Meeting Minutes: Women in Focus, January 14, 2009
Taken By: Valerie Gruner
Meeting presided over by our President, Gittel Price
Members and Guests Present: Anupama Vishwamitra, Valerie Gruner, Toni James, Gittel Price, Karen Schmidt, Shelia Robinette, Gail DesJardin, Lea, Tiffany Weigel, Janique Suber, Rita Nicholas King, Anne Berry, Talia Azure King, Bevan Davis, Cindy Michaels, Turner Krueger, Dana Kemp, Hazel Berger, and Cyndi Dieker.
New Ladies:
Karen Schmidt came from Calhoun to be with us after learning about us on the internet. She likes to shoot nature, and capture spontaneous moments with people.
Gail DesJardin heard about us from ladies in the group and others. She shoots landscapes and abstracts.
Tiffany Weigel learned about us from our website. She used to shoot in-house for Disney. She now free-lances portraiture, and also shoots still life.
Janique Suber shoots portraiture.
Talia Azure King is into alternative processes and has been fighting the switch to digital. She learned of us through our website.
Members in Shows:
Rita King: Three pieces in “The Day After” (the election) at the Southwest Arts Center, at Cascade Rd. and New Hope, just outside 285. The show opens January 22, and runs through January 30.
Valerie Gruner: Three new pieces at the Atlanta Artists Center through January. The gallery is on Grandview in Buckhead.
Anne Berry: Showing at the Soho Photo Gallery in NYC, and the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado. Her work is also going to be in the SE Flower Show. (See complete list below.)
Members selected for the Southeast Flower Show: Lucinda Bunnen, Maria Mixson, Amira Price, Melanie Walter, Virginia Twinam Smith, Toni James, Gittel Price, Shelia Robinette, Anne Berry, Debra Booth, Hazel Berger, Marcia Blake, Leigh Kirkland, Theresa Sicurezza, and Ellen McRaney. The Flower Show is January 28 - February 1 at the Cobb Galleria.
Emory Conference Center !
This is Item 1 for WIF! The management at ECC decided that they weren’t getting enough from us to warrant our free space status, and gave us two days notice that it would now cost us $300 per meeting for their room with water and mints. Gittel called and e-mailed to point out that a 30-day notice was more reasonable, thereby securing our meeting room for January 14, but this meeting was a wrap at Emory.
We ask that our Members concentrate for two weeks on securing a new space for our meetings. A new space is needed by the February 11 Meeting. Barbara Davis offered her studio space, and Churches and Libraries are a fairly easy get for such a purpose, but let’s all look for a more creative fit for our group. Look at arts organizations and women’s groups, whatever you can think of. Stress to whomever you may initially contact that we can provide certain photographic services in exchange for monthly space, perhaps a discounted membership fee for their members or students, and that WIF has 501C3 non-profit status.
E-mail Gittel with any ideas or prospects. gittelp@bellsouth.net
If you have pictures at Houston Mill House, you need to retrieve them, or else Emory will just keep them. Please email Gittel, so a list can be made of those members participating in this Exhbiit.
Go to the WIF website for notices on calls for entries and workshops! If you have any problems or concerns about the website, e-mail Gittel with your ideas. She has already been in touch with Jon about some ascetic changes. There was some discussion on “Babies in Focus” not being appropriate, and perhaps it should be moved to a potentially new page for Members Only. We want the website to be great, and easy to use.
Only $25 to get your very own portfolio page! Do yourself the favor of getting some web presence. Even if you already have your own website, a WIF portfolio page could provide a link to someone who finds us, but doesn’t know you.
Our speaker, David Akoubian, complimented our website and the quality of work displayed on our portfolio pages. Wouldn’t you have liked him to have seen your work?
Some Future Meetings:
February - Nancy Floyd, Professor of Photography at Georgia State
May - Susan Todd-Raque
June and July - Critique nights
Exhibit: “Dear World” with Sistography and Girls, Inc. at the downtown Library.
Deliver work 3-5 Saturday, February 28.
Show dates: March 5-28
Two Receptions: March 5, 7:00 Turner First Thursday, and Sunday March 8, 3-5, with Sistography.
There is also a proposed “Retropect” showing of 10 years past Library Shows. Pieces that were exhibited in the Library Shows in the past ten years will be shown in 3-4 other libraries around town. This would not include last year’s Library Show because it was not in conjunction with Sistography. There will be no fee for the Retrospect shows. More on this aspect will be e-mailed, and anyone with lists of past shows, please e-mail to Gittel.
Field Trip to Shoot with Girls, Inc. This Saturday, January 17: Photos taken during this event will be part of what Girls, Inc. will be exhibiting in the Library Show. Meet in front of the Variety Playhouse, on Euclid in Little Five Points, at 2:00. Plan to shoot with the girls until 3:00. Volunteers already include Rita King, Valerie Gruner, Cindy Michaels, Leanne Frank, and Turner Krueger.
Field Trip to Shoot with Girls, Inc. Next Saturday, January 24: 1:30-2:20 at Chatahoochee Nature Center. Volunteers needed. E-mail Gittel if you can do this.
Thursday, January 29, 6-7, Volunteers needed in Marietta to go over the Girls’ photographs to ready them for the Library Show.
Anu put out a call for Volunteers to take photographs of Foster Children and Children looking for Adoption. E-mail Anu if you are able to do this. 1withoutmetaphor@gmail.com
David is a trained painter, but has been a professional nature photographer since 1993. He was also a Marine. He came to embrace digital, as he feels he gets the same results and options as film, plus more. Part of his switch to photography came after going to Great American Photography Weekends workshops, and he let himself become a sponge to learn from others. He now works primarily in landscapes and up close nature photography.
He presented his talk with a computer slide show. His opening slide show used the program Pro Show Gold, and we saw some outstanding landscapes and other nature images, presented to the “Forest Gump” soundtrack.
His work is in RAW format, in which he adjusts exposure and little else. In Photoshop, he does minimal curves layer adjustments and other similar small tweaking. (I apologize for not being able to be more specific about his process, as I do not use Photoshop and therefore have a hard time following such discussions.)
1. Defining the Image:
Go out and create images, don’t go out and take photographs. Decide what you want to capture that will show what you felt.
David does research before going out to capture his images. He suggested Google Earth and postcards. Find out from weather sites about when the best light happens, sunrise and sunset.
2. Evaluating the Scene:
List what you want to capture. Rules of photography are okay, but break them.
Think of a tic-tac-toe board. The points of intersection are the power-points in images. Strong power-points are the brightest point, the sharpest thing, the upper left, and bottom right.
3. Identify your Subject
4. Prioritize your Compositional Elements:
The foreground should lead the viewer to the subject, lead into the subject.
5. Build your Image:
David advocates for both Horizontal and Vertical images, but he prefers Vertical because it lends itself more to lead the viewer into a picture.
6. Let Images Define Who You are as a Photographer:
Your best images are images to which you have an emotional attachment.
Some Technical Nuggets from David: (Again, I must apologize for any sketchiness in my descriptions of such things, as your Secretary is a bit of a dolt when it comes to highly technical subjects. If you have any questions, David encouraged us to e-mail him. His address is on the website.)
He composes some images by employing HDR, high dynamic range. The program he uses for this is Photo Matrix (about $90, and it has plug-ins for PhotoShop). 4 shots are taken over (exposed?), 4 shots are taken under, and one is taken at the correct level. These images are bracketed to combine to make one amazingly clear and deep image.
Topaz Adjust - A down-loadable program you can get for free, and if you like it after the trial period, it’s only $40.
FXEX- A terrific black and white program.
LensBabies: If you go to Akoubian09, David has a Lensbaby code that will get you a discount in purchasing. David is a great proponent for the LensBaby. Sharp pictures of flowers are cool, but close LensBaby pictures of flowers are cooler. A neat effect is produced if you punch holes into the LensBaby rings.
Photography is painting with light.
David is presently working on the Grand Tetons.
His parting words were presented with a beautiful image of a fog shrouded road. [Don’t let stuff stop you - a good image is just down the road.]