Note: To be fair, I posted most of this post last night. Reading it over, I had to edit to avoid a feeding frenzy.

These last couple days have kept me pretty busy as I get ready to go under the knife. Today's events bled over into tonight's LPA meeting so I couldn't be there. Looks like I missed a lot. No sweat. I'll say here what I would have said in public forum.

I am an LPA member for two primary reasons. As I have always said, I want to know more about the great art of photography by associating myself with those who know and to learn by benefit of their experience. To add, I became a member as a way to break out of my usual associations with other veterans, cops and private investigators. I need to broaden my horizons a little. Lately, it's been fun talking cameras instead of past cases, arrests, fights with suspects and convictions. It's time to move on.

If you want the quick and easy on what's going on particular to your assignment, keep your mouth shut and your ears open. You can learn a lot that way. When people get together, they talk. When they're with people of the same mindset, they talk openly without restraint. The true challenge lays in getting invited to their conversation. I did that without knowing when I joined LPA.

Thus far, my face-to-face experiences, questions and issues with senior members have been extremely few by my choice. I'm carefully watching LPA “experts” to see who can I approach. To that extent, I've been kind of quiet. I can't honestly claim that I was put off by a senior on the grounds of me being a club newbie or a photog novice. Nor can I claim that I was ever treated rudely. Dealing with bad guys most of my life, I can be nasty and rude, too.

It is not my place to name names. My membership is not an assignment as it is an extension of my chosen hobby. That means I'm not going to rat on anyone about what they said during our collective associations and gatherings. Save it to say, LPA leadership has one heck of a communications problem, generally, and a senior vs novice member acceptance problem, primarily, on their hands.

One senior member name keeps coming up as being the most rude person in the total of LPA. Story after story of this person turning his back and walking away when asked a question by a novice member, I've yet to have that experience or else I would directly call him out in this forum. Mind you, the shear number of round-table complaints of this man at least suggests validity of their claims. Is this how LPA wants to be remembered or thought of by its novice members? It would seem so. Novice members are fighting an up hill battle to learn.

To the point of the Friday night discussion group, I thought it was open to all LPA members. This is the first I have heard that a member – senior or not – needed a special invite. If you are an LPA member, that's your invite. If you don't attend the Friday night gig for whatever reason, that's on you and you alone. I've seen senior members at Friday discussions who didn't need a special invite.

At any rate, I do see validity in Glenn's tirade. It's a shame upon LPA that Glenn had to go this far, in this forum, but if this is what it takes to rectify the problems that seem to be on LPA's doorstep, then so be it. It is time for the collective LPA leadership to take this communication-acceptance bull by its horns, wrestle it to the ground and take control. Lead....or get out of the way for those who will.

The only time LPA will find a perfect center where everyone is happy is when LPA has but one member. As soon as one more member is added, disagreements will arise. So, too, the more members LPA attracts, the more a certain senior center day room fills with other members, that perfect center becomes more obscure and less obtainable as each member brings their own wants, needs, desires, and ideas to the group.

Having dealt with many different people in myriad circumstances, this I know – once equality is lost, when the few remove themselves as being above the rest, trouble is soon to raise it's head like some ugly and terrible beast. Within the LPA domain, we are all equal members, young and old, novice and expert. If we are not equal, why the hell should we non-elites waste our money if we're only going to be treated as non-member novice members?

If I might add, this is not about Glenn leaving LPA, nor any of us for that matter, as it is finding resolution to issues that might prompt such actions or mindset. I know that should I have to play the ego game when dealing with a few experts, I won't ask them the time of day and that doesn't help overall club spirit.

We are a club of diverse people all struggling to be the very best we can be as we continue our pursuits and studies of the art of photography by accepting, helping and effectively communicating with each other or we are not. And if we are not, the across the board contempt we have for one another will certainly destroy LPA.

Don

I think many of us thought what we learned at the last PS creative workshop was what we would use for the competition.. I would have no idea how to put a goat's head on a lizard or a fairy in a flower....
Guess its time for another PS workshop on advanced techniques!

Sue, can you send me your list of places to go...for fieldtrips...maybe I can step up and be the fieldtrip leader..

How bout Placerita Nature Center for wildflowers?

all right...i see ideas popping up right away..so I think I will make a list and we can take a vote..to see where we want to go..Spring is springing..so let's do something positive and go out shooting..the more we shoot the more we learn..

Great idea Don...It would be nice if more people would participate in this forum...it seems like the same few people are posting and replying. I believe Tylene is still giving private photography lessons, she is wonderful to work with...she has alot of knowledge and patience..a true master in her craft.. I have an idea though..since it seems that our field trips have diminished somewhat..I am hoping to lead a few trips here in the next month..how about we have a couple of field trips that are designed for the novice shooters...a couple of master and advanced amateurs can pair up with a couple of novice shooters and spend time together showing us how to improve our shots..the past field trips I have been too..we meet for the photograph and everyone is off and running on their own..so I am thinking that if some of the more experienced members are willing to help out..we can plan a few...and see how it works out..I think this should probably be addressed at a future meeting...if it sounds like an idea..I want to say thanks to Arley..for all your helpful videos and links...it has helped me a great deal with my photography...in the beginning I was scared to death of my camera...taking 100 shots of the same subject...and walking away dazed and confused... I am now starting to see improvements..it's takes time and alot of practice...but mostly it's being at the right time and right place..and always remember to look over your shoulder before you move on...sometimes the best shots are behind you!!!

Dave,

Yes, we're all prisoners of our personalities. We're also the accumulation of our past experiences and I've had many experiences bringing up issues that persons of authority either don't know about, don't want to know about, don't want to deal with, or actively try to hide. Bringing up issues politely and in private has gotten me nowhere (always). Speaking publicly and politely has gotten me raked over the coals and fired, with no change in the conditions. Speaking loudly and impolitely has gotten me raked over the coals and fired, but no one can ever say they weren't told, and these were my only successes.

I'm no great speaker but that doesn't mean that if I lose a public debate that I was obviously wrong (kind of like throwing a prisoner in the water and if he drowns he was guilty, if he lives he was innocent). But I can write fairly well, and so I do.

When I joined this club I was told that I could ask any of the more experienced members anything and they would be pleased to answer me. At my first field trip I asked one of the senior members a newbie question. He politely gave me the short answer. At my second question he just looked at me and went about his business. At my third question he just walked away. Later I asked another senior member a question and he happily answered it. But when I asked if there was any other way to do the same thing the response was something like "I just told you how to do it!" So I shut up and just listened. What I learned was that most of the more experienced members (true, not all, but most of the ones who made themselves highly visible in the club) had their own ways of doing things and were not about to admit, let alone suggest, that there was more than one way of doing things, even though I've learned that there almost always are. I've learned, and recommend to newcomers, not to listen too closely to these people and avoid them whenever possible so as to not annoy them. They may be great photographers but they are not teachers and bristle at questions they don't like. This may be a slight exaggeration, but only slight.

I've been to, I think, three council meetings. The first was to present an idea for a group gathering on Lancaster Blvd to photograph the lights, at the suggestion of one of the senior members. As soon as I suggested it at the meeting that same member said it was a bad idea and that we shouldn't do it. He could have told me this when I first approached him in private but instead he waited until I was in a public setting then stomped on the idea. The others in the room, including you, just accepted his "no" without comment and moved on to the next topic. It seemed like everyone just rolled over for him. Since then I've proposed such small outings to the general club members without going through the council, for obvious reasons. Thank you for the offer to present my concerns to the council but I don't care to submit myself to the inquisition I believe I would face.

This issue of definitions for competition categories has been going on for quite some time. Back in December one of our newer members asked for more definition on "Close Up" on the forum. The first response, from a senior member was a terse "Per the definition on our web site it is: CLOSE UP - Photographs of small sub­jects or close up views of sections of large subjects." This same senior member has responded the same way, by repeating the written definition, every time such a question is asked. And when he does so in a meeting it's as if God has spoken and the subject is dropped. People were questioning the definition of "Creative" before this last competition, and not just in the Discussion Group, but none of the senior members provided the general membership anything of use. At the workshop on creative we all got the sense that we didn't need to be too "creative" and none of the senior members spoke up to tell us anything different. Then, just as this last competition was starting, we were told that we had it wrong and should have gone way out with creativity. When I asked why we couldn't have gotten this information earlier I was, in my view, personally attacked for not sending Fred a personal invitation to our discussion group. My question and concern were swept under the table and now you try to sweep it away again by saying "that there was plenty of blame to go around." What am I to blame for, asking a question that the senior members, for some reason, don't want to answer? I have yet to hear you, or any of the other senior members, say why we newer members can't get more complete definitions about what the competition categories mean and what we need to know to compete well.

Our club website front page says "So whether you're a beginner looking to improve your photographic skills, or a professional seeking to become involved in more activities, you're welcome to join the LPA." Our constitution says, "The Lancaster Photography Association is organized to promote all aspects of the photographic arts and operated to educate, aid and benefit, by mutual cooperation, those interested in photography and the photographic arts in and around the Antelope Valley, California area." Maybe I'm reading this wrong but it seems to me that this club is supposed to include even those who don't care to go professional or compete. That is, those who may only want to take better family photos, do scrapbooking, photojournalism, and such. None of these require photoshop, RAW, or anything else besides their point and shoot and a little knowledge. From the club they should be able to learn how to improve their compositions, better use of lights and flashes, and maybe how to print or post to the internet. The onboard computers in cameras these days do a very good job of balancing the color, contrast, and etc and turn out some very good JPGs. They're good enough for most people in the world with digital cameras. But it seems that every time the more senior members speak they're telling everyone that they "HAVE" to shoot in Raw, they "HAVE" to process in Photoshop (or something similar), and they "HAVE" to take photos that can compete. The message that this staunch position conveys is that newer members should either join the elite or stop wasting their time in the LPA. Tylene's upcoming workshop seems to be the first exeption to the rule, but if the other senior members go to that workshop and spout the same old dogma then they will undercut what I think Tylene plans to say.

Finally, there is an old saying that "Silence is agreement." This comes from human nature to believe that, if someone says or does something, and the witnesses don't speak out then they (the witnesses) must be in agreement. After all, the witnesses certainly haven't disagreed. While the number of senior LPA members who speak and act in ways that are not in keeping with the club's stated positions may be small, none of the other senior members disagree with them so it must be assumed that they are all in agreement. Because of this I can only assume that it is the position of all the senior members that we must all shoot in RAW, that we can't know the real definition of a competition category ahead of time, that there is one person who really runs the club (and it's not the president), and that the real purpose of the club is to turn out professionals who compete and chase off everyone else.

Angry, perhaps. Hostile, no. I'm just trying to drive home the unwanted point that there are real problems and real frustrations within the club that are not being acknowledged, let alone addressed. The seniors can try to sweep them under the table if they like but at least now no one can say they didn't know. Time will tell if I've had any success.

Glenn

Concerning the definition of competition categories, sometimes a visual speaks louder than words.

Arley keeps very good records of our club activities. I went back to the 2008 AV Fair results and hit the link that shows all of the winning pictures from the fair that year. It has all of the categories we are competing in now. It is a wonderful example of what is expected in each of these categories.

This is available to everyone on our website in "Past Events".