Sue Craft our President welcomed 74 members and guest to our October “Monochrome” Competition and General meeting this evening. 

We started our evening off with Wayne Staley introducing our judge, Donna Pattee-Ballard  for this evenings Monochrome competition. For this evenings competition, we had 107 entries in 7 categories distributed as follows. 3 Slides; 11 Prints Master 4 Prints Amateur;  28 Digital Master; 20 Digital Advanced Amateur;  36 Digital Amateur; 5 Novice There were not enough entries in the  Novice or Advanced Amateur Prints to have a competition in those classes.  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. Pattee-Ballard. Thank you to everyone who helped make tonight a success.

Sue Craft our President welcomed 47 members and 7 guest to our September General meeting this evening.

David Wilkins introduced our guest speaker this evening, Lee Reeder – “You Can Make a Living from What You Love.”  Lee Reeder has been photographing scenery and nature since the age of 12 while hiking and backpacking with his first cameras (a Mamiya, a Miranda and a Konica) in Southern California. He has been developing his own photos since the age of 15. At the age of 19, he began working professionally as a photojournalist in the U.S. Army in West Germany.

Sue Craft our President welcomed 52 members and 4 guest to our August General meeting this evening.

We started our evening off with David Wilkins our Vice President introducing our guest speaker tonight, Greg Russell. Mr. Russell’s presentation “Sense of Place in Landscape Photography” is the second presentation he has given to the LPA. Greg is a lifelong resident of the American West. He states he found his sense of place among the canyons, valleys, and mountain ranges where he grew up exploring. Greg has been pursuing photography since 2004, and found that it connected him with nature in a very intimate way. The feeling of intimacy is what he tries to convey in his photography, and his presentation draws you into the wild places he has experienced and captured with his photography. He shares many of his beautiful pictures, explaining how and where the pictures were taken, ie  Paria River-Vermillion Cliffs, Wilderness, Az; Slot Cyn Ut, Waterhole Slot Cyn, Navajo Nation, Az; Golden Cathedral, Neon Cyn; Glen Cyn National Recreation Area;  Kanaria Creek, Ut (outside Zion); to name a few. We gave him a check for $75 travel expenses, a Honorary Membership and a Certificate of Appreciation for the excellent program this evening. You can visit Greg’s blog at http://www.alpenglowimagesphotography.com/blog/.

Sue Craft our President welcomed 53 members and guest to our July “Prime Desert Woodland Preserve” Competition and General meeting this evening. Sue announced Chris Wilkins and Wayne Stayley are going to be our new Competition Chairs.

We need volunteers to lead fieldtrips. If you are interested, please contact Bill Sutton and he will help you.

David Wilkins announced he is working on the August program and it will be announced in the newsletter and on the web.

Please join us for our monthly General Meeting on May 17, 6:00pm, at the AV Senior Center.  The theme for this month's photo competiton  is "Step Into the Past" - Historic sites, buildings, antiques and relics of the past. This can includes images of people in period costume.  Our judge this month is Hank Morris of Hank Morris Photography (http://www.hankmorrisphoto.com).

Remember that all entries must be registered online by midnight on May 10.  NEW THIS MONTH: You can now pay your entry fee online using your PayPal account or a credit card.  More details are available here. Online payment is optional, though we recommend it as a way to speed up the busy time at the start of the meeting.

Also this month the general membership will be voting on the new By-Laws.  This is an important step to enable our club to attain non-profit status, and the By-Laws Committee has put a lot of discussion and work into the revisions.  The Board approved tye By-Laws (6Y, 1 Absent). Please download and review the revised by-laws before the meeting.  You can also download the current by-laws to compare.  As the by-laws have been discussed and revised, and have been open to member suggestions and questions, the discussion time at the meeting will be limited and the vote will be a simple Yes or No.  Membership will also be voting on your 2011-2012 Officers and Board Members.

Sue Craft our President welcomed 61members and guest to our April General meeting this evening.

David Wilkins introduced our speaker, Brent Russell Paull, Key Tactics in Wildlife & Landscape Photography. Mr. Paull is a successful wildlife and nature photographer based in Tulare, California. He has 11 magazine covers to his credit and over 1000 publication credits. He has 28 published articles on photography and travel. His favorite spots are in the American West and include places such as Yellowstone, Yosemite and the California coast.  Mr. Paull teaches seminars and leads photo safaris every month. Mr. Paull presented an excellent program this evening which included him illustrating his concepts with his beautiful pictures. He spoke about exposure, image sharpness, composition, exposure compensation, hyperfocal distance and much more. As he states in his website and demonstrate strongly in his presentation “Once your skills as a photographer are solid then you will have a creative medium at your fingertips for the rest of your life.”  See more of Mr. Paull’s work at his website http://www.amwestphoto.com.  Mr. Paull’s website offers tips on Photoshop, photography and more. His blog is at http://amwestphoto.wordpress.com where you can read about and see pictures from his photo safaris. A Certificate of Appreciation and Honorary Membership were presented to Mr Paull. Thank you for a very educational program, everyone walked away learning something new tonight!

Sue Craft our President welcomed 53 members and guest to our March “Portraits” Competition and General meeting this evening.

We started our evening off with Helen Henry introducing our judge, Ms. Julie Sutton, for this evenings Portrait competition. We had 65 digitals including 10 novices, 19 amateur, 16 advance amateur and 20 masters. We also had 13 prints with 3 amateur, 6 advance amateur and 4 masters and closed the competition with 6 slides. Congratulations to all who won and thank you to all who participated. A Certificate of appreciation, and honorary membership were presented to Ms. Sutton. Thank you to everyone who helped make tonight a success.

View the entries and winners here

Sue Craft our President welcomed 51 members and guest to our February General meeting this evening.

We started our evening off with Douglas Wade, introducing our guest speaker tonight, Aviation Photographer, Kevin Robertson.  Kevin Robertson's photos have appeared in various aviation magazines, books and company marketing materials.  He currently heads the Promotional Photography and Multimedia for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in Palmdale.  Previously, he was the Lockheed Martin Senior Flight Test Photographer at Edwards AFB supporting the F-22 and F-35 Flight Test programs.  Kevin has logged more than 800 flying hours for air-to-air photography in various military aircraft.  Prior to Lockheed Martin, Kevin worked for Northrop Grumman Corporation as a photographer on the B-2 Bomber program. Kevin spoke about the challenges of aviation photography and then shared some of his photographs.  He spoke about his experiences in taking photographs from the back seat of high performance aircraft.  He answered our member’s questions about aviation photography. Kevin uses Canon equipment, zoom lens and UV filters. We gave him a honorary membership and certificate of appreciation.