Update: Meeting April 6, 2011

I am very much looking forward to our upcoming meeting on Wednesday, April 6th. It may be somewhat different than recent prior meetings and some of the differences will reflect changes which result from the continuing evolution of the format and activities of our group. I'll post the actual program on Monday or Tuesday (this allows me some wiggle room), but it is pretty well set now. We will have a guest presenter, John Blaske co-owner of Village Custom Framing, will speak about matting and framing issues, with special emphasis on photo conservation. I will show a professionally produced video done by the Santa Fe Workshops presenting some remarkable work by Jay Maisel and brief segment of a much longer video of Jay and Scott Kelby doing a photowalk on the streets of New York with a stream-of-consciousness tutorial from this gifted photographer and teacher. I have taken two workshops from Jay which have profoundly affected my work but not without distress. I'll make a few comments about these experiences. We will, of course, view member's submissions of the Topic of the Month images, the Digital Challenge images, and the Freestyle (formerly known as the Open Mike segment). There has, so far, been one submission for Ask The Experts. It seems strange to me that there aren't more question about taking photos, digital imaging, gear, books, Internet resources, art, commerce, intellectual property law, or any other topics that fall under the rubric of Photography. Submission, so far, have been really underwhelming-- the quantity but definitely not the quality! I'll remind you again (and I will persist in doing so) that the success of our meetings depends almost solely on the members willingness to share their ideas, experiences, problems, goals, future plans, and, most important, their images. The polling results are in. 12 members voted on the question of digital imaging discussion at our meetings. You can see the results in the column on the right. I am going to query the members in order to get a better sense of the range of expertise so that future presentations can be targeted more appropriately. As always your opinions, via this blog, by email, or phone, will be appreciated. I have invited a couple of photographers I know to join us at this meeting to see if they would like to participate regularly. Also some current members have asked about bringing other interested photographers. We are only limited by the physical space available at my home. Generally, about half of the members show up at any one meeting, so I believe that we can accommodate several additions to the group. Finally, there is good news and bad news about the desserts during the social hour. The bad news is that Susann Annis will probably not be here in May--she will be visiting our family in Japan-- but the good news is that she is already preparing for next Wednesday's meeting. We attended a wedding extravaganza in New York last weekend and she is truly inspired. Byron