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Volume 71, Issue 8

February 2015

(Foreword by Doug Finch)

Today, it appears everyone has

become an author and publisher of

books. When attending most any

gathering you will frequently have

the opportunity to view a book of

photos and words prepared and

published by the author.

In the past, following a vacation or

holiday, many families assembled

a number of their photos in a scrap

book for sharing with family and

friends. Today, an alternative is to

Self-publish a photo book. While

the author must continue to select

and arrange photos with words,

many companies offer the service

of handling the pasting and titling

along with your description of the

event. Cont’d page 2 . . .

Blurb Book Printing

Charles Taylor, APSA

We as humans have to varying degrees a desire toward expression. We

sometimes fail to communicate through our chosen medium when we be-

come obsessed with a mostly technical, clinical approach to photography.

In a sense, we've not moved beyond a paint by numbers approach to pho-

tography. The primary thought is, if I master the science of photography

and the camera, what follows is Art (?)

Judging Guidelines

An email will be coming your

way shortly addressing the

challenge of Judging. Don’t

miss it - make time to read it.

Watch for it!!!

February Programs; Tabletop Workshop 3

Bedford Announces Convention; Members print

on display at Bedford and Baker

4

Guests and New Members 5

Competition Photos 6, 7

Photo Elements Technique; A Shot A Day 8

Hunts Photo - Photo Cruise 9

Club Information 10

Inside this issue:

2

Most people, and certainly most

photographers dream of seeing a

book with their name on it as the

author. Until recently, that was

difficult to say the least. But

with the advent of electronic and

digital publishing, it has become

easier, if more expensive. (In the

old days, the publisher paid for

the printing.)

Blurb and numerous other enti-

ties will take an author’s elec-

tronic file and make a book to

order. These can make nice gifts

for understanding friends and

family. The path to being forever

annoying is open. It is only nec-

essary to understand that, unlike

the previous era, this is NOT a

money making opportunity.

A good Blurb book can cost any-

where from twenty to fifty bucks

a pop. Good luck selling those at

a profit. On the other hand, when

friends who are not familiar with

this process drop in, the big cof-

fee table book with your name

on it is impressive.

Blurb handles images reasonably

well for the cost, and text is

easy. The printers’ web sites will

let you download templates and

hints so all you have to do is

drop in the things you want.

Then pay for it.

Charles Taylor, APSA

Note: If you have an interest,

Charles will provide members

an electronic version.

Blurb Book Printing . . .

The most important element in a photo is

the person behind the camera.

Club member Charles Taylor, with his writing and photographic skills, self-publishes work rivaling any

photo travel books at your local bookstore. Throughout his publications, you will be entertained by

Charles’ humor and marvel at the amount of time and effort required to record the history and unique

events represented by the photos included. Charles provided the following description of the services avail-

able from the publishers and what to expect.

Blurbing Your Way to Immortality

Spider-rock

Smoke Break

3

Charles Taylor, APSA, one of the club’s highly skilled Photojournalist, will present A tongue in cheek

look at teeth grinding action, a program discussing what you can expect and how to prepare for it when

photographing at the scene. Knowing Charles, this will be a fun and highly entertaining program you do

not want to miss. This program will also be presented at the 2015 PSA Convention this September in Yel-

lowstone National Park. Charles was a writer, photographer, editor and manager in the Publications unit

of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.

A panel of club members will discuss the pros and cons of pictures, recognizing what makes the image great and

what changes the maker may want to consider.

Tabletop Workshop

Program February 10 Carol McCreary, APSA, EPSA

Critique Ideas Jaci Finch, APSA

Program February 24 Charles Taylor, APSA

An Ode to Sweat

Tom and Carol McCreary conducted a Tabletop Workshop at their home on Friday, January 30. As

shown here, a number of members participated including Jaci Finch, Debbie Devonshire, Mary Babich

(a friend), Tom McCreary, Carol McCreary, Eva Ryan and Doug Finch. Participants not shown: Jan

and Wally Lee and Scott Schaerer (Scott provided the picture). Everyone enjoyed photographing all of

the set-ups provided by Tom and Carol and other attendees. Our thanks to Tom and Carol for a great

evening of fun with friends and photography.

4

Club Member’s Print on Display

Bedford Announces Photography Convention

The club was well represented at the recent Bedford event by club members John Key and Scott

Schaerer. The classes were conducted at the Tower Hotel on NW Expressway. We express our sin-

cere appreciation to John and Scott.

Bedford Photo announced their second Bedford Camera f2.8 Photo/Convention scheduled for

March 20 - 21 at the Tower Hotel, 3233 NW Expressway; the convention cost $99.99. You can make

reservations on line at http://www.bedfords.com/okc-2015-photo-con/, by stopping by the store, or by

calling Eric Williams, General Manager, Bedford Camera & Photo at 405-943-1047. Eric encourages

everyone to make reservations early, seating is limited and they expect to sell out. The daily schedule

will be 10:00 am - 7:00 pm both days. Check Bedford’s site above for the schedule of classes and to

make reservations.

The club will have a table set up for both days of the event, we need volunteers to represent the club.

The schedule for the table has been set up in three hour sessions: 10:00 am - 1:00 pm; 1:00 pm - 4:00

pm; 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm, each day. It would be best for the club to be represented by two or more vol-

unteers for each shift. For the Bedford event last year, many members who elected not to attend the

classes volunteered to help at the table. The location of the event this year makes access much easier,

i.e., it is not downtown OKC. Please contact Jaci jacf@cox.net or Doug dmfinch@cox.net to volun-

teer, the club needs your help.

Neon-Electofied

by Bob Protus

Currently representing OCC at:

Bedford Camera & Video - OKC

Baker Photo & Video - Yukon

5

There is a profound difference

between artists who use

photography as a medium, and

photographers who are striving

to create art.

Guests

Lyuda Cameroh, ludmila– 25@mail.ru, MWC. I really appreciate your email. I am so excited to

meet you and all fellow members of the camera club. I am very happy to be in this club and to

meet a lot of good people to share my interest and love for photography. I have been interested in

photography for many years, but I was not able to realize my dreams to move forward improving

my photo skill. I like nature and make a lot of nature images. I also enjoy traveling and come

home with many images as well. I will do my best to help you. I will plan my work schedule

around club meeting and workshops to be able to participate. I found information about your club

on line and also I had a class at Bedford camera store and they mentioned your club as well. So I

found you...!

I will read all information you attached and really appreciate this letter. Lyuda

Thanks Lyuda for the pleasant response. We look forward to your participation and will do every-

thing we can to make your membership a learning and fun experience.

Brent Umphlett, bwum-

phlett@gmail.com, learned of

the club on a visit to Bedford

Camera. Brent enjoys photo-

graphing weather scenes and fire

hydrants. We have a number of

street photographers, I believe

you are the first specializing in

fire hydrants. Thanks Brent,

looking forward to a return visit.

Ken Elder, kenelder@cox.net,

became interested in the club

attending the Canon Presenta-

tion. Ken enjoys taking pictures

of stage performers from the

back of the auditorium, wow, I

suspect this is a real challenge.

Ken, we thoroughly enjoyed your

visit, please come back again.

New Members

Lou Manera, maneralou@gmail.com,

OKC. Lou joined the club last month, I

will forward additional information from

Lou shortly. Thanks Lou, we look for-

ward to having you with the club and will

do what ever we can to make your mem-

bership meet your expectations.

John Philbin, f8johnny@gmail.com, OKC. John jumped back into photography in the past few

months by joining three different camera clubs.

I have been very nervous about other people critiquing my work but have come to embrace the

views of others. One of the clubs critiques the competition photo’s, I learn a lot from these ses-

sions. The other thing I’ve found that I like is the spontaneous competition of a subject chosen at

random. John

Thanks John for responding to our welcome so quickly, this information helps the Board plan

future programs and structure the club meetings to meet members interest. Welcome aboard.

6

Competition Photos Cont’d . . .

Dusty Trail

Ward Conaway

Sunset at Lighthouse

Bob Protus

Mitten Monster

Charles Taylor, APSA

Transition

Inge Vautrin

Neon-Electofied

Bob Protus

School House Pens

Kirk Turner

Water Under the Bridge

Scott Schaefer

Struggle to Win

Randy Carr

Leadership Sculpture

Brad Smith

7

Competition Photos

Infrared Church and Tombstone

Carol McCreary, APSA, EPSA

Gorging Bee

J . D. McClung

Three Geckos

Jaci Finch, APSA

Deteriorating Art

John Philbin

Sunlit Path to the Cabin

Jan Lee, APSA, EPSA

Spaceship

Bernard Fern

Melbourne Dawn

Robert Green

Good Save

Terrie Varga

Old Ford Dashboard

Wally Lee, APSA, EPSA

8

The Emberas are an indigenous tribe living

in the rainforest in Darien Province, Pa-

nama. The RAW file was processed using

Camera RAW (CR) in Photoshop Ele-

ments (PSE) 11. Over- and under-exposed

images were also created in CR and were

combined using Photomatix Pro to pro-

duce a single black-and-white HDR image.

PSE (including a Topaz Clarity plug-in)

was used to refine the image. One of the

Embera Matriarch by club

member Robert Green was

the Black & White Photo

Challenge 1st Place Winner

in the January/February 2015

issue of Photo Elements Tech-

niques. The following narra-

tive describing the process was

included with the published

photo in the magazine.

last steps was emphasizing the eyes and removing stray catch lights (PhotoElements Techniques, Sept/

Oct 2014, pp.21-26). The final step was adding an elliptical vignette.

As an aside, I have found that shooting in RAW and processing with the Photoshop Elements version of

Camera RAW to be very powerful. Without question, shooting in RAW and using Elements Camera

RAW has led to a significant improvement in my final processed images. Robert Green

A Shot A Day - A Challenge

Embera Matriach by Robert Green Photo Elements Techniques

Many of us only do photography when we have something to take pictures of or for a club competition, a

vacation, a workshop, i.e., an assignment. We take pictures of things… we rarely make images of our

‘feelings about things’. Our feelings are always trying to emerge in our photography but are often sup-

pressed by our obsession over gear, concerns about technique, and worries about what others will think of

our photos. Our egos often get in the way of expressive image making. And so the results of our photogra-

phy are impersonal, predictable and clichéd. (Frequently in club competition, you can identify the maker

just by the subject or technique used). After a while we are not even sure why we take photos and we be-

come bored with our work.

A number of recent blogs/publications suggest taking on a challenge, getting away from the normal pho-

tography routine. Take on the challenge of making one photo a day. We are not talking about an assigned

subject, the assignment is to pick up the camera, once a day for the next year, whether your on the way to

work, shopping, or just around the neighborhood, house or backyard, there are plenty of opportunities.

Several of our members have become involved with street photography yielding many of the most creative

images shown in competition or on facebook. Having tagged along a number of times, this becomes a sig-

nificant challenge. The challenge need not be on the street or take several hours of time preparing and to

complete, just do it once a day where ever you are at.

9

From Our Friends at Hunts Photo Gary Farber

10

Workshops:

Beginning Image Workshop: Thursday,

following first meeting, Jan & Wally Lee’s

home, 751-8179. While workshop focus on

Photoshop Elements, bring any questions or

pictures you would like to discuss. Non-

members are always welcome.

Hands - On Workshop: Timing for Work-

shop will be announced. If you have an

interest in participating, contact Tom or

Carol McCreary at 634-1817 or

tcmccreary@cox.net.

Photoshop Workshop: Friday, 7:30 pm,

February 6 at Tom & Carol McCreary’s

home 634-1817 or tcmccreary@cox.net.

Subject: Topaz Impressions and Topaz

Details

February 10:

Print Competition: Open Mono A & B,

Open Color A & B, Nature & PJ

Judges:

Program: Critique Ideas, Carol

McCreary, APSA, EPSA & Jaci Finch,

APSA

Refreshments: Inge Vautrin

February 24:

Projected Image Competition: Color A &

B, Creative, Nature, Mono A & B and PJ

Judges:

Program: An Ode to Sweat , Charles Tay-

lor, APSA

Refreshments: Sterling Ranne

OCC Board of Directors

President: Jaci Finch, APSA - Webmaster

1st Vice President: John Key - Programs

2nd Vice President: Sterling Ranne - Judges

Treasurer: Ward Conaway

Secretary: Carol McCreary, APSA, PPSA

Directors:

1 yr. Debbie Devonshire

1 yr. Inge Vautrin - Field Trip Chairman

2 yr. Brad Smith

2 yr. J. D. McClung - Club Photographer

50th and N. May Ave.

Central Presbyterian Church

Oklahoma City, OK

Meetings: 7:30 pm

2nd and 4th Tuesdays

For club information, contact

wally.lee2@yahoo.com

HypoCheck Editors:

Doug Finch, APSA

Jaci Finch, APSA

dmfinch@cox.net

For more information:

We are on the web

Oklahomacameraclub.com Visit us on Facebook

Club Meetings and Workshops

Meetings: 7:30 pm

2nd & 4th Tuesdays

50th and N. May Ave.

Central Presbyterian

Church

For Club Dues Contact

fotoward@outlook.com

The Club Board meets on the third Wednesday of the month at

Jaci’s home, everyone is welcome.

Please email Jaci at jacf@cox.net for address & directions.

Oklahoma Camera

Club, Inc.

www.PSA-photo.org www.gulfstates.ccc.org