January 2023
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to 2023! Let’s hope this is a great year! I wanted to go over some of the things that we will do this year in the SCVPA.
Starting Saturday, January 7th, we will begin a brand new 52 Week Photo Challenge. I will announce the challenge every Saturday on both the Facebook Pages and I will try and remember to send out a club email for those of you who aren’t on Facebook so you can join in. I truly believe that if you follow along and do the challenges your photography will improve big time!
The first challenge of the year is going to be “Ground Level”. Photograph something from the ground level and see what that perspective looks like.
Our first meeting of the year is next Tuesday, January 10, 2023 starting at 6:45 pm, it will be both live and via Zoom. We will meet at the clubhouse and I will start the Zoom portion of the meeting at 6:30 to make sure everything is up and running. Our guest speaker is Judy Handcock-Holland, she lives in Vancouver BC and will be coming to us via Zoom. Judy specializes in Minimalist Photography and her work is just awesome! You don’t want to miss her presentation! Some of Judy’s awards include:
3rd place Canadian Association for Photographic Art bronze medal, Harbour City Photo Salon 2022
Honourable Mentions in the 15th and 16th Julia Margaret Cameron International Photography Competition (series), 2020 & 2021 - exhibited in Barcelona, Spain
1st place Canadian Association for Photographic Art gold medal, and 2nd place silver medal, Harbour City Photo Salon 2019
1st place Canadian Association for the Photographic Art gold medal, Harbour City Photo Salon 2016.
You can visit her website at jhhphoto.com.
Last year we started a “On Location” Photographer of the Year contest, it was won by Henri Lajer. The top four scoring photographers were within 5 points of each other. We will be doing this again this year. The competition runs from December through November, with the winner announced at our annual Christmas Party in December. Not everyone participates each month but you must participate at least 8 times over the year to be eligible to compete for the POY Award. January’s On Location is the LA Zoo, you have all month long to go to the Zoo, send in your best 5 images plus one for the contest. That photo will be voted on by those who attend the Image Review on the last Tuesday of each month, which is done via Zoom. You don’t have to shoot the location to join in on the image review. Either way, you’ll see some really good work from our members so please join in and support your fellow members and our club.
I will be traveling to Nashville TN later this month and will be gone for a week. Because of this a overnight trip in January wouldn’t work, so in February we will travel to Death Valley National Park. February 24 through 26 and we will visit the Furnace Creek area. Camping is available at the Parks main campground or any of the three other campgrounds in Furnace Creek. You’d better start on making reservations now as the winter months are the busy season in Death Valley. There is a sign-up on the “Event Calendar” on the clubs website.
In March (10 - 12), we will visit the Salton Sea, don’t be put off by this, there is so many different places to make great photographs down there. We will visit most of them. I am going to camp at the State Park, very cheap, there is water, toilets, showers, etc. The weather will be nice. The area is very hot in the summer months so we’ll go early in the year.
In April (14 - 16), we will go to Sequoia National Park for a weekend shoot. I’ve never been there so I’m not sure how we will arrange the trip, reservations for lodging either in hotels or camping is recommended. But it will be a good trip with plenty of nature to photograph.
Then in October (6 - 8), we’ll head to the Bishop Creek area for our Fall Colors trip. We had a great turnout last year and everyone got some really nice photographs.
We will try and plan some more day trips as the year gets going.
In February we are going to present a “Lightroom” presentation. Several of you have asked for training in Lightroom. I would like for you to send me your questions now so we can put something together that will benefit everyone. If you have questions on how to do things in Lightroom please let us know!!
I look forward to another great year for the SCVPA and hope to see you all next week!
Kevin