Women In Focus 10 January 2007 Meeting Minutes

As recorded by Biar Orrell

Meeting got underway about 7:10pm

Welcome: We welcomed and introduced new members and guests.

Announcements: Cindy announced annual dues are due, $25 by our February 13^th meeting. If they are not paid by March 1^st, your name will be dropped from the website and photos removed if applicable. Before being reposted on the site as a member, annual dues and the $25 photo-posting fee (if applicable) would have to be paid. Anyone can have photos posted for $25, and to have your images updated is $15. We pay Jon our web master by the hour. Check out our website regularly. There is a calendar of upcoming events, member shows and our history as a group. We welcome your feedback.

Shows: Don’t forget about the upcoming Flower Show. We are going to get a PDF of the application attached to our website if you did not pick up the brochure at the meeting or at our holiday party.

Photography by Jane Kerr "On the road to Yesterday" Opening February 2, 5-8 pm

February 2- March 3, 2007

A Novel Experience Books and Gallery, 426 Thomaston St., Zebulon, Georgia 30295

770-567-1103, hours 10-7 Wed.- Sat.

Mary Wood:  My New Orleans

January 12 - February 10, 2007, Opening Reception:  Friday, January 12, 6 - 8pm

Roswell Visual Arts Center, 10495 Woodstock Road Roswell, Georgia 30075

Located in Roswell Area Park, (770) 594-6122

Pick up your Food 101 images Sunday 14 January, 2:30-4:00PM. If you cannot be there, find someone to get it for you. Work cannot be left at the restaurant.

February meeting is moved to Tuesday Feb 13^th so as not to fall on Valentine’s Day.

Sistagraphy Show: We need images to put on our postcard for the show emailed to Jena Blackshear at jena_blackshear@yahoo.com by January 25. Seems the theme is Just Between Us. Other themes discussed were It’s All About Us and Between Us. The theme is open to interpretation. You do not have to have a person/people in the shot.

We have a new PO Box for WIF. Send your US mail correspondence to the following address.

Women In Focus, PO Box 33522, Decatur, GA 30033-0522

We have two new treasures on the board, Cindy Sheffield Michaels and Christi Helms.

Website info: Dec 13 – Jan 10 we had 303 visits and 1294 pages viewed. These hits were from all around the world. New visits were 60%, revisits 39%. Don’t know what happened to the last %. Please give photos to Gittel of any of our past opening shows for our web archive.

Treasure report: Cindy says she is a bit behind, but she received a lot of the dues tonight. As of Dec 20, 2006, the balance we had in our account is a combination of dues and sponsor donations. We are in the process of becoming a 501C3 non-profit organization. This benefits us in many ways. Our sponsors get tax deductions for donations. They also get their logo and link on our website. If they pay for a postcard of an upcoming event, they will get their logo on that as well.

Speaker summary:

Our speaker was Craig Tanner, an Atlanta native, resident and photographer known for his landscapes and wilderness photography. By his own admission, Craig got into photography so he could walk around in the woods; he loves the beauty of nature. Craig has mostly shot commercial landscape and architecture, but has recently started photographing people in the streets and is trying to get into filmmaking. Visit his website at www.radiantvista.com.

Craig talked about the Lens Baby lens. www.lensbabies.com Mention Radiant Vista to get 10% off your purchase of a Lens Baby 2.0 or 3G. The lens has a similar effect to a Holga camera. He considers the Lens Baby to be the best tool for shooting in hard light. Its dynamic focus only allows the center of the image to be sharp, great for shooting people.

Craig introduced us to The Golden Mean, a deeper look into where the Rule of Thirds originated. Check out www.goldennumber.net for more information on this complex subject.

He speaks highly of digital format cameras because they let the photographer shoot without worry of loosing money in the cost of film and processing.

Craig encouraged us to let the ego go so the creativity could soar, that being prolific is much more important than being perfect or being good every time we make a picture. Find your passion, which will lead to tenacity, which becomes productivity – being prolific. He recommends staying connected to the thread of information that you are getting from the process. Stick to the story long enough until you get to the ending you want – just stay in the process.

He says to think about what you want your image to look like when out on a shoot. You will find it. Just be present.