February 2013 Club Meeting...

Folks,

We had a good turnout for our first club meeting in our new venue at the Hostal Meson Arboleas, with a couple of new members and also some guys joining us from the Vera Photo Club. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. The good news is, IMHO, the new venue will suit our purposes just fine, with plenty of seating and a dark corner with a large LCD TV allowing us to see all the detail we need. The small issue of limited internet access, I'm sure, we can sort with the help of the owner, Agustin, who seems very amenable.

After some posts recently on the forum about macro, we started the meeting with an introduction to the various bits of kit that may help when trying to achieve macro work. Very much a basic introduction to the topic, which is as complex and technical a part of photography as you'll get. I think though, we covered most of the salient points, as well as the various problems and pitfalls to look out for. This talk was supported by a couple videos which again went through the various pros & cons of assorted macro equipment. I include YouTube links to those videos, if you want to watch them again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiPzTMUAWs8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J3UQH8TlXo

We then went on to view some shots taken from our recent field trip to Mojacar Pueblo, where we were very lucky with the weather. Lots of clear blue sky shots, but as Lyle from Vera Photo club said, not one landscape 'view' either of the Pueblo, or from the Pueblo... strange. We must have been wandering around with our heads down, I guess!

I then went on to give a tutorial on some Simple Layer Techniques, using Paintshop Pro. Hopefully I didn't bore everyone too much, but an understanding of layers can be quite a useful skill, not only in creating artistic effects, but also in some more subtle traditional photographic 'darkroom' techniques. Anyway, it may be a subject that we return to in the future. For the time being, I have posted the techniques described in the 'Tips & Techniques' section of the forum here...

https://almanzoraphotoclub.forumotion.com/t202-simple-layer-techniques

Finally, we watched the second part of the photo DVD that John Michael brought along from the Nottingham Open Photo Comp. As before, some stunning shots!

As it is in season, it was decided that our February photo assignment should be 'Blossom'. Please upload/post your images in the 'Darkroom Gallery' section of the forum.

We also decided that this month's field trip should be to Lorca, with possibly some time spent in the old town, then on to the castle. The date for the trip will be Tuesday 19th February, probably meeting at 11am. I will confirm the time and meeting place nearer the time.

Our next club meeting will be Tuesday March 5th @4pm at the Hostel Meson Arboleas. Some flyers were handed out to members to encourage more new members along. We'll continue to advertise our club, now that we have worthwhile premises, to hopefully swell numbers so that field trips and club meetings become even more sociable!

Lastly, Stan and his gang of merry men from Vera Photo Club have invited anyone interested to their monthly club meetings held in Frankie's bar in Vera Playa on the 1st Sunday of the month (10am - 12am), as do we with any of their members.

Thanks for your help, and look forward to seeing you and your photos soon!

Oh, as a final note... I did ask, as I am at present more involved in pulling together the content for club meetings, if we could have one (or two) club members take on the responsibility for coming up with suggestions for Field Trips prior to meetings, so we don't waste too much time at meetings, it would be greatly appreciated. All we need is for that person(s) to bring along 2 or 3 suggestions for that month, and maybe maintain a list of field trip locations, past and for future use. It could even be discussed between members on the forum a few days ahead of the meeting, but I would appreciate if someone else could take on this duty and lessen my load slightly... ta!

Rgds,
Howard