The end of the year Banquet will be held on Saturday, June 5th at 5:30 pm. This is a pot luck supper and we ask each family to bring 2 dishes…one entree and one salad or dessert…enough to feed your family plus a few more. We will have dinner promptly at 6:00 pm followed by year end awards and a raffle.
Our program for the evening is entitled “Mystical Far Away Places” presented by Michael Goodman. This is an absolutely wonderful slideshow with extraordinary images from around the world and backed up by music that has been expertly selected to complement the mood of the images. Don’t miss this opportunity to be mesmerized and entertained!
All are welcome to attend this event…club members and their guests pay a very small fee of $3.00 per person…all others $6.00.
Please come by 7:30 if you are unable to join us for the potluck but would like to attend the program.
Tickets will be available at the door.
May 7th, 2010 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment
Angelo Marinosci, Jr. will be hosting a workshop/photo shoot in his lovely, quaint town of Warren, RI on May 23rd. We are expected to arrive in Warren by 8:30 am to catch the nice early morning light. We expect this event to last for 2 to 3 hours.
There are other areas to photograph in the vicinity so it is possible to make this a full day for shooting. Those who wish to carpool should meet at 7:15 at the municipal parking lot on Kennedy Drive. According to Mapquest, it is 1 hour and 6 minutes to Warren…approximately 42.5 miles. Directions to Angelo’s will be emailed to club members.
You can pack a picnic lunch or there are restaurants in the area to grab a sandwich.
This event is on…rain or shine…so let’s get together and have a great day!
May 7th, 2010 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment
Our program for May will be held at 191 Providence Street, Putnam at Karen’s studio. The program begins at 7:00. You will need your camera, a lens in the 70 – 200 range, your tripod and bring your external flash. We will have 2 models and 2 stations set up for shooting. Refreshments will be served. PLEASE NOTE: NO DEMPSEY CENTER FOR THURSDAY, MAY 20TH
May 7th, 2010 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment
Members learned the basics about sharpening images using Lightroom and Photoshop. Cemal is an excellent teacher who made this bland subject come alive with his clear and concise explanation of those otherwise mysterious “radius and threshold or detail” sliders! It does not matter what program you use to sharpen your images, those who attended now have an understanding of why we sharpen and what does happen when we move those sliders. THANK YOU Cemal!
We do have a few extra handouts for those who were unable to attend. Check the front desk when you arrive for the May 6th meeting.
Thanks to Diane LeBlanc for putting this program together….excellent!
April 19th, 2010 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment
Angelo Marinosci is planning on taking us on a photo shoot in the quaint village of Warren, RI on May 23rd. This will be a great time to tap Angelo’s talents and skills and build a few of our own. All club members are invited to attend but a definitely RSVP is needed by May 6th. Please email Lois. No info yet on a possible rain date…information to follow.
Known info: Must be in Warren by or before 8:30 am. Carpooling can be arranged…speak to Lois at the May 6th club meeting.
April 19th, 2010 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment
QVPC is very excited about our upcoming Lou Jones presentation Speedlights & Speedlites to be held on March 18th at 7:00 pm. Visitors are welcome and there is no fee.
Lou Jones is a commercial and fine art photographer based in Boston. He specializes in photo-illustration and location photography for corporate clients…such as IBM, major league baseball, FedEx, National Geographic, People Magazine, Aetna and many more. His assignments have made him a world traveler!
In addition to all of these skills, I hear that he is a fabulous speaker….you will enjoy learning from him. So….come on down to the Dempsey Center in Putnam and join us for a very entertaining evening.
March 9th, 2010 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment
Mary Anthony, Executive Director of the 1772 Foundation has enlisted the help of QVPC photographers in decorating the walls of their new space in the Montgomery Ward building in downtown Putnam. We are embarking on a very fun project as we contact the historians in several nearby towns to locate interesting sites in their towns that may not be well known to the general population. Our mission is to photograph the sites, obtain information about the sites, present them to Mary for final printing, matting and framing.
At the conclusion of the project (June at the latest), the Foundation will host a reception for the photographers and guests to view the images as they are displayed in the beautiful, gallery like setting.
Town coordinators are:
Brooklyn and Woodstock – Lori Labrecque
Eastford and Union – Suzanne Buell
Killingly and Sterling – Jeff Graley
Putnam – Jim Cutler
Plainfield – Diane LeBlanc
Hampton – Marcia Kilpatrick
Pomfret – Leslie Atsales
Thompson – Charlie Perry
Any club member is invited and encouraged to contact any one or more of the coordinators to go out and photograph with them. Photography reflects our vision of a place, scene or object. Lend your vision to the project!!
March 9th, 2010 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment
Understanding F-stops: Aperture Priority
By Rob Sheppard
I rarely shoot anything but aperture priority. Occasionally I shoot manual when I need a specific sort of control (such as controlling ambient light with flash). Many sports shooters use aperture priority, too. Here’s how I use it:
Depth of field — choose an aperture for appropriate depth of field. This doesn’t mean automatically choosing the smallest apertures, such as f/16. I will use f/16 when I really need deep depth of field, but I will shoot f/8-f/11 for distant scenes where depth of field is unaffected by f-stop; f/8-f/11 tend to be the sharpest parts of most lenses. I will choose wide apertures such as f/2.8-f/4 for selective focus effects to keep subject sharp and background soft. I will typically shoot close ups at f/5.6-f/8 to gain some depth of field, but not too much (since it is difficult to get close-up backgrounds sharp anyway, I would prefer them more out of focus).
Action - choose the wide f-stops. A pro technique is to set the lens at its widest or maximum aperture, such as f/2.8-f/4. You are looking for the smallest number you can set with your lens. Then with aperture priority, you guarantee that you always will shoot with the fastest shutter speed possible for the conditions. You cannot do that with shutter speed priority. The wild turkey seen here, for example, was shot with aperture priority, max aperture, so that as the bird moved through different levels of light, I was always getting the fastest shutter speed possible for the conditions. The only time I might consider shutter speed priority would be if I wanted to use a very specific shutter speed, such as a slow speed for a water blur.
Some photographers are very comfortable with manual exposure, which works fine, but some photographers use it because they think they “should” in order to be a “real” photographer. I used to feel that way many years ago. But honestly, modern auto exposure systems are so good that they are faster, more convenient, and can be just as accurate. They certainly require a lot less thought about technology! And with digital, you can quickly see if your exposure is right or not by using the LCD with highlight warnings and histogram.
More details: Become a master of exposure – and aperture – with Rob Sheppard’s outstanding online photography workshop: The Magic of F-stops: Choosing the Right Aperture. Also check out BetterPhoto.com’s other digital photography online courses.
January 8th, 2010 | Category: Tips | Leave a comment
Taken from www.betterphoto.com
January 05, 2010
Natural Light Photography: Where’s the Light?
By Douglas Steakley
All photographers know, or quickly learn, that subject matter is only one element of a photograph and it is arguably not the most important element. Interesting or dramatic light is often the key ingredient of a successful image. When composing a photograph, it is important to pay attention to the direction the light is coming from and how this impacts the subject that is being photographed.
Look around for the source of the light and then take another look at the subject to see how the light is falling on it and how it changes as you move. Often by stepping to one side or another the lighting can be made more dramatic and interesting.
There are basically four types of directional light that are important to an outdoor photographer: sidelight, backlight, frontlight, and soft or diffused light. Here’s a rundown on two types:
Soft light can be created by fog, overcast or shade and increases the color contrast in softer, subtler tonalities. Soft light enhances colors that would be lost or become to contrasty in direct sunlight. Soft light is best for subject matter that is colorful or has interesting detail such as flowers, plants or other types of close up images.
The two soft-light images below – the close-up of the lupine and the small waterfall near Yosemite were both taken in cloudy, overcast conditions. This type of light eliminates shadows, which reduces contrast and allows for more saturated, vivid colors. Neither of these images would have been successful if the sun had been shining on them.
January 8th, 2010 | Category: Tips | Leave a comment
Club members will meet on Sunday, Jan 10th 2010 at 5:00 pm at Lois Latraverse’s house in Dayville to select entries for the Winter NECCC print and digital competitions. We will also be selecting entries for the Glennie competition which is held in March.
Please bring a maximum of 6 images (print) and email a maximum of 6 images for each category. The categories are:
Print: Open and Black and White
Digital: Nature and Open
Glennie Digital: There are several nature categories so send your birds, bees, flowers, wildlife, amphibians, etc.
We would like to have excellent entries in all contests and not settle for lesser quality because we don’t have enough images presented for selection. Got that? It may be confusing…so, in other words, we know we have a lot of excellent images within our club, we just want to make sure that you bring (or send) a good selection of your work so that we send our best quality images to these regional competitions.
Please email your images to mrsaj1@ct.metrocast.net by Saturday at 9:00 pm, Jan 9. The images need to be sized and named according to standards. That would be sized horizontal to 1024 pixels and vertical 768 pixels at 72 DPI resolution. Please name your images as follows: QVPC$Nature$LastNameFirstName$titleofimage.jpg If the entry is for OPEN category, change Nature to Open.
Thank you and look forward to seeing you on the 10th. If you need directions please email me.
January 8th, 2010 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment
