Trophy Winners from the 2012 Annual Dinner!

Awards – top score by category

Human Interest – Gerry Black
Photo Travel – Derek Johnston
Creative – Derek Johnston
Pictorial – Gerry Black
Humour – Sara Harley
Portrait – (tie) Brenda Fitzgerald, Debbie Black

Trophies

Treasure Hunt Trophy – Brenda Fitzgerald
Scavenger Hunt Trophy – (team) Deborah Croft, Brenda Fitzgerald, Susan McDormand
Sylvia Dorey memorial Trophy – Highest Number of Points in Floral – Derek Johnston
Marilyn Morrison Memorial Trophy – Highest Number of Points in Nature – Brenda Fitzgerald
Fred Hay Memorial Trophy – Highest Total for all Print Competitions – Derek Johnston
Best Projected Image Photographer Trophy – Highest Total for all Digital Competitions – Sara Harley
Silent Essay Trophy – Sara Harley
The Gordon McGowan Trophy – Sight and Sound Essay – Sara Harley
New Member Trophy – Trevor Awalt
Photographer of the Year – Sara Harley

Pictured in photo (left to right) Sara Harley, Brenda Fitzgerald, Derek Johnston, Deborah Croft, Gerry Black, Debbie Black, Trevor Awalt. Absent – Susan McDormand
photo credit: John Croft

Minutes from AGM – May 8, 2012

Annual General meeting / Business meeting

Meeting started 7:15 P.M.

Presidents Report : Derek Johnston.

He thanked all the committees and individuals for the tremendous job they did, organizing, and planning, the topics, presenters, events, competitions, and field trips, to make for a very interesting, enjoyable, and successful year.

Special, and well deserved thank you, went to :

Nancy Johnston, and the Program Committee, for the tremendous job they did, arranging inside, and outside events, guest presenters, and interesting topics for our meetings, and competitions.

Candace Croft, James Campbell, Susan McDormand, for creating and organizing the field trips and transportation.

Teresa Alexander- Arab, and Sara Harley for organizing the DesBrisay Museum Exhibit (20 plus Exhibitors)

Teresa Alexander-Arab, who as well as being Vice President, also did a great job as a projectionist.

Doug Merrett for taking care of web site, and doing projectionist duties.

Marg. Campbell who did another great job as treasurer this year.

Sara Harley for doing a tremendous job organizing, and scoring competitions. as well as the Scavenger Hunt “Water”. Sara also organizes and creates the yearbook.

John Croft for organizing the library, and providing books and magazines.

James Campbell for dealing with name tags, and the 50/50 draw.

Candice Croft for arranging the Bridgewater Bulletin interview with Nancy Johnston.

Debbie Black for setting up, and organizing, breaktime snacks.

Marie and Frank Penny who organized the treasure hunt. .

Brenda Fitzgerald for being the club greeter, and assisting James Campbell with the name tags, and draws.

Evangeline Johnston a special thank you to for organizing, and sending out the minutes, and other information of interest

Derek presented roses to all the young ladies who were present and who were involved in making the programs a success.

Also, he noted, bylaw changes were made to allow the use of photo editing programs such as Photoshop, Gimp, and Picasa; for producing competition images; and the addition of 2 new competition categories, Photo Journalism, and Architecture.

He mentioned the position of secretary is not yet filled; this is a good way to get to know club members, and how the club operates.

Derek introduced our new executive for: 2012-3013

President – Derek Johnston
Past President – Brenda Fitzgerald
Vice President – Sara Harley
Treasurer – Marg Campbell
Program Director – Nancy Johnston
Field Trip coordinators – Susan McDormand / James Campbell
Scorekeeping – James Campbell
Projectionist – Teresa Alexander-Arab ; back-up and Webmaster – Doug Merrett
Refreshments – Debbie Black / Karen Parnell Herrick
Year Book – Sara Harley
Publicity – Elizabeth Nash / Elizabeth Klass
Hostess – Brenda Fitzgerald
Secretary – Still Vacant ???

Move to accept this report by Gerry Black, seconded by Susan McDormand

Marg. Campbell Treasurer

Handed out copies of the Financial Report for the past year. and reviewed the detail of the report. Our bank balance as of 01 May 2012 was $2,759.41

Move to accept this report by Gerry Black, seconded by Susan Mcdormand

Break… Thank you to Debbie and Gerry Black for providing refreshments.

Doug Merrett projected some great images by, Debbie Croft, Derek Johnston, Trevor Awalt and James Campbell, from the field trip to the Oakland Zoo, in Aylesford.

James also gave a short, excellent, sight and sound presentation of the Zoo trip.

Grant Dixon has volunteered to produce the program again this year.

Sara Harley: Judging:

She mentioned she has served 3 years as competition scorekeeper, and thanked all who volunteered to be judges; also Brenda , Nancy,James, and Marg, etc.. who helped out with competitions. .Also Doug Merrett, and Teresa Alexander Arab, for the great job they did as projectionists, and organizing images sent in for competitions.

She reviewed the numbers of prints, and projected images, entered in the competitions.

She commented on the overall high quality, and number of images entered in competitions. She also thanked those involved in organizing the scavenger hunt, photographer of the year, and the treasure hunt.

The nomination to accept the report was made by Elizibeth Klaas , seconded by Debbie Black.

Nancy Johnston Programming:

She expressed her thanks to the members on the programming committee.

She commented on, and thanked the different presenters, and all who took part in competitions, and field trips, meetings, scavenger and treasure hunts.

Nancy would welcome new members on the program committee, and ideas for presenters, topics, competitions, and field trips. The committee meets 3-4 times during the summer, to create and finalize the next year’s program.

Please contact her or Derek for more information.

Other business:

Sara said the year books will be available at the windup dinner, for those who have ordered them. She is also looking for yearbook ideas for next year.

She also said, she and her husband John, would be hosting a club B.B.Q. again this year, on the 18^th of August which is the third Saturday of the month. This would be “potluck”.

More information to follow.

James mentioned the Tancook Island field trip would be on Saturday 26 of May

( Rain date the following Saturday.)

The return fair from Chester is $5.00, and leaves at 1 P.M. and returns at 6 P.M.

More information to follow.

Sara mentioned the Plant Nursery and Gardening Center in Wileville, would let club members take photos for a day during the first 2 weeks in June. Information to follow.

Susan mentioned photographers are needed to take pictures of, and provide prints of residents in a senior care home, during a day when they put on costumes . This would be just for their use only. Please contact her for further information.

50/50 draw winner was Sara Harley

Thank you to Reg. Archibald, who displayed prints of Eastern Passage.

Derek presented a gift to the caretaker, Carl, to show our appreciation for the work he did, before and after, meetings.

Minutes Submitted by Ralph Cook

Minutes from April 24th, 2012 meeting

BRIDGEWATER PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
MINUTES OF MEETING – APRIL 24TH 2012

The meeting started at 6 p.m. with a session of outdoor portrait photography. We were very fortunate to have Mervyn Kumar-Misir as our workshop leader for the evening, and there was a great turn-out of members for this event. We also welcomed back Denise Wallace as our main model. Mervyn pointed out the value of using flash to fill in shadow areas even when outdoors, and showed us how natural light can be used, and respected at the same time.

Back inside, Mervyn ran through a Pro-Show slideshow of portraits and other fun photographs, and gave us further “pointers” on portraiture, both inside and out.

Outdoors
- As a general rule it is good to set the flash to two stops less than the light meter reads. At this setting the features of the subject are highlighted without being “burned out”.

- Using a telephoto lens with a wide aperture setting helps to soften the background and create real focus on the subject.

Indoors
- Use natural lighting when possible.

- Mirror shots create an interesting portrait, but photographers should be careful to take such shots at an angle to avoid “flashes” in the photo. Bouncing the flash off the ceiling also helps even out shadows and create a more even portrait, while keeping the focus on the main subject.

- Using F4-6 gives a shallow d.o.f.

- Mervyn mentioned two types of lighting – Rembrandt – with the main light source on one side, a reflector on the other and back/hair lighting; and Butterfly – a more direct overhead lighting.

General Rules of Portraiture
- Create pleasing poses by using “C” or “S” shapes with the model.

- Any shadow under a subject’s nose should not reach below the top lip.

- On a semi-profile portrait, the nose should not break the cheek line.

Mervyn also pointed out that if done properly, an apparent nude shot can be taken with the subject wearing a swimsuit.
For Nikon users, visit the Nikon website to see what older (film) lenses will fit digital cameras. Mervyn also stressed the difficulties in using older flash units (film to digital) because of the difference in voltage between the two types of camera. He mentioned purchasing an electronic switch to provide a “bridge” so that older flashes may be used.

We enjoyed refreshments and snacks, courtesy of Derek – thank you, Derek.

After the break Teresa encouraged members to visit the Lunenburg Art Gallery (79 Pelham Str) between now and May 20th. There is an exhibit of photography with one of the exhibitors being our own Grant Dixon.

President Derek gave us a run-down of “Who’s who” for next year, and it reads:

President – Derek Johnston
Past President – Brenda Fitzgerald
Vice President – Sara Harley
Treasurer – Marg Campbell
Program Director – Nancy Johnston
Field Trips – Susan McDormand/James Campbell
Scorekeeping – James Campbell
Projectionist – Teresa Alexander-Arab ; back-up and Webmaster – Doug Merrett
Refreshments – Debbie Black/Karen Herrick
Year Book – Sara Harley
Publicity – Elizabeth Nash/Julia Naas
Host – Brenda Fitzgerald
Secretary – Still Vacant

There was a request to have the members’ names etc. published for next year. Brenda offered to set this up early in the new year.

After the business side of the meeting was over, Ester (Mervyn’s friend) delighted us with a presentation of her Creative works, for which she uses Photoshop, and a sight and sound essay featuring Mervyn playing several comical roles.

We were then treated to a great presentation on the Slot Canyons by Nancy Johnston. She pointed out how difficult it is these days to get those good shots due to the popularity of the canyons and the number of visitors. Sand and dust are major problems in doing this work.

The next meeting is the Annual General Meeting, when refreshments are provided by the Club.

Minutes by: Brenda Fitzgerald.

April 10, 2012 Minutes

A voluntary collection was taken for a gift for Carl the Caretaker who does his duty and more for the club.

Questionnaires were passed out for members to make suggestions for events and activities for next year’s program.

All trophies are needed back by next meeting.

Next meeting’s  program will be Mervyn Kumar-Misir on “Outdoor Portraits” at 6 p.m. if the weather is appropriate.. Otherwise it will be at 7 p.m. indoors with cameras and tripods

There was a new members competition.  There were six images from each contributor. Subjects included cloud effects, ice, eagles, puffins, blue jays, landscapes, and sunsets. Winner will be announced at the wrap-up dinner. Judges for the competition were Doug Merrett, John Croft, and Debbie Black.

Pictures from the Hirtles Beach Field Trip were shown. It looked like a fine day on the beach.

James Campbell, Debbie Croft, Ralph Cook, and Grant Dixon shared some of their pictures.

Karen Herrick Parnell provided the refreshments and was also the winner of the 50/50 draw.

March 27 meeting CANCELLED!

Unfortunately, our guest speaker for tonight is unable to make it to Bridgewater. Because our whole meeting revolved around his presentation, the meeting for tonight has been cancelled.

We are hoping to reschedule the workshop at a later date.

Our next meeting will have the New Members Competition. All new members are encouraged to participate. Each new member is to email 6 digital photographs to Teresa (t.arab@ns.sympatico.ca) no later than Saturday April 7th. The 6 digital photographs can be any category of image, but no photoshopping or HDR photos are eligible (cropping, sharpening, removal of dust spots etc is allowed) Please resize your images to maximum 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels high, and name your photos in this format:
NMXXYourNameImageTitle (where XX = number 1 to 6)

Let me (Sara) know if you have any questions.

Photography Workshop – Sliceable Food

Ken Renton will be at our meeting on Tuesday to do another workshop with us, this time on vegetables and any sliceables we wish to include-similar to our flower evening with him last year. He has sent the following list of suggestions for us to bring:

1. He will bring 2 light boxes-bring any you have as well-the more the merrier.

2. Your camera and tripod.

3. Almost any lens will suffice, but a macro is most useful.

4. Bring a sharp knife, something to slice on and sliceable vegetables or flowers.

5. Saran or a piece of glass to lay on top of the light boxes to keep them from being stained by the vegetable juice. Paper towels.

6. Anything else you can thing of that would/could be a part of the evening.

Ken will show us some of his own work and then we will spend the evening having fun doing the above.

Minutes from March 13th meeting

Bridgewater Photographic Society Minutes
March 13, 2012

Five Sight and Sound essays were presented:
Winter
Newfoundland
Why I Love Nova Scotia
Old World Architecture
New York Adventure
There were several problems with the running of the sight and sound essays. It really didn’t give a proper showing of the work that had gone into the presentations. Judges were James Campbell, Chris King, and Reg Archibald.

The guest speaker was Ron Smith, also known as “Super Bald Guy”. He is a former president of our club with thirty years of shooting experience. His talk included:
The passion to take photos
The instinct to buy equipment
Recommendation of Ross Farm for its ready and willing subjects. It’s $25. for a lifetime pass to Ross Farm.
The use of flash in sunlight to help balance the light, putting colour into the shadows. Also, use of a diffuser on the flash to scatter light.
It was suggested that he show slides next time.

There was a call for contributions for a thank you for caretaker Carl.

.

Teresa Alexander-Arab and Sara Harley are organizing a calendar on the display at the Debrisay Museum, “Chasing the Light”, which takes place September 23- November 11.
Sara Harley is organizing a book on the display. She needs digital images before the end of May to use in the book, together with a photo of the photographer and a short biography.

Refreshments were provided by Karen Parnell Herrick

Next meeting’s topic is “Photographing Fruit and Vegetables” and there was a reminder to bring fruit, vegetables, cameras, and light boxes.