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News about past club events

Randy Fiedler - Club Meeting of January 14, 2015
Randy Fiedler provided a masterful insider’s perspective on his 26 year career as a newspaper photographer for the Red Deer Advocate.  It was very well received by the club members in attendance.  He left that business in 2013 because of changing work conditions in the media industry and in particular within his newspaper. 

Randy illustrated his commentary with a series of photos covering major subject areas he would have dealt with in his job, and also on free lance photography he conducted.  Included in these content areas were varied subjects, amongst which the most emotionally taxing contents to shoot were traffic accidents and crime scenes, both of which too often involved fatalities.  Throughout his career he always considered himself more of a newsman than a photographer per se, in that he always viewed his role as telling a story about events and their impact on our community.  His photographs clearly demonstrated how dedicated he was to finding creative ways to tell these stories using lighting, composition, and even props at times if those would help achieve the message he was trying to convey. 

Much of his presentation demonstrated his preferred photographic style which involved using long telephoto lenses to compress a scene and render the main subject against a blurred background, but extreme wide angle images were also a favourite.  Throughout Randy philosophized about the role of the media in our society and how media personnel are sometimes viewed by the public.  Much has changed in this industry recently and Randy did not see many of the changes as being positive.  According to him, competitive pressures from internet news sources are leading the printed media to a sharpened focus on money-making in the industry at the expense of quality reporting at times.  One of his most telling comments was that the media industry is not in business to bring news to the public.  It is in business to deliver the public to the media’s advertisers. 
Christmas Banquet December 03, 2014

On December 3 the club’s Xmas banquet was held at Davenport Place Hall.  The event was attended by 66 members and guests, who consumed a great potluck feast as usual, headlined by lasagna made by Scotty and Kathy Roxburgh.  Rumour has it that no one went home hungry.  After the meal, Scotty did his usually inimitable imitation of an auctioneer in auctioning off the remaining pans of their dish. 

The winning photos of the winter competition were announced and the photographers involved presented with certificates honoring their achievements.  The club thanks Daniel Pelissier for orchestrating this competition, Linda and Grant Ursuliak for assisting him, and a cadre of 8 judges who selected the winners.  McBain Camera from Red Deer again donated door prizes to the banquet for which contribution we are continually grateful.

Royce Howland - Club Meeting of November 12, 2014
The third of our visiting photographer presentations was made on November 12 by Royce Howland.  He presented on the topic of Telling Stories with your Travel Photography:
- Storytelling,
- Visual stories,
- Essence of subject,
- Make your work personal,
- Approaching the subject,
- Gear for travel,
- Finding the seed of a story,
- Crafting travel stories.

Royce co-founded, with Peter Carroll, the organization IRIS, or “Telling Stories with your Travel Photography”.  The group has as its mission - to encourage understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures and places around the world, through photography as a medium of visual art and story-telling.

Royce’s presentation focussed greatly on using photography to tell stories.  Many of the talking points he presented covered triads of concepts.  For example, Photos have as key components: the subject, the lighting, and the composition.  There are three aspects to telling a story: the subject,  you as the photographer, and your audience.  The story has three elements as well: the characters, the narrative, and the engagement of the audience.

Royce provided a copy of his Powerpoint presentation which he made at the meeting.  You can see this and read more about his views on photography and its uses in telling stories here.  

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Sean Caffrey - Club meeting of October 22, 2014
This meeting featured the second of our Visiting Photographers presentations, being made by Sean Caffrey of Calgary.  Sean has had a stellar rise in his photographic career and now sports credits such as having his images published by National Geographic and other highly notable publications.  Despite this he has not given up his day time job, and kept his feet on the ground in his “normal” professional career as a biochemist.  He has been able to finance his considerable equipment and travel expenses entirely from his photography income, however.

The core subject of Sean’s presentation was travel photography and how to take it out from orthodoxy into greater creativity.  He has travelled to no less than 56 countries of the world, including such exotic countries as Sudan and Nepal, and he illustrated his presentation richly with superb images from these locales.  Much of his photography focused on capturing the people of these countries in their normal activities.  But he strives always to set his photography apart by selecting less visited locations, using local guides to help him to these spots and to act is an interpreter for him.  He has excellent success in asking local people to permit him to photograph them in their daily lives and their homes.  He only rarely asks for releases to allow him to use these photographs since his work is for the greatest part “editorial” in nature, meaning it is used by newspaper and magazines, but not for commercial purposes.  Only when he is convinced a photo has potential for sales as a commercial image would he ask for a release to be signed.

He also sets his images aside from the main stream by making excellent use of unique lighting at key moments during the day.  And he seeks less common perspectives by shooting from very low or very high vantage points.  Lastly, his compositional skills are very well developed and he strives to use his foreground, subject and background in such a way as to enhance his images further.  But the highlight of his presentation was clearly the extensive set of often stunning images he has taken throughout the world.



Club meeting of October 08, 2014

The meeting began with the judging of the Monthly Assignment on the subject “Stairs/Escalator”, led by our Vice-President Jim McKinley.  There were 26 entries with the usual creative variety in how the theme was interpreted by members of the club.  Judging this event was very tiring, and we were glad when it was over so that we no longer in our minds had to climb the stairs in each image!

Thereafter, Competition Director Daniel Pelissier provided a brief introduction for new members on how to submit photos for competitions.  This was followed by the major presentation of the evening, again by Daniel, on the subject of Focus Stacking.  This technique allows one to take multiple shots of a given subject with the focus point progressively being moved deeper into the image.  The resulting set of images are then all imported into Photoshop and that software then chooses the version which was most sharp in each area of the image in order to produce the final result.  What comes out of this process is an image which has much greater depth of field than could ever be created in the camera alone.  For example, a flower photographed from the side with a macro lens could only show a small portion of the flower in sharp focus, while the rest would fade progressively into greater and greater amounts of blur.  But the Focus Stacking technique Daniel presented can produce an image of that flower which is totally sharp from the closest point of the near petal, to the farthest point of the distant petal.

Daniel is known for how meticulously he attacks any task he takes on, and his care in preparing this presentation showed this again.  He had a very helpful outline presentation covering the overall concept and all the of the steps required to achieve the effect in each of three computer programs, followed by yet another program which is freeware.  He illustrated the full process in Photoshop, and then had some very helpful breakdowns of which areas of each of the set of taken images were used in the final product.  This allowed the audience to clearly understand how the process achieves its result.  The presentation was very well received and solicited some very insightful comments and questions.

Did you miss Daniel's presentation?  As a member you can view his presentation in PDF format here.

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George Webber - September 24, 2014
On September 24, the club enjoyed the first of 7 visiting photographer presentations which were financed for us by Culture Services of the City of Red Deer, for which we are very grateful.  We also greatly appreciate the hard work which our Program Director, Kathy Swanson, put in to organize so effectively this set of presentations in her very first year on the Executive.

George Webber (www.georgewebber.ca/) is a well-respected Alberta photographer who has conducted a number of multi-year photography projects out of which he presented on three during this evening.  The first was an exceedingly unique view into life on a Hutterite colony on the Little Bow River.  This cultural group normally eschews photos completely, as they are considered to be graven images.  But George very gently and patiently won their trust and gained permission to photograph almost all aspects of the colony’s activities over a four year period which ended when the colony was flooded to make way for a hydroelectric dam.  His images show intimately how the children of the colony in particular accepted him and trusted him to capture their daily life.  All of his photos were shot with a Leica 35mm rangefinder camera on black and white film, using only a single 35mm lens, and only in available light.  On top of these restrictions he never crops his images in any way.  But the reporting which emerged was very compelling to see and was very much in the style of the street photography of the master early French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.

His second set of images documented East Village in Calgary where many downtrodden people live in an area known for crime, illicit drug use, and the sex trade.  Here he had to exercise even greater care and patience to win the trust of the residents before he could ask to photograph them.  His images included many detailed photos of the interior of their apartments, which he commenced to take in black and white with a digital camera before switching to color because he felt he was losing too much of the information he wanted to capture.  The project prominently featured the three infamous old hotels in the village, including the well-known St. Louis where Ralph Klein was a frequent visitor for many years.  Each of these hotels have now been torn down, making this imaging project, just like the Hutterite project, truly historic now.

Lastly he shared a set of images he had taken over 20 years called “Prairie Gothic”.  These were once again taken on black and white film, using a medium format Hasselblad camera this time and a single 50mm lens which is close in image coverage to the lens he used on his Leica camera.  All of these images were again uncropped and presented in the challenging square format of the normal film format of this camera.  The images featured vanishing scenes of the Canadian prairies, of the towns, the buildings in them and the people who live there.    To further challenge his creativity George would always walk backwards from the subjects until he had put them into the context of their surrounding, be they an elderly couple or an elderly church.  He told many stories about these images and the subjects who appear in them, which further enriched the content of the photos.  Here also, many of the scenes and many of the people are no longer on this earth, making these images also rich historic documents.

Throughout his presentation he strongly impressed us with his own humanity, his humble approach to his work, and his perceptiveness.  Despite largely eschewing the technical side of photography he produced outstanding images which showed how acute his photographic eye was.  I can assure you that the presentation made for much rich discussion at Timmy’s afterwards!!!

Leo


CAPS Annual Spring Banquet and Awards Night - May 14, 2014
The annual Spring Barbecue and Awards Ceremony for CAPS was held at the very nice Davenport Place Community Association Hall in Red Deer yesterday, with some 57 people attending. This was a pot-luck supper for which a great abundance and variety of side dishes and deserts were brought - more than even this large crowd could work away. President Larry Hildebrandt presented awards to all the winners of the spring photo competition, which included an expanded number of video entries in this, the second year of that category. Details of the winners for each category will soon be posted on the club web site.  Three members had done so well in the competitions this year that they were promoted from the novice to the intermediate category, and one person was promoted from intermediate to advanced. The club will not meet formally again until September 10, but three photo outings are scheduled for the summer months.

CAPS Votes in new executive at AGM - April 23, 2014
Last night we voted it our new club executive.  Special thanks to those who let their names stand for these very important club positions. Click here to view a complete list of the 2014-2015 executive.  

CAPS Holds Final Lightroom Class - April 16, 2014
Leo de Groot held the last of four lightroom classes tonight.  It was this final class that wowed his students as he brought together what we had learned in the previous three classes. Leo tauhgt us how to apply his tips and tricks to create awesome images.   Thanks to Leo for all of his hard work in preparing for this series.  We all went away with a better understanding as to the creative powers that can be found throughout the Lightroom program.
Monica shares her tips with fellow CAPS members - April 09, 2014 
Monica,a long time member of CAPS demonstrated via the use of her own educational videos how to;
1 Sign and emboss your Signature.
2 Make a business card and why.
3 Remove information from your photos and also  why...
Her unique presentation style and awesome sense of humour kept the audience riveted on her tips.   Monica then presented a slide show that she created using "Fusion". She displayed many of her images taken from a local belly dancing class. Monica's unique style and creative talents inspired us all to create our own awesome images.
Watch her videos of the presentation and the belly dancers



Scotty Roxburg brings complete dump tank setup to CAPS - March 26th
Scotty gave a talk on how he creates abstract images using a home made dump tank system.  He then shared how he is able to take relatively simple images and turn them into high impact abstracts using photoshop filters. If you ever wanted to create abstract art this was a meeting that was full of creative information. 

CAPS Holds Second Lightroom Class - Feb 19, 2014
CAPS members attended the Second of four classes on Adobe's Lightroom photo editing software. Leo de Groot spent the evening teaching about the incredibly powerful organizer/Library module. We learned how to import photos, colour ratings, apply metadata, filter photos by, ratings or keywords and much, much, more. Next month we will discover the "Develop module" and how to give our images the WOW factor. Learning to use Leo's tips and tricks we will be able to turn our images into the award winning photos that we imagined when you pressed the shutter.  Even if you have missed the first two class it is not too late to sign up.  Click here to learn more. 

Question and Answer/Swap Meet Night a huge success - Feb 13, 2014 Meeting
    Over the past two weeks club members submitted questions about photography or photography software to the club executive.  A panel of experts then provided answers to the questions asked by our members.  Lots of feed back was given by both the panel and CAPS members.  
    Several members brought their unneeded photo equipment and set up tables displaying their products.   Most of the items displayed were sold, providing awesome bargains to the new owners.  This definitely was the time to find great bargains on a wide range of photographic equipment. 

Slide Presentation by Sally Peddle & CAPS Goes Digital- Jan 22, 2014
   Thanks to Sally Peddle for her amusing and enlightening presentation about her home land, Newfoundland. After seeing her presentation we can all look forward to one day visiting the store that sells everything from baby farts to a clap of thunder and also trying the local deep fried dough and dipping it in molasses. Thanks Sally for this awesome presentation.
   In January CAPS held its first digital Monthly Assignment. The club received 26 entries from it's members and using our new projector to project the images we had members judge the Monthly Assignment of Close-up/Macro. Members used our web page site to download their images and Jim McKinley made up a power point presentation of the images received for judging. The members were shown the entries randomly with a quick preveiw followed with each image being displayed for one minute. Members were asked to judge the images on ''Theme'', ''Impact'' and ''Technical''. rating each aspect from a score of 1 - 5. They were further asked to provide writen comments about each image. In all the judging of the twenty six images took us about 30 minutes, about fifteen to twenty miutes quicker than when we judged prints laid out on round tables. The top ten images will be displayed in our newsletter. The feed back from the membership was positive and we look forward to judging our next digital monthly assignment ''EMOTIONS''.

CAPS Holds First Lightroom Class - Jan 15, 2014

About twenty CAPS members attended the first of four classes that Leo de Groot will be holding. Leo spent the evening teaching about the incredibly powerful organizer. We learned how to import photos, give them star or colour ratings, filter photos by, ratings or keywords and much, much, more. Next month we will discover the "Develop module" and how to give our images the WOW factor. Learning to use Leo's tips and tricks we will be able to turn our images into the award winning photos that we imagined when you pressed the shutter.  Even if you have missed the first class it is not too late to sign up.  Click here to learn more. 

Storm Chasing in Central Alberta - Club Meeting Jan 8, 2014

Collin Orthner from McBains Camera teamed up with David Morton (an advanced CAPS member) to give their presentation on storm chasing.  Dave started with a display of incredible images showing his experiences and close calls while capturing his incredible images. Dave's partner, Susan Judge also contributed many wonderful images to this presentation.  Dave and Susan watch the skies for building storms and will often head to the front of the storm.  It is not uncommon for them to wait for 6-8 hours all in the name of capturing the perfect image.
Collin then displayed his wonderful photos. It was interesting to discover that, unknown to each other, Collin and Dave often photographed the same storm from different angles.  Collin often used a telephoto lens to zoom in on the storm, capturing the chaos from a distance.  
Many of us were surprised at the awesomeness of the storms that Dave and Collin captured.  
I can't wait to try a little storm chasing for myself.

Workshop Outing - WoW, I wish I didn't have to work.  Friday Dec 13
Some of our Members braved the cold to attend Red Deer's Centennial Finale "Fire and Ice". Rick and Leo forwarded some of the images that they captured that evening and I must say they are amazing. I for one couldn't attend (had to work), and I see that I really missed some tremendous photo opportunities.  Remember photos taken at this event qualify for our workshop category in the spring competition.  
Fall Banquet - Best Ever - Dec 4th
This year approximately 60 attended our annual Winter Banquet and Awards night. All 187 competition entries were proudly displayed throughout the night. Lots of visiting, great food, awards, photos, a turkey and ham raffle, and door prizes all contributed to make this the best event EVER!  Congratulations to the our winners.
187 entries submitted for Fall Competition -Wed Nov 27th
Eight Judges met at the Golden Circle to perform the daunting task of choosing the winners for our fall competition. Once again the caliber of photos submitted in all categories was very impressive. Several Judges commented on the vast differences in creativity and design found in the digital manipulation category making choosing a winner extremely difficult.   Special thanks to all of the judges and competition staff for their hard work.  Be sure to attend our Annual awards night and Banquet (See the club calender for the details


Photoshop Elements Class - Wed Nov 20th
Larry held the last of his three evening classes on Photoshop Elements 11.  We learned how to fix red eyes, then how build a panoramic photo using photomerge, Next we were taught that if you master the "selection tools" you have mastered Photoshop.  After Larry demonstrated the "selection tools" he moved on to using Layers and non-destructive editing.  We were shown how easy it is to use the selection tool to copy, then paste into a new background using layers and layer masks to tweak the newly combined image.  He also showed us how easy it is to replace closed eyes with open eyes using the "selection tools", "Layers" and "Layer Masks".  Thanks Larry for getting us started into the wonderful world of digital manipulation.

Getting the most out of your prints - Meeting Wed Nov 13th 2013
Guest Speaker, Curttis Lund, spoke on how to get the best from your prints. Curttis, is one of the technicians at McBain Camera and processes large prints (up to 48 x 60). He will shared his knowledge as to what is needed to get the best possible results when printing larger images. We learned how size ratio's can dictate the final size of the print. Depending on the ratio of your original camera sensor (2x3, 4x3,16x19) and the size of print you wish to achieve, you may have to crop from the sides or top of the image.  We learned to either shoot with the final print size in mind or shoot wide so that we have room to crop to the final size. Judge by the question and answer period at the end of Curttiss's presentation, a lot of club members found this meeting very interesting and informative.  Be sure to visit Curttiss and McBain Camera for your large size printing needs.  For those interesting in finding out more about printing and print ratio's here is a great link.

CAPS Judges images for PRPA  Sunday Nov 17th 2013
Three of our members spend over three and a half hours judging photos for the PRPA. Images were submitted by several camera clubs within the three prairie provinces then were projected on a 120 inch screen using our newly calibrated CAPS projector.  The judges were very impressed with the high quality of the images submitted.  Thanks to Jim McKinley, our PRPA representative for all of his hard work in organizing the judging for this event. Thanks also for our three judges for their input and feedback. Results will be announced soon.

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Inspired by Leo's presentation  Oct 23, 2013 
Leo's De Groot will be put on a slideshow about the 250th anniversary of the second siege of the French fortified city of Louisbourg on Cape Breton. This was a grand spectacle in which hundreds of "re-enactors" came in their period costumes to recreate the battles for the city.  We all learned about the battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City in high school but little of Louisbourg.  Yet if Louisbourg had not fallen to the English there would not have been a Plains of Abraham battle and eastern Canada might have remained a French colony. 
Leo's presentation consisted of over 200 images that looked like they came right out of a travel magazine. Awesome lighting and an endless supply of subject matter along with Leo's eye for processing in Lightroom made us all the envy of his photographic talents.  
Be sure to check out Leo's Gallery by clicking here.  For those who would like to watch the National Film Board production about the 1995 250th anniversary of the first siege of the fortress?  It runs around 45 minutes long and is well done. http://www.nfb.ca/film/louisbourg_under_siege/ . NEW! Google has just made available Street Views of major National Parks and Historic Sites in Canada. Check it out by clicking here.  Click here for a copy of the slide presentation presented.
Leo will also be teaching our Lightroom classes in the spring 2014.  Visit the CAPS club calender for more information.


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CAPS first 1 day Seminar a success.
About 43 photographers attended a CAPS seminar by renowned Alberta Photographers Darwin Wiggett and Samantha Chrystanthou. Darwin and Samantha are full-time, professional photographers based out of Cochrane, Alberta.  They are creative partners in life and work and enjoy sharing their photographic knowledge with other passionate shooters.  Renowned for their accessible and fun teaching style, Darwin and Sam conducted a teaching seminar and workshop on all things photographic.  
Darwin and Sam can be found on their popular website, www.oopoomoo.com, where they share their photos, ideas and many free tips on all things photographic for all levels of photographers.

Photos taken at Darwin's and Smantha's Seminar

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First Workshop of the Season a Success
About 25 club members showed up at that Downtown walkabout.  Cameras were busy snapping photos at 7:00 am. Tripods, time exposures, handhelds shot low, handhelds shot high, lots of laughter, and tips on the run.  Photographers tried their best to capture an award winning image as photos taken from this event can be entered in our Workshop competition category. Afterwords all of us invaded City Roast Coffee where we chatted about the latest photo projects, vacations and grandchildren.  A great time was had by all. 


Finally we understand the judging process
Meeting Sept 25th
Dana Naldrett from the Foothills Camera Club in Calgary explained several of the methods used by photography clubs to judge their photos. He offered comparisons of each style showing the pros and cons of each.  His vast expertise in judging helped us to understand the complete judging process. At the end of his talk we had an opportunity to judge a few of his images and learned that the scores from one judge to another can indeed vary several points. 
After his talk we were given the opportunity to test our judging skills by judging this months monthy assigment "Door(s)". 
You can see Dana's work at http://mountainladdiephoto.com/3.html or by visiting his facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/public/Dana-Naldrett

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25 students attend CAPS first Photoshop Elements Course
Twenty Five students attended our first ever Photoshop Elements Class.  The course consists of three classes in total, and will teach all aspects of Photoshop Elements Organizer and the editing programs.  The first class covered system requirements, white balance and lots of details about the organizer.  A few tips were shown about some of the features in quick edit mode.   In the second class we will learn about the incredible power found in "Guided Edit Mode"
Here we will discover how to easy it is to Correct Skin Tones, Enhance Colours, Create a Perfect Portrait, Remove a Colour Cast, Clean Scratches and Blemishes, Adjust Depth of Field, add Sepia Toning, add Vignetting, Create and Out of Bounds photo, Create Reflections and More. 
Next we will learn how resolution affects our prints or screen images. Which is the best file type to save edited photos in. The final class will show everything we need to know about layers, Adjustment layers, fill layers, image layers, masks and more

Discover how to: Convert to Black and White, correct colours, replace backgrounds, replace closed eyes, retouch damaged photos, change the colour of a flower or dress and much more.

The class book we will are using is Photoshop Elements 11 All-in-One For Dummies.  You may want to purchase or download your copy.

It's not too late to join in the next class held Wednesday Oct 16, th at 6:45 pm
See the club calender for more details.


1st Meeting a Hit 
The first club meeting this year saw many newcomers coming to "check us out".  The club executive was introduced followed by an awesome movie about events of the past year.  (special thanks to Scotty for all of his hard work in creating this video).  Next a Power Point talking about upcoming events, monthly assignments, the new photoshop elements course and more.  Daniel then spoke about the club competitions followed by a video of Scotty's trip to the UK. Oh yes there was lots of hype about the Darwin Wigget seminar coming October 5th.  What a great start to our new season.

CAPS Summer Outing - Picnic at McKenzie Park 
About 20 members enjoyed the annual picnic at McKenzie Park Wednesday August 14th. CAPS reserved the picnic shelter for the club get together where members and their family spent the evening socializing and comparing vacation stories.  There was picnic tables and fire pits, lots of good food and oh yes several members brought their camera to capture the beautiful scenery.

Be sure to mark this event on your calender for 2014

Eight judges assess 116 entries for our spring competition

Eight judges including two CAPA trained judges from Calgary, three staff members from McBain's Camera, and three more CAPA trained CAPS members judged the 116 entries for the spring competition.  All judges had enough time to comment on the photos they judged, providing lots of feedback to each entrant.  
The decision for the overall winner was once again very difficult to make. 

Be sure to come to the annual BBQ and awards night on Wed May 15th to view the photos,socialize with your fellow club members, and meet the winners. 

CAPS Sets another record

CAPS is happy to announce that we have 93 members this year. This is up from 70 members in the 2011-2012 seasons. Special thanks to all those who contributed their time and efforts making this year another success.

New Club Executive voted in at AGM

April 24 2013
A healthy representation of our club members voted in their new executive. Special welcome to
  • Jim McKinley -Vice President
  • Leo de Groot - Treasurer
  • John Strampel - Program Director / Outings Coordinator
  • Rob Gilgan - Director of Promotions
  • Linda and Grant Ursuliak - teaming with Daniel to form our Competition Team
Visit our "Contact us" page for a complete list of our executive.
The latest version of our handbook has now been posted on our website under "Links" / "Club Documents". Be sure to download your copy today.

Club Executive attends  Foothills Camera Club meeting in Calgary.

April 16, 2013
Three members of CAPS executive (Larry, Daniel, Scotty) attended a meeting of the Foothills Camera Club in Calgary.  The purpose of their visit was to collect ideas for ways to improve our own meetings and agenda.  We also wanted to experience how the Foothill's club handle their digital competitions. 
Our goal is to take a fresh look at our competitions and within the next year implement a system of entering and judging and reviewing some photos digitally.  Please feel free to comment this on our new Blog

Jim McKenny wows club members with photo presentation of India

Meeting Wed April 10
Jim McKenny - Travel Photos of India
Jim is a new club member having joined in the fall of 2012. His interest in photography goes back to his teen years, however, he just dabbled in it over the years until the advent of digital photography. He is now able to combine his interests in photography, design and computers. Jim gave a Powerpoint presentation of his trip to India. Jim's explanation of his unique experiences along with his photographs gave us a fresh, human look at this country. Jim's strong passion for this country is the reason he is planning to return to capture more great images. 
 
In professional life had Jim worked for the government of Alberta for the past 43 years with the majority of that time spent as a environmental investigator/inspector. His role for the past 11 years has been with the Natural Resources Conservation Board conducting environmental audits on confined feeding operations (hog barns and dairies). He will be retiring (finally) on April 15 and has realized that he now has more past then future and he needs to spend more time on “my stuff.”
 
Guest presenter Huw Jenkins also showed some photographs of his recent trip.

Darwin Wigget & Samantha Chrysanthout give talk on use of filters

Meeting -Wed April 3rdDarwin and Samantha hosted our special fund raising evening. Their very informative talk and slide show showed us the effective use of filters and included instruction on:
  • Building a filter system that works for nature photography
  • The 10 essential uses of the polarizing filter (why you need a polarizer shooting landscapes 90% of the time)
  • The magic of the Gold-n-Blue Polarizer and how to use it for creative colour effects in your photography
  • Darwin and Sam’s ‘painting with time’ technique using solid ND filters and vari-ND filters
  • Contrast control using ND grads and when to use soft versus hard edge grad filters
  • How to apply all you know by creatively combining filters for effects impossible to replicate with photo software.

Darwin has also written several articles that can be viewed at his website. Check them out at http://oopoomoo.com/workshop/essential-filters-for-digital-nature-photography/
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Lots of learning at our workshop event

Metting - Wed March 27
It was a full house at last nights workshop as club members toured 10 different learning centers.  This was a hands on night with members encouraged to bring their camera and head towards whatever peaked their interest. 
Some of the centers that were set up were;
  • Hank and Dave = hands on Tilt Lenses
  • Rick Price = Portraits
  • Larry Hildebrandt = Nikon CLS flash system
  • Scott Roxburgh = Water Splash
  • Daniel = macro Macro Lenses and Canon remote flash
  • Curtis Lund = Cutting Matts for Images
  • Grant and Linda = floral arrangements
  • Harvey = Black Light Scotty = Light boxes.
This ended up being a great social night with lots of one on one instruction.
Several members headed to Tim Horton's for coffee after the meeting

Members take tour of studio in Blackfalds

Twelve members attended the Photo Studio Tour at Ronda Sauers new studio in Blackfalds. Ronda introduced us to the benefits of renting her studio. She offers full use of her studio lights, trigger, Sekonic light meter, stands, multiple backgrounds and props. Ronda's generous, sharing style made us eager to try a rental session. Rick Price gave a display of his lighting techniques making the use of studio lights look easy. Several more members will be touring Ronda's studio on Saturday March 23rd. 

You can see photos of her studio here.
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Six CAPS members attend CAPA's judging course in Calgary

Saturday March 16, six of our members attended the "Canadian Association of Photographic Arts" (Capa) judging course held at the University of Calgary. We came home with a better understanding of the benefits of becoming a CAPA member as well as a balanced understanding of how to judge all genres of photography. The next day instructor Allen Bargen continued his training by offering a photography course titled "In search of a better photograph". Here we learned many tips and tricks to capturing the perfect image

Dawn Travers wows the crowd with photos from Iceland.

Meeting March 13, 2013
Dawn Traverse gave a slide show and talk on her recent trip to Iceland.  Dawn is an advance photographer and long time club member. She has taken several trips and courses with Darwin Wigget.  Her advanced photographic techniques always render landscape and wildlife photos that are a pleasure to observe. We learned a lot from her photographic experiences in Iceland. 

Jan Boyarzin gave a talk on how to remove a background and touch up an old photograph using the clone tool in photoshop elements.

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Meeting - Guest Speaker Myrna Pearman - Ellis bird farm.

Meeting Feb 27th
In 1984, Myrna became the Assistant Park Naturalist with the City of Red Deer at Kerry Wood Nature Centre. In 1987, she became a biologist at Ellis Bird Farm, where she oversees operations and maintains a 350-box bluebird trail. Ellis Bird Farm attracts 10,000 visitors each summer and hosts popular school programs, nature-based day camps and family programs.

Myrna presented CAPS with a talk and slide show featuring many of the wonderful animals and birds found in Alberta.  Although humble about the quality of her photos many of her images were simply outstanding. She spoke of her love for nature and her relentless pursuit to capture images of our precious wildlife.  We were all inspired to grab our camera, get into our car and take a drive (to anywhere really) in search of Alberta wildlife.  We were also inspired to check out the Ellis Bird Farm

Myrna has authored or co-authored several books (Nestboxes for Prairie Birds, Winter Bird Feeding: An Alberta Guide, Water Gardening: A Prairie Guide, Mountain Bluebird Trail Monitoring Guide, Children's Bluebird Activity Book and NatureScape Alberta), is a columnist and writes a photo essay each month for the Red Deer Advocate.


HDR - Daniel Pelissier

Meeting Feb 13
High Dynamic Range images are created by using a computer to combine several different exposures of the same image. The resulting image displays details in both the highlights as well as the darker parts of the image. Done right these images produce outstanding results, sometimes producing a dynamic range greater what we see with our own eyes. Daniel demonstrated several of the methods that can be used to produce these amazing images. We were all given the challenge of trying some HDR images of our own.(Daniel won Photographer of the Year at CAPS for the 2011-2012 Season)

Scotty Roxburgh - Teaches the RAW facts

Meeting Jan 23, 2013
Scotty taught us how to maximize the data found in camera RAW by teaching us everything there is to know about the powerful features found in Photoshop Camera RAW. We discovered how shooting RAW allows us to rebuild over or under exposed photos turning them into outstanding images. We also learned about several other features found in Camera Raw including how to correct white balance after a photo has been taken. This very informative night has convinced several of our members to switch from shooting JPG to RAW

Rick Price entertains and informs

Meeting Jan 09, 2013
Rick Price, a professional photographer based out of Red Deer. He showed us several of his night, wildlife, studio and scenic shots adding commentary and often humor to his presentation as he taught and openly shared many of his his photography techniques and tips.  His ability to capture stunning images under any situation and his knowledge of photographic light is second to none.  Ricks has been a long time member of our club and is always willing shares his photographic knowledge with fellow members.  See is work at www.photographybyrickprice.com

Red Deer Symphony Concert

January 19th, 2013 Red Deer Symphony Concert, CAPS Winter Competition winner prints were displayed in the Red Deer College Art Centre.

The Red Deer Symphony performance, held on January 19th was sold out, accommodating approximately 600 guests. The president, Howard Mix made several announcements prior to the performance, including an introduction to promote the CAPS club and encourage guests to view the displayed photography at the event.

Prior the performance, during the Intermission and after the Concert, the public had the opportunity to view the Winter Competition winner prints. I was astonished to see how many people were lined up to view the prints, ask questions about the pictures and different divisions and inquire about the photography Club in Red Deer. This opportunity was well received from the public.  Red Deer Symphony Orchestra Executive Director, Melody McKnight invited the CAPS club to return next year to once again display the winners of the 2013 Winter Competition.  I said YES!!

This was a wonderful opportunity for our Club to promote photography in Red Deer and as such, we should explore other ways of promoting CAPS photography Club in Red Deer.

Thank you to participants who entered the Winter Competition and to all the successful winners who agreed to have their prints displayed for the Public viewing.

Daniel Pelissier

Competition Director

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The Turkey is Gone

Over seventy Club members and friends gobbled up two turkeys, a ham and dozens of fine food items at our fall pot luck supper and awards night. On display were the two hundred photographs entered into the fall photo contest by our members.  There was lots of time to visit fellow members and their families, lots of laughs, and a huge selection of great food.  Harvey and Daniel presented the winners with their awards and each winner was given the opportunity to speak about their winning photo. Once again the quality of photos produced by our members was simply outstanding.  Thanks to all those who entered with special thanks for Daniel and his team for their hard work in organizing our awards night presentations.
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