We had 53 members and  4 visitors attending our Photo of Year /Installation of Officers General Meeting this evening. Sue Craft welcomed everyone and announced tonight was our Photo of the Year Competition and Installation of Officers meeting.

Sue Craft presented the PSA Youth Showcase which included PSA Awards, HM’s and Acceptances.  Certificates were to be given to the students. There were 403 entries of which 270 were accepted. 5 schools participated including Antelope Valley HS, Highland HS, Pete Knight HS, Palmdale HS, and Quart Hill HS.

End of the Year Competition began, all 1st Place Photos were shown and the Member’s Voted.

The George Glennie Nature Salon LPA Entries were presented to the membership.

Sue Craft our President welcomed 45 members and 3 guest to our May “AV Events” Competition and General meeting this evening

We started our evening off with Christine Wilkins announcing our judges Maya Sugarman & Christina Ramos from AV Press for this evenings AV Events competition. For this evening’s competition, we had 39 entries, 3 Prints Master; 15 Digital Master; 6 Digital Advanced Amateur; 9 Digital Amateur; 6 Digital Novice. Ms. Sugarman & Ms. Ramos gave brief critiques on each image as presented this evening.  All of the entries can be viewed on the results page.

Congratulations to all who won and thank you to all who participated. A Certificate of appreciation, honorary membership was presented to both of the judges and no host dinner as Greenhouse Café was held before the meeting with them. Thank you to everyone who helped make tonight a success.

Sue Craft our President welcomed 62 members  to our April General meeting this evening.

We started off this evening with David Wilkins introducing our guess speaker, Steve Sieren,  who is a Fine Art Landscape Photographer from Southern California.  He presented his program tonight called “Creative Dramatic Landscape Photography”.  You can find his work displayed in National Park visitor centers, California State Park Foundation Headquarters, local art gallery shows, restaurants and scenic calendars. He enjoys leading workshops in California’s wild mountain, deserts, rugged coastlines and rolling oak hillsides. Steve spoke about how he creates dramatic landscape photography and offered tips on how to creative dramatic images.  To name a few of the tips he shared:  tonal range-light to dark; silhouettes;  3 things to making better B&W photography: shape,  tone & texture; weather leads to interesting opportunities; shots can be shot either vertical or horizontal-check both;  minimalism; experiment; use light painting; change perspective and others. Check out Steve’s Blog at stevesieren.wordpress.com. A Certificate of appreciation, honorary membership and $75 travel expenses were presented to Steve, and before the meeting he had dinner at the Greenhouse Café with some of the members. Thank you for a very educational program, everyone walked away learning something new tonight!

Sue Craft our President welcomed 63  members and 1 guest to our March “Portrait” Competition and General meeting this evening

We started our evening off with Wayne Staley announcing our judge Larry Cowles for this evenings Portrait competition. For this evening’s print’s only competition, we had 47 entries in 4 categories distributed as follows: 9 Novice, 15 Amateur, 9 Advance Amateur and 14 Masters. Mr. Cowles gave brief critiques on each print as presented this evening.  Congratulations to all who won and thank you to all who participated. A Certificate of appreciation, honorary membership and $75 travel expenses were presented to Mr. Cowles. Thank you to everyone who helped make tonight a success.

Sue Craft our President welcomed members and 1 guest to our March “Portrait” Competition and General meeting this evening

David Wilkins welcomed our guest speaker, David Jesse McChesney who presented “The Mojave Desert:  Miles of Wonder” . His program consisted of fabulous images he has photographed over the past 38 years that include 53 of America’s National Parks. He went over the equipment he used, the ins and outs of how he took various images. This was a very informative program that every member could learn something new information from, be it a new tip, trick or procedure.  He has also won a national harmonica championship in 2008 and gave us a sample of how he earned that title.  We appreciated the time he spent with us answering our questions after his presentation and playing us a tune on the harmonica. A $75 travel allowance, dinner and one year Honorary Membership was offered to Mr.McChesney.

Thank you to Pat Ware for bringing the refreshments this evening,

Sue Craft our President welcomed 64 members and guest to our January “Nature” Competition and General meeting this evening.

We started our evening off with Chris Wilkins announcing our judge Diane Racey for this evenings Nature competition. For this evening’s competition, we had 112 entries in 7 categories distributed as follows. 6 Slides; 6 Prints Master 4 Prints Amateur; 32 Digital Master; 16 Digital Advanced Amateur; 29 Digital Amateur; 18 Digital Novice. Ms. Racey gave brief critiques on each image as presented and handed out many awards this evening. This writer heard many members were very happy with the critiques as they were helpful to them at their level of photographers. Congratulations to all who won and thank you to all who participated. A Certificate of appreciation, honorary membership and $75 travel expenses were presented to Ms. Diane Racey. Thank you to everyone who helped make tonight a success.

Our 2011 LPA Holiday Party & Photo Contest was held on December 20th.  It was a festive evening, full of great food, good friends, and lots of holiday fun.  Over 62 people were in attendance this evening. We had a Opportunity Drawing were the proceeds went to the FOTC (Friends of The Center) and we raised $225 for them, awesome LPA members!!!!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our cooks for this Holiday dinner Tylene Trout, Chris Wilkins, Vicki Wise, Sue Liberto, and Terri Wade.  Also, thank you to ALL members who assisted this evening in making this party such a great success!!!!

Our President Sue Craft welcomed 62 people (incl guests) to our November meeting.

David Wilkins welcomed our guest speaker, Kristina Jacob, who presented “The World of Macro Photography”.  Ms. Jacob talked about how she got started in photography.  She learned a lot from the internet and her father provided some monetary assistance.  Kristina talked about how she took a picture of a flower that only blooms at night called “Night- Blooming Cereus (Peniocereus greggii)” using speedlites/strobes and discussed taking pictures at aquariums.  Long Beach Aquarium has a “Photographers Night” where they cover up lights that will reflect on the glass of the aquarium and allow tripods for that event.  Website to check for the Aquarium of the Pacific's photographer's night: http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/events. Kristina has gone on several Photo Walks with Scott Kelby and plans to soon start her own “photo walks’.  Ms. Jacob hopes to start the walks after the first of the year (2012) and continue them every other month.