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.

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.