photo-minutes070330

=Digital Photography=

Minutes of Organizational Meeting -- March 30, 2007
I thought that was a good meeting today, thanks to those of you who were able to attend. Thank you all for your contributions. I will attempt to summarize the meeting for the benefit of those who could not attend and as an aide memoir for the rest of us.

Fifteen LLL members attended, with interests and background ranging from "total beginner" to advanced. Our discussion demonstrated that there is plenty of expertise within the group to give us all an opportunity to learn from each other.

Several suggestions were made about the kinds of things that we could do as a group.

Click here to see Bill Patterson's photos from our meeting:
 * [[image:http://lh3.google.com/image/rtfranson/RhA_IIIrgCE/AAAAAAAAAcc/ZjFt5KvQbXw/s160-c/LLLPhotoGroup.jpg width="160" height="160" link="http://picasaweb.google.com/rtfranson/LLLPhotoGroup?authkey=ligIZI919Aw"]] ||
 * [|LLL Photo Group] ||

Field trips, talks, and studio visits:
Alverda Orlando suggested that we might go out to the Davenport Cement plant to photograph machinery. Related to that, Joellen Bruce suggested that we could consider a trip to the Ag History Museum (she is a board member) for a meeting and photographic opportunities. Alverda and Joellen are looking into those possibilities

It was also suggested that we might see whether Frans Lanting would be willing to come talk to us about his work. For background on Frans Lanting see http://www.lanting.com/welcome.html. (My notes don't reveal whether anyone is following up on this, or not.)

Bonnie Quan was also suggested as someone who might give us a talk. She teaches a course in digital photography and has written a good book for beginners entitled, "“Shooting Mona and Other People, Places and Things: A Beginner’s Guide To Digital Photography”. Joellen will contact Quan to explore the possibilities.

Meeting Focus
It was suggested that we should announce a subject for each meeting, so members could be prepared with questions, and more experienced members would be prepared to help. It was also suggested that more experienced members might be asked to present a subject on some occasions.

Hardware, Software, and Cameras
There was a lot of discussion about specific cameras and their capabilities, about printers, and about programs that are useful. It seems impossible to generalize about these subjects, but a couple of points can be noted. First, it is very important to decide what you want to do with photography, and then choose equipment that is suitable for that purpose. The number of megapixels a camera can deliver is not the be-all-end-all it is often claimed to be. There are numerous websites that review cameras and other equipment, and some of our more experienced members could suggest the better ones. E-mail us with questions, and we will try to respond.

Both Bill Patterson and I use very light and reasonably powerful small cameras that they are able to carry with them at all times, while Susan Hillyard has chosen a top-of-the-line single lens reflex (SLR ) digital camera because being able to use different lenses is important to her. Steve Zaslaw and Richard Coen have also made interesting choices with respect to their cameras, which offer more power than the small cameras that Bill and I favor but do not involve the weight of the SLR.

Programs that can be used to edit images and print them were also a subject of interest. Susan uses Adobe PhotoShop, while Joellen uses PhotoShop Elements (a simpler and less expensive version of the former). For the moment, I am relying on the software that came with my camera, a Canon, and also on Picasa, which I have downloaded free from Google.

The Internet is useful for sharing photographs. One can e-mail them, of course, but it is a good idea to reduce the size of the file before you send it. Picasa can help with that task. Probably also the software that came with your camera. You can also upload your images to Picasa or to SnapFish, where your friends can view them.

NEXT MEETING
This is the important part. The next meeting will again be at my home, 216 National Street, at 10 a.m. on the last Friday of April, that is, April 27th. And there is an **ASSIGNMENT**. Before then, please go out with your camera and photograph a close up of some backlit wisteria. Print your image as large as you can. 8.5 x 10 is best, but if you can't do that go for the standard 4 x 6. Or, if you can't print it, e-mail it to Bill Patterson (wilderwill@sbcglobal.net) and to me, and we will make a print (Bill's printing is better than mine because I use ordinary paper). If you'd prefer a different subject, please chose any backlit subject that appeals to you.

The purpose of this exercise is to get each of using our cameras on a similar task, so we can talk about it. There are three features you will want to consider: First, how to make a close up image of a flower; second, how to set your camera to compensate for the light coming from behind the subject; and third, whether to allow the flash to go off (it may want to), or not, and how to control that.

We'll talk about these features and how to photograph this kind of subject, and we'll discuss the particular images people make from the point of view of composition and other considerations.

The idea here is to focus the discussion and make progress in learning about our individual cameras. Please don't worry if you can't get it to work. Come and tell us what happened. Bring you manual. We may be able to help.

I would encourage everyone to give this a try, and also, if you need help with it, please e-mail me or Steve. We'll see what we can do to help.

ABOUT THE FUTURE:
We are still in the organizational phase of creating this group. Let's see how the next two meetings go, then if it seems we really have a functioning group we'll apply to the LLL Board to make it permanent. No need to register for the group until we do that, but please let me know whether you think you're in or out.

I'll volunteer as group leader pro temp, and Steve is going to help me out with that. Several members have volunteered to host the meetings in the future, and Elliot Dembner has volunteered to bring the cake for our next meeting.

I think we've got a good thing going here. Let's see what we can do with it.

Cheers, Robert Franson