January 2008 Newsletter
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday and is entering the New Year feeling somewhat refreshed. There is lots of exciting stuff to cover so I'm going to dive right in.
As has already been announced, the January meeting has been delayed one week and will be held in the usual place on January 9th. Membership dues are up for renewal during the January meeting. The price is $30 for an individual and $40 for couples. One of our own members, Jose Guillen, will be speaking to us about one of his photography during the first half of the meeting.
February's meeting will host our annual board elections and there are a number of positions being vacated so if you have the time and interest please sign-up for something! The positions that will need to be filled are:
- President
- Secretary - Treasurer
- Monthly Program Director
- External Program Director
Obviously the website / newsletter is in the midst of some redesign. I had hoped to have everything moved over and working smoothly during the holidays thinking I'd have "free" time. That didn't happen. So it's not quite as polished as I would like but I'm going to roll it out now and just get on with it. So please let me know how it works, if you have any problems, suggestions, etc. I'll be moving over existing content as time permits and until then it will continue to exist in the current location.
-- Jeff
January Guest Speaker
Jose Guillen, past president of the Calgary Photographic Society, started his hobby of photography when he was 8 years old and he received, as a birthday gift, a Kodak Fiesta – the Latin American version of the Kodak Brownie. Ever since, he has enjoyed photography as a hobby and as a means to express his vision of the world.
Jose shoots mainly with black and white film, using a variety of cameras and formats, from 35mm to 4x5 cameras. He also shoots slide film and occasionally with a digital camera.
In recent years Jose has dedicated most of his photographic hobby to creating fine art black and white prints. He has donated several prints to charitable silent auctions and in addition has sold several prints to friends and co-workers who appreciate fine art black and white photography. Last November, Jose participated in “Eight, Photo Exhibition” at the ARTHOUSE. Jose will be telling us more about his style, what he sees in a photograph, and his dark room techniques on January 9.
December Guest Speaker Review - Kevin Udal
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| Photo by Jeff Clement |
In December's meeting we had the fortune of talking with Kevin Udal about photojournalism. Kevin's career started with a summer job with the Rockyview times which landed him his first photo in newsprint. After that he took a 3 month army contract, spent a year and a half in Moose Jaw, studied political science at the UofC, and spent a year in Prague on a student exchange. Upon his return to Calgary he freelanced for the Sun until a full-time position opened up for him. Kevin spent seven years as a staff photographer with the Calgary Sun before taking up his current position with SAIT teaching Photo Jounalism.
Kevin spoke about the decline in the quality and depth of journalism because of the haste to post developing stories on-line. No longer does the journalist have the time to dig down in to a story before it hits the press the next morning. A photo journalists car is his office and often within 15 minutes of shooting, the photographs are electronically sent up to the office where an editor will take them from there. This lack of face-to-face interaction between the photographer and editors poses a problem too because the photographer is losing a lot of creative control over his/her work.
Fortunately all is not lost. Kevin sees the Newspapers re-inventing themselves with the changing times and multimedia, Kevin's speciality, is at the fore-front. The mixture of video, still photography, and audio commentary makes a compelling mix. Kevin presented us with two multimedia "slide-shows". The first was his very first multimedia presentation entitled "A Helping Hand" which covered the Shriner's hospital in Spokane and followed two disabled children, Tyson and Kyle, and their families, to Spokane and covered the treatment they were able to receive from the Shriners. The presentation was kind of an experiment that Kevin created during the return trip from Spokane using a new piece of software called Sound Slides. When he got back to Calgary he showed the editor and, to his suprise, the editor loved it and posted it immediately, and without editing, onto the Sun website. The second multimedia presentation Kevin shared with us Jim Lo Scazlo's "Evidence of my Existance" which was an autobiographical piece on Jim's somewhat obsessive photo journalism career. Both pieces were very well done and great examples of the genre. Both were more powerful and more captivating than an article with a couple photographs could ever be. Kevin predicts a convergence of TV news and newspaper into form of multimedia.
Photojournalism is obviously an area of interest for much of the club because the amount of questions raised were overwhelming for me as I was furiously trying to record these details 
While some of the photojournalists work is certainly taking photographs of a scene unfolding without cooperation with the subjects, much of the photojournalists work does involve setting up the shots to make a compelling image. As Kevin said, "It's not just knowing your camera, it's finding interesting subjects and putting them in front of your camera and being in the right place.", and that requires you to know your community.
Tony (at least I think it was Tony): "Is it ever dangerous?"
Kevin: "Yes" (he elaborated on that with a tale from Prague where he accidentially found himself between the law enforcement and some protesters)
In Kevin's experience a photojournalist will work 8 hours days (with a high likely hood of working longer) with, on average, 4 assignments per day. Often at a shoot there is no journalist present and it's up to the photographer to both capture the moment on film and in words - "You have to be journalists first.".
Kevin's stories and insight were fascinating and it was a pleasure to have him speak with us.
December "Open" Print Competition Results
Advanced Category
| Not available |
| Advanced Open - Carla Fedje - <Untitled> |
| Score | Photographer | Title |
| 8.3 | Carla Fedje | <Untitled> |
| 7.6 | Norm Capper | Icarus |
| 7.3 | Tony Field | <Untitled> |
Intermediate Category
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| Intermediate Open - Jeff Clement - <Untitled> |
| Score | Photographer | Title |
| 8.3 | Jeff Clement | <Untitled> |
| 8.0 | Ryan Pahl | Rainbow |
| 7.6 | Jack Blair | The Judges |
| 7.3 | Helmut Schoderbock | Native Dancer |
| 7.0 | Jack Dyck | Dunes at Dawn |
December "Theme" Print Competition Results: "Statue"
Advanced Theme
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| Advanced Open - Tony Field - <Untitled> |
| Score | Photographer | Title |
| 9.3 | Tony Field | <Untitled> |
| 7.6 | Bob Lee | Statue |
| 7.3 | Norm Capper | Statue |
| 7.3 | Carla Fedje | Shiva |
Intermediate Theme
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| Intermediate Theme - Jack Dyck - Minotaur Down |
| Score | Photographer | Title |
| 7.6 | Jack Dyck | Minotaur Down |
| 7.0 | Wes Devauld | Thinking |
Upcoming Print Competitions Themes
| Date | Theme |
| Jan 2, 2008 | Red |
| Feb 6, 2008 | Tools |
| Mar 5, 2008 | Back Alley |
| Apr 2, 2008 | Graffiti |
| May 7, 2008 | Paper |
| Jun 4, 2008 | Different point of view on a common subject |
Web Crawl
I've added a new section on the website to archive web links as they come in so that we have a more easily accessed reference but I'll continue to add them to the newsletter to cover what's new in the links.
- Emma Alvarez has archived the "Top Best 55 PhotoshopTutorials for Professional Photographers "
The weblinks archive can be found here.
Also. For any members with websites that would like them listed, please e-mail the URL to me at jeff.clement at calgaryphotographicsociety.ca.
Mini-Article: Guest Speaker Portraits on the Cheap!
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| Photo by Ryan Pahl |
Being the newsletter editor I also tend to be the guy snapping pictures of our presenters. As a novice this has always been rather intimidating. I've tended to rush and take some terrible snapshots (see the past few months) with the camera cranked up at 1600 ISO and my 50mm wide-open. The results were somewhat embarassing for a member of a photographic club.
The photo of Kevin Udal in this months newsletter was a bit different. I brought along my cheap-o e-bay pocket wizard clones (~$20 e-bay), my tiny little Sunpak Auto 133 ($10 e-bay), and a home-made softbox (roughly 6"x8") from cardboard, duct tape, and a sheet of paper. With Ryan's help we positioned it photographer upper-right and took a few shots. I was extremely pleased with the results.
My little flash had enough power to drown out the ambient light and bring the background to black. The tiny softbox held that close to Kevin provided reasonably soft lighting. While the image certainly can be improved, I think it is miles ahead of where some of my previous photographs were at.
I realize that most of the members of the photographic society probably (a) know this already, (b) have a perfectly good "real" softbox, and (c) wouldn't be caught dead shooting a client with a softbox that looks like mine, but I thought this might be interesting for those of us in the novice category to re-iterate just how easily, and affordably, one can add a bit of lighting to a portrait and really make a difference.
I had been planning on including a photograph of my softbox but I seem to have misplaced it. Fortunately, with a value of about 10 cents I'm not too upset and Ryan provided a photograph of his very similar unit.
It's been mentioned before but the Strobist blog is an excellent resource for this type of lighting.
Wrapping it up...
Well that's it for this newsletter folks. Hope to see you all on the 9th and, until then, happy shooting. Oh... And remeber to bring your entry for January's theme "Red".
-- Jeff
