• Brian and Cyndy to teach a bit of portrait during the picnic
• After the food we will have a portrait shoot where we can try out what we just learned by photographing each other.

Rest of the meetings:

• The team planned out the rest of the club year.
• The calendar will be updated soon.
• Next Leadership Team meeting will be Tuesday June 29 at 6:30

The meeting came to order at 6:36pm with 22 members present.

Pre-program:

Election of the Executive Board followed by a vote on the rewritten bylaws.

Brian presented the list of candidates for the Executive Board:

• President: Brian Narveson
• VP: Austin Miller
• Secretary: Michelle Cox
• Treasurer: John Zoerb
• Director 1: Terry Zalewski
• Director 2: Kristi Olson
• Judging Chair: Sue Retzlaff

A request was made for nominations from the floor. None were made. Brian asked for a second on the list of nominees and several people granted it. As all roles were running unopposed, the slate was presented as a whole. 24 members were present. 22 voted in favor. 2 abstained. Motion passed by majority vote.

Welcome to the returning officers and new VP Austin Miller. Thank you to Jerry W for serving as VP for the past couple of years. And a thank you to the current board for serving this past year.

The bylaws had been posted and a request for any suggested changes to be made in writing. Only one suggested change was made:

Article 6 section 3: Change "husband and wife" to "spouses". During the meeting, that was verbally amended to "partners" to be inclusive.

27 members present for the vote. 24 voted in favor of the rewritten bylaws including the proposed changed. 3 abstained. Motion passed by majority vote. The new bylaws will take effect in the 2021-2022 camera club year.

Business meeting:

• Treasurer report: Expenses and balance given.
• Website report: The N4C Video Essay contest is open. Details on the website. Also, the latest update broke user profiles so hold off on making any changes until the all clear is given. Also Mailchimp is deleting contacts and we are working on figuring that out.
• Photo outings: No updates.
• Volunteer event update: Looking into whether we are going to photograph the Solar Plunge that replaced the Polar Plunge this year.
• N4C update: We judged last month and we are not able to enter when we judged so there were no entries from our club for April. Thank you to Cyndy for running the judging.
• Oktoberfest photo contest: Hoping to have the first committee meeting in July. Volunteers needed for the committee.
• Summer program: Proposal made by Steve but he was not able to attend the meeting to discuss so further information will come by email.
• May workshop: Was going to be a milky way shoot but that is not going to work out so it will be scheduled in June.
• Next meeting: Meet at the International Gardens in Riverside park. Start with a flower shoot in the garden and then branch out to a downtown photo walk. Looking for someone to lead the walk. Contact Brian if interested.
• First meeting of next year: Tentatively planned to be a picnic instead of having a picnic over the summer. Details TBD.
• Member topic: John McCormick created a Facebook page for Hotrods and Harleys that lists all the local car shows so is a good source if you like to shoot cars and motorcycles.
• Member topic: Mary Ann brought up the free Lightroom app. 
• Suggestions wanted: The Leadership Team will be meeting in June to make the schedule for next year. We are looking for ideas on program subjects and presenters, including presenters from outside of the club. Please send any suggestions to the leadership team.

Main program:

• PSE hint by Sue.
• Sharing of this month's competition results.

Final note by John Z.: Be sure to pick up your prints, especially now so they don't get mixed in with EOY prints. The garage is open until 4pm or they can be left between the doors on the house. If you have any issues, call John.

Final note by Brian N.: Thanks to everyone for participation this year, especially in light of all the problems due to the pandemic and lack of in person meetings.

• Went over bylaws. Approved.
• Discussed remainder of the year schedule.
  • April workshop mounting 
  • May 25 photowalk
• Went over who will continue serving on the board and possible candidates to fill open spots.
• Proposal for summer activities by Steve Mitoraj and Dam McKenzie. Board approved proceeding.
• Picnic for first meeting in September.
• Oktoberfest. Discussed the issues with not having a chairperson and whether we should do it if we can't find a chairperson this year. Looking to start meeting in early July.
• Meet 2nd and 4th Tuesday (entire leadership team) to discuss next year's program.
• Leadership team meeting in May to kick off planning and wrap up the year. No date set. Will be mid to late May.
  
   

The meeting started at 6:35 with 30 participants. We reached a high of 37 participants during the business meeting.

For the fundamentals program, Brian demonstrated a couple of his favorite photography apps. 

• Photopills (Apple and Android): This has many functions related to astronomy such as to tell you when the golden hour is, when the moon will rise, and when you can see the galactice center. 
• LExp - Long Exposure Calcs (Apple only): This can be used to calculate the direction of the sun hitting your location. It also has a calculator to help you get still stars when doing astrophotography.

Business meeting:

• Treasurer report: Paid judging gift cards and church.
• Membership report: Four new members.
• Website report: Things in progress but nothing ready for use.
• Photo ops: The ice is opening up and eagles are around. A few swans have shown up. St. Patrick's day parade in La Crosse.
• Competition report: Need A judge for May. Need suggestions for challenge topics.
• N4C report: Judging in April. Judging will be done virtually with a follow up meeting on the 18th. Two more judges were requested and found during the meeting.
• HDR workshop part two was held. The third part will be a virtual workshop on post processing the images. May attend even if you didn't attend the shoot.
• Need to find out if next meeting can be made virtual as it was intended to be a tour of The Studio. Also need new fundamental topic to replace the "questions about your camera" one that is intended to break into in person groups.

The photo hint was postponed due to time so we moved onto the main program which was the results of this month's competition.

 

32 people were in attendance with the meeting starting at 6:35.

Pre meeting chat discussed where to get panoramic issues printed. AB Images was suggested. https://www.abimages.net/index.html

The fundamentals meeting was a video on Minimalist Photography by Judy Hancock Holland from June 2019.

Business meeting:

• Website has some content updates. No new features.
• Dave on Maiden's Rock ice sculptures
• No polar plunge this year.
• Looking for judges for March and May. March got taken by Cyndy. May still up for grabs.
• Idea for challenge category: Minimal
• N4C judging in April. Will be done online. Looking for judges. Date TBD.
• HDR workshop tomorrow at Riverside Park.
• Next meeting. Smartphone apps & competition results.

Main program - India Photo / Travel Workshops. Rajasthan 2014 / Agra/Varanasi 2016

 

There were 34 members present on Zoom.

Sue Retzlaff conducted the Fundamentals program on “Image Evaluation Basics”

Business meeting:

• The People Judging Category for March will be changed because there have been no Park and Rec Events.  Sue will send out email with change this week.
• Next N4C Judging is April, please contact Cindy Thorne if you are interested.  Judging will be done via Zoom.
• February Workshop is on Shooting Panorama and HDR.  First Session is Wednesday Feb 10, on Zoom.  Contact Austin Miller for information.

Main Program was February Judging Results

For the Fundamentals Program Brian Narveson showed one of our Great Courses DVD on Depth of Field.  After the video Brian showed everyone how to use the depth of Field calculator on the Photo Pills website https://www.camerastuffreview.com/en/how-to-calculate-depth-of-field-hy… .  This calculator is also available in the Photo Pills free app that is available for your smart phone.

Because we had a guest speaker the business meeting was shortened to the following:

• Austin Miller will be doing the February Workshop on Shooting HDR and Panoramas. There will be a Zoom meeting talking about shooting techniques and camera settings the week of Feb 8th, exact date and time will be send via club email. This will be followed by an outdoor shoot at Riverside park on Thursday Feb. 18th at 6:30 PM. We will be shooting night photos of the new bandstand and the river walk towards the bridge.
• John McCormack stated Kristi won a Merit Award at N4C in January.
• Brian announced our N4C judging of prints in January and March as been cancelled. However we will need judges for the April projected competition. We will be asking for judging volunteers shortly. Judging will take place over zoom.

Main Program was George Neill's presenting how to light portraits outside.  George will send the list of equipment he showed to Brian for dissemination to the club.

The meeting was called to order at 6:35 with 28 participants.

For the preprogram Kathy shared her favorite gear including a plastic bag modified as a cover and lens filters which led to a discussion on filters. Afterwards Dave shared his favorite, remote triggers.

Business meeting:

• Treasurer - No change since last month.
• Membership - Waiting on a check from a new member.
• Outings - None planned.
• Website - No changes.
• Judging - Looking for judges after February.
• N4C judging - Reminder of who is judging. 1PM sat at BRBNC
• Mentors - No updates.
• Workshop - Jan 19 by Brian on portraits. Let Brian know if you plan to attend.
• Looking for someone to fill in for the DoF fundamentals next time.

Sue's PSE tip was about extending the image canvas before adjusting for keystoning to avoid losing part of the image.

Main program results of judging. Austin, Wanda, and Terry judging.

 

The meeting was called to order at 6:35 with 28 participants. The high of the evening was 34 participants.

The fundamentals program was Rotary Lights by Brian Narveson.

Business meeting:

• Bylaws meeting tomorrow.
• No treasurer's report
• No membership updates. Question of whether to send out name tags and decided not needed until in person meetings resume.
• No upcoming field trips or workshops aside from Rotary lights due to Covid. Holiday train has been cancelled.
• Call for judges gained one January judge. Still in need for March, April, and May.
• N4C submissions for December will go in after competition results are posted.
• N4C judges are needed for January 16. Four people needed. Contact Cyndy Thorn if interested.
• No website updates this time but there will be by next meeting.
• Workshop How to take portraits at home using one light.
• Northern lights tomorrow night.

Main program - Competition results

 

The meeting was called to order at 6:35 with 27 participants. We reached 32 members by the business meeting and 36 for the main program.

John Z. presented a fundamentals program on the Histogram.

Business meeting:

• Field trip - Rotary Lights
• Judging of N4C prints on January 16. Judges needed.
• Workshop - Photoshop Elements part 2 on Dec 1st at 6:30. Should be familiar with layers and elements that were covered in the first class.
• John gave the treasurer report - Paid PSA dues and judges pay. Took in dues.

Main program: Zoo Photography an in Depth Guide by John Scalera.

The meeting started at 6:36pm with 29 members attending at the start and 33 with the latecomers.

For the Fundamentals Program, Paul S. gave tips on how to shoot for Park & Rec, which we will hopefully be able to do again soon.

• Helps them with making for a better event.
• Helps us because we get free rent in exchange.
• They are also interested in pictures of the city parks for web and print.

Business meeting

• Club will be doing a survey. Please fill it out.
• John gave the treasurer report. If you have a check from LACC, please cash it so we can balance the books.
• Membership report: a few more checks have come in. Remember that it takes a while so don't wait until the last minute if you are wanting to enter competition.
• Website report: No update yet; should be this weekend.
• Rotary lights shoot, December 15.
• Nothing new from Park & Rec
• If anyone is interested in signing up for the Photoshop Elements workshop, email Sue.
• Results are in from October entries. Debbie Ivy merit in Digital Pictorial. Gary Gallagher HM in DP. November N4C newsletter coming soon.
• Looking for N4C judges. First judging is in January. Prints.
• Screenshare of the Mentoring part of the website explaining how to be a mentor and where to find them.

Photoshop Elements tip by Sue

• Recompose tool. Can be used when your picture's aspect ratio doesn't fit your needs.

Competition results.

• Judges: Brian N. Sonja H. and Danette J.

Meeting started at 6:40. 8 people in attendance.

Oktoberfest photo contest review

• Could use more variety in types of judges. Two of them were portrait photographers this time.
• Judging procedure needs to be better defined.
• Need to start earlier than 6, especially once prints are back in. Need at least 5 hours.
• Need to start work on the whole contest sooner to ensure all the materials have the kinks worked out and the advertising is out sooner. Consider starting advertising on August 1.
• Too many entries were allowed per person (fewer than 12).
• Need to work on prizes. Certificate or plaque for the top winners. Possibly give LACC membership to student winners.
• Notify teachers in the spring and find out how best to contact them in the fall.

Actions from last meeting

• Website training Sometime later in November
• John M. Mailchimp training done.
• Email N4C newsletters working. Still waiting on sending monthly results.
• Upcoming shoots Rotary lights. Look into getting on the roof of the Radisson.
• Improving mentorships. Add forum. Notify mentors of new questions.

Program discussion

• Need to fill in Nov 24. Discussed whether we are willing to pay a professional that offers a program. Team was in favor. Brian will follow up.

Virtual meetings

• Zoom license has been purchased.
• Brian sends info for each meeting.
• Add info about zoom meetings under membership
• Attendance is down with the virtual meetings. Should we do a survey on why? Team is ok with it. Brian will follow up.
• Include phone number to call in to zoom in emails and also put on website.

Competition update

• No issues.

Misc

• Dues collection changed to go to Danette
• Need to make a members export for John & Sue.
• Add a note to the form to remind people to have their contact info updated.
• Approval for Smugmug account for event photos.
• Bylaws revision meeting moved to December.
• Next leadership meeting after Bylaws are done. Date TBD. Likely January.
  
   

The meeting started at 6:45 and was attended by 24 people via Zoom.

Fundamentals program by Austin Miller on HDR.

Business meeting:

• Some members of the leadership team were not present so no reports from their areas.
• Michelle: Update on the website yesterday. Check the news section.
• Sue: Have enough judges for now.
• N4C newsletter came out to the mailing list yesterday. Waiting on N4C judging results to post.
• Kathy: Mentorship section of the site working well. Looking into doing a forum.
• November workshop: Sue on Photoshop Elements.
• Next meeting: Park and Rec shooting by Paul and competition results by Sue.
• Wizard Workshop Thursday at Black River Beach.
• Speaker needed for the November 27th meeting.

Main program:

20 years "A Wizard" by Jerry Bonsack.

 

36 people in attendance.

Started off with some socializing and making sure everyone was set up properly for the meeting.

Meeting started at 6:40 PM

Fundamentals program by Dave on F/stop, shutter speed, and ISO basics

Business meeting

• Brian: Oktoberfest results are up. Thanks to Sue for stepping in when the judging chair had to isolate due to covid.
• Danette: Membership update. Not a lot of new members.
• Michelle: Website is being updated on a regular basis. Keep an eye on the news section for updates.
• Dave: No new field trips. Rotary lights coming up after Thanksgiving.
• No park & rec updates.
• Jerry W: Judging went very well with being able to stay safe.
• John M. N4C: Entries went out to their digital pictorial (our open), nature, digital altered competitions. Our entries came from the May competition. Next month our October will be submitted. New newsletter is available but some difficulties getting it out to the club.
• Kathy: Working on ways to make mentoring work during the pandemic. Feel free to reach out to the mentors via their contact forms if you have questions.
• Next meeting: Jerry will demonstrate his wizardry. Workshop in the works to try out these tricks. Austin Miller on HDR. 
• John: Treasurer report. Payments for judging and to the church for judging location and for N4C/PSA dues.

PSE tip skipped due to technical difficulties.

Main program 

• Discussion on how to handle voting acceptance. It was decided to use the "raise hand" option.
• Presentation of the images with commenting by the judges.
  
   

Fundamentals

Sue took us on a trip through our camera manuals to be sure we all knew how to use important features of our cameras such as the histogram.

Business meeting

• The Oktoberfest judging delayed until next Tuesday and the results will be posted soon after.
• EOY awards / prints still need to be picked up. Give John back his garage space!
• Discussed dues being due and delays on updating the member status due to the list needing to be mailed from John to Danette.
• Talked about the updates to the website. We have a news section! Read all about it!
• Field trips - Norskedalen's Civil War Immersion Weekend is October 10/11.  Looking into an evening shoot at the refuge. Stay tuned!
• Workshop - Viroqua. Sat Oct 3 9am. Meet at the park. Go to Driftless bookstore.
• Judges - Have Oct/nov. Need December onward.

Main program

Sue led the way once again, this time going over the three judging criteria: Impact, Technique, and Composition and then showed examples of various images while we discussed what made them so good.

The first club meeting of the 2020-2021 was a walk in the park -- literally! We all gathered at the International Gardens to photograph the flowers, architecture, and more. We had a good turnout and a good time was had until the mosquitoes descended for their buffet.

There was no fundamentals or business meeting so nothing to report for those.

Fundamentals:

Paul Schoenfeld presented on photographing Park & Rec. He gave tips on photographing the events, explained how photographing these events is important to both the Park & Rec and us as it enables us to use the meeting space for free, and listed upcoming events.

Business meeting:

• John Z. - Gave the treasurer's report. Payment to Sue for gift certs for judging.
• Michelle - Talked about scanning and asked for volunteers to type up old documents
• Dave - Field trip report. Rotary lights. Next after that will be the Galena trip in the spring.
• Sue - Put out a request for judges for January and May.
• John M. - Will start sending out the N4C newsletter. We are starting back up with entering the N4C competitions. Discussed the Ugly Sweater race photography.
• Cyndy - Talked about judging N4C and asked for volunteers for the judging.
• Kathy - No updates on the mentor program. It is working fine.

Main program:

• Photoshop Elements Tip by Sue - Fixing color cast.
• Competition results