5-3-16 --- my last Coral Springs Camera Club meeting:

Today was the day for more judging of pictures.  I submitted 2 digital ones.  Usually I printed out 1 or 2 for that part of the judging, too, but I left after the digital judging was done.  The Blues hockey team are in their 2nd round of play offs and Angie was coming over to watch tonight's game with us.  I thought about not going to the meeting, but I have actually made some friends there so wanted to say good bye.  The first couple times I went, everyone seemed stand offish.  Later I figured out those were basically the ones that have been members for 15+ years.  I guess they aren't going to waste their time on new comers until they're there for awhile.  But I did enjoy talking to several of the other photographers. 
This month's theme was "landscapes".  The hard part for me is---which one do I pick!!!!???? 
Ultimately I went with one from an excursion up into the Yukon while on an Alaskan cruise.  As has happened before, it showed up much lighter on the projected screen then on my computer.  I got dinged for it being too light, but he gave it a 9.

 I also entered a digital picture in the open devision.  Open can be anything.  The one 10 I've gotten in the 6 or 7 months I've been there was a sports picture I submitted---go figure.   Anyway---he actually sounded really impressed with this picture---interesting, colorful, well composed, ... .  Then he gave it a 9, even though he had nothing negative to say about it.  But, again, it did show much lighter then on my computer. 

I will say, I thought a lot of the landscape submissions weren't very good---composition and subjectwise.  I would think that would be the easiest thing to take!   Hopefully I'll find a camera club up by Lake Lanier.  Even though the critiquing was somewhat frustrating at times, I do think I learned a few things.

4-5-16 --- Coral Springs Camera Club meeting:

We got a break from home improvements today.  Angie was working on the disclosure letter and doing random things around the house like touching up paint and putting down mulch.  We could have done the mulch, but didn't really know where she wanted it.  So we went to a movie and to an early dinner instead!  Then she joined us for a trip to TJMax for some more stuff to stage the house with for pictures and showing.  Then we helped her move a bunch of boxes from the foyer out to the garage.   Even took  my camera over so she could start taking photos of the house.   I think tomorrow will be the day we rent a RugDr. and hit the carpets.  She had more running to do and I had a camera club meeting to go to, so we parted ways about 7.

Only have 2 more camera club meetings left before we leave---one with judging of photos and one with a talk about street candids.  I don't know what I expected from a camera club, but I've learned quite a bit about what judges look for.  A lot of their points are valid, a lot are personal taste.  There are a lot of really good photographers and a lot of strict judges.  In the past meetings I learned to edit out power lines and stray hairs, remove highlights, be careful who prints your photos because everyone has poor color correction except for that judge, and add a vignette to almost every picture.  Today the guy was big on eliminating backgrounds by using gausin blur or cloning, make water soft by using a tripod and slow exposure, and things going from left to right even if you have to invert the picture. 
Anyway---I didn't fare too well today.  Actually, not too many people did.  I only remember there being one 10 and a hand full of 9s.  So I guess I fared ok.  He even scored a lot of 6s.   I don't remember anyone else scoring that low.  I ended up with 2 - 8's and my printed one was a 7.
The theme this month was railroads and pavement and what goes on them.  For my assigned photo, I entered:
He liked the perspective and colors, but didn't like the 2nd guy in the picture.  I actually left him in for the juxtaposition of the serious photographer with the tripod and the casual photographer with a point and shoot or cell phone camera.  He didn't mention the digital matte that I put on it.

For the open digital category, I entered this Oregon waterfall.  He thought the colors were good, but thought I should have had a tripod and used a slower shutter to totally blus out the falls.

 I also entered an 8x10 print that I had just gotten from Shutterfly.  He really didn't like the coloring on it.  He mentioned the range of gray the mountain should be and that the sky color was off.  It got a 7.

Oh well, it's entertaining and I have met a few good people there.  One lady even announced she is selling her 650 Rebel with 18-135 lens for $200 and a 16-300 lens for another $200.  I couldn't resist!  I haven't decided yet whether to give it to Angie and take back the 20D I gave her before so I have a decent back up camera, or keep this one for my back up.  I figure I'll give her one of the super zoom lenses, too, just need to decide which one.

I hope to find a camera club near Buford. 

Feb. 2, 2016---flat tire, walk, and CSCC meeting:

My regular plans for Tues, didn't go so well today.  We usually go to the $2.50 Tues. movie, then to early dinner, but today we ended up with a flat tire on our way to the movie.  We made it to a tire shop.  It was going to take about 1.5 hours to get it done, so I decided to walk the 2 miles or so back to the apartment.  Got home just before Ken called to say the car was done and did I want to go to early dinner.  At least it was a beautiful day for a walk and I definately need the exercise.  I even stopped to take a couple pictures!
One of the thousands of canals around here.

 The typical Coral Springs side walks.  At least they don't worry about them being straight.

 One of the thousands of schools around here!  This one is right across from our apartment complex.

Later, it was time to have some more pictures judged.  This time the judge was more generous.  I submitted 4 pictures and ended up with an 8, two 9s, and a 10.  I even put some photoshop into the entries.  Not like some of the members do.  Many of them will totally change a photo so that it's not a photo anymore.  Instead it may be like a collage, or fabricated picture, but not a photo----like a zebra with multicolored stripes or a hand showing up out of nowhere with a bottle of wine being poured on something  (and they usually get 10s for those).  I still like my photos to look like photos, just better then they may have looked when I took it.
For example---our assigned subject this month was religious architecture and cemetaries.   So for my assigned digital photo  I took this picture of Waioli Huiia Church in Kauai----

 and turned it into this:

But the sky didn't show up as dark on their projector and I got "dinged" for that and got a 9.

I also took one of my sports pictures:

and turned it into this:

It got a "10"

For my printed assignment, I made a b&w of this door at St. Vitas Church in Prague---

it got "dinged" for the door not being straight--even though this was the angle I was going for.  It got a 9.

My final print was just one that came in the mail from Shutterfly not too long ago---no altering of it---

It got an 8.  He said he didn't know what to look at!  I was going for a scenic---you're suppose to look at the whole picture! 

Sue and Hi weren't there so I didn't even have anyone to complain with!  Next meeting is going to be a photo show of Yellowstone park done by one of the club members.  Wonder if they'd like to see some of my Kauai or Oregon photos at one of the meetings?

Jan. 19, 2016---CSCC potluck dinner and awards night:

So I've been a member of the camera club for about 2 months now.  Long enough to learn that the judges they get for the competitions all look for different criteria.  What 1 judge calls a 10, the next might give a 7.  So I've already learned not to take the scores too seriously.  In fact, it's now a night I look forward to for seeing what great pictures that everyone submits are going to be torn apart this time.  But tonight was a special night for the club.  It was the yearly awards potluck dinner.  Even Ken went.  It was $10/person, plus a dish.  I made a caesar salad which turned out really good and disappeared quickly.  We sat with our new friends, Sue and Hi, and some of their friends.  The food was all really good.  Not only did we have my salad, but there were lots of appetisers: hummus, veggies, shrimp, cheese, olives, ... ; lots of entrees: turkey, lasagna, raviolli, meat balls, more shrimp stuff;  2 salads: mine and one with all kinds of strange things in it like pears and sprouts; and 4 or 5 desserts: pie, cake, ice cream.  We ate dinner, then settled in for the judging of more pictures.  You were allowed to enter pictures that were submitted before.  I'm still not sure how many you can actually enter----the web site says 2 digital and 2 prints, but I swear I hear the same names more then 4 times!  Anyway, I only entered 1.  I only had 3 to choose from for 2015.  The other 2 didn't fare that well with the judges before.  I was surprised to see that 2 of the 4 categories had sports pictures as winners (and only 2 sports pictures were entered).   May have to enter more sports pictures in 2016---and make sure no utility lines are present in them.  This time there were 3 judges instead of 1 and they ranked each picture from 1-5, but it took me almost the whole category to figure that out.  I believe my picture got a 12 out of 15 and ranked in the middle of the pack.

 

Then came the awards---from the photos entered tonight and the cumulative score for the whole year.   I had fun visiting with Sue and enjoyed the dinner, but left with only my empty salad bowl.

Jan. 5, 2016----CSCC meeting:

Got back into South Florida just in time for our next camera club meeting.  I had sent in my digital pictures before we headed to Oregon.  So long, in fact, that I had forgotten what I submitted!  The assigned category for Jan. was "animals".  So I decided to enter one from one of my favorite passtimes---snorkeling.    I have thousands of great underwater photos, but chose this one because of the amount of coral, pencil urchins, depth, and color that it has.  Although the judge did say he really liked it, he only managed to give it an 8.

 This was his recommendation---crop in to just the one moorish idol and the bigger pencil urchin.  I had plenty more that were more close up, but personally liked the above one better. 

 In the open division, I decided to stay with Maui and submit one of my surfer photos.  He really liked that one, too.  Commented a couple times he wondered how the photographer got that angle since usually photographers are shooting at beach level.  I actually shot this from a cliff.  He had nothing negative or suggestions on how to improve it, but only gave it a 9.  I guess I shouldn't be disappointed in that, there were only a handful of 10s and not that many 9s. 

At the last minute, I decided to print out a picture to take for the assigned printed group.  So I printed out these little guys---juvenile monk seals.  The photo was actually taken by Ken, but I entered it to see if he would warrant a 10.  The judge really liked it, too, but suggested it have a vignette added to the edges to highlight the seals and some catch light in their eyes, and gave it an 8.    I thought these guys were very unique in that they are "monk" seals---you don't expect to see 2 together.

  It's interesting what the different judges pick to criticize.  He's the first one to mention vignette. 

12-12-15 CSCC trip to Hobe Park for sunset over Miami:

This was a busy day!  But a fun one!  First we went up to Sugar Chest Antique Mall for their holiday "party".  The dealers were suppose to be there and bring snacks.  We went to support Angie and see what's new in the shops.  And to eat some more of her delicious home made chocolate chip cookies.  While wandering around, Ken asked me to take a picture of this ruler made into a star.  Apparently his Dad use to do that.

 He also has friends with lots of collections, such as Hopalong Cassidy stuff.  He had me take a picture of this to send to his friend.

 Here we are at Angie's booth.  She's put a lot of work into this endeavor.  Wish they had more customers come through.

something I thought about buying for myself.

I got a kick out of this.  I had seen this guy at the Salvation Army up in Tamarac a couple weeks ago.  I had even texted Angie to see if she wanted it for her shop.  She passed on it.  Now it's in someone else's booth.

From there Ken dropped me off at a fellow CSCC member's apartment.  He didn't want to go down into Miami, so I hitched a ride with 3 other member's.  It was fun and they were a great bunch.  We got to the island plenty early for sunset.  I was a little surprised to see the president of the club was already there.  It was about 3:45 then.  Sunset was about 5:30, but this time of the year, it didn't even set over Miami.  So our shoot became more a Miami skyline and night skyline shoot.  But the weather was great, the views were beautiful, and the company was great.

 Funny how the whole group pretty much just stayed here.  I roamed around, but did sit here for awhile chatting with one of the gals while we waited for sunset.

I even roamed to watch the sunset over an area way to our south.

 Back by the area all the photographers were at we did get a little color in the sky.

 Eventually darkness set in. 

 Our president and his wife are Cuban, so they arranged for us to eat at the Cuban restaurant, La Curreta, after our shoot.

Dinner was very good.  I had a fried shredded beef dinner with beans and rice and fried plantains.
By the time we were heading back to their apartment, is was after 10.  By the time I got home, I was pretty much beat.

Dec. 1, 2015---Coral Springs Camera Club meeting.

Hard to believe it's Dec. already and that it's still in the 80's.  I'm loving it! 

Today is Tuesday.  Therefore, it was $2.50 movie day at Tamarac 5 The Last PIcture Show movie theater.  Seldom does a week go by when we don't find a movie there that we want to see.   Today it was The Martian with Matt Damon.  It was a cute movie. 

Then we like to hit up the senior early bird special at the Golden Corral by there.  Followed by a quick walk through of the Salvation Army near Golden Corral.  I know---we lead an exciting life!

Anyway, by the time we got home, it was almost time for my CSCC meeting.  Tonight was the night they have a judge critique pictures.  I entered 2 from the train excursion.
This one, which I titled "Old Glory", he liked a whole lot and scored a 9 (he gave no 10s).

This one, which I named "Sunset Express", he pretty much hated or didn't understand at all.  Seems like he didn't even realize it was from the train excursion since people were allowed to enter photos from any excursion throughout the whole year.  It got a lowly 7 (which was the lowest they score).

I'm also surprised how often I hear the same photographers names announced.  Apparently I'm not reading the entry rules correctly or they don't go by them.  At least I'm making a couple "friends" there and even exchanged phone numbers with one couple.

11-3-my first camera club competition--
I believe I mentioned before that I joined a camera club.  The 1st Tues of the month they show submissions and are judged by various qualified judges.  Today's judge was someone who owns or runs a photo developing business and is qualified to judge professional photographer competitions.  Our theme for this month was graffiti.  I wasn't a member yet when they went there, but I had gone there with Angie back in April.  So I looked through those pictures and found 2 that looked like they might work for a competition.  There were some really interesting pictures, but they knew they were taking them for a competition.  Although some of the works that received 10s had me scratching my head.  I ended up with 3-8s, but think I have a little better idea of what they're looking for.  I guess we'll see.
I don't really remember him saying anything negative about this one, but it still only got an 8.

 This one was was criticized for the guy being "blown out".

 We could also enter 1 picture of anything---although I'm sure I heard some names announced 4 or 5 times in this category!  This one was criticized for the power lines running across the sky.