Hello everyone,

“ Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.” Diane Arbus

“To me, photography is an art of observation.  It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”  Elliot Erwitt

It’s been awhile since I have written a monthly newsletter so here it goes. It appears as though it will be a while before we can get together in person. I don’t know about you, but I do miss seeing everyone at our meetings at the Luther Burbank Art and Garden Center. The only positive I can say is that I am not eating as many snacks, at least I tell myself that! Work continues behind the scenes, and Bill Stacy and Steve Meunch have been doing an excellent job making sure our zoom meetings are presented. Trisha and Joel Brown have continued to make sure we have stay at home outings that continue to test our knowledge of photography and open new horizons. Liz Lawson and Betsy Waters also continued to make sure we have the best in presentations. This year we are fortunate to have our master candidates filling our calendar with excellent information.

I enjoyed tonight’s presentations by our master candidates. Anne Abrams presentation on IPhonography certainly got me excited about getting out to use my iPhone more.  I particularly enjoyed the panorama shots and the numerous blending of images she did in the various apps she introduced us to.  Tim Allen’s presentation on better black and white images gave me a better understanding of how to achieve various tones in my black and white images. I use NIK’s Silver Efex Pro 2 like Tim does, but he showed a number of methods to improve the images in this software.  An example of this was the use of the histogram and rolling across the various zone numbers.

If you were following the recent email thread on backup strategies, you most likely have learned a great deal of information. While I am certainly not a computer guru. I do have a cloud-based backup system and two external hard drives. This discussion prompted me to check to make sure everything was working properly. In doing so I found that one of my drives needed some attention and fortunately I was able to get it rectified.

Last year I wrote a message that included my thoughts on moving to a mirrorless system. I had a Canon 5D mark iv and purchased a Canon EOS R. While there is never a perfect camera, I found I was using the mirrorless EOS R far more often than I was the DSLR. The DSLR was relegated to wildlife and nothing else. My walk around camera for landscapes, street and portrait photography became the EOS R.  I recently sold the EOS R to one of our club members and ordered a Canon R5.  While I am waiting for the R5 to arrive I am “stuck” with the 5D.  It’s a wonderful camera however I really miss the articulating screen, the face and eye detection, the electronic viewfinder (keeps me from missing correct exposures) and the smaller size of the mirrorless.   Hopefully the R5 will do everything I will ask of it.

If you have any thoughts on the operation of our club during this stay at home time please let me know.  I hope to convene a Board meeting before long to discuss how we will be closing out 2020 due to the current circumstances.

On the lighter side, thoughts about photography:

1. Don’t lose focus
2. You’ve got a great body, CF or SD card?
3. The fastest way to make money from photography is to sell your camera.
4. I came, I saw, I captured.
5. Your camera takes really nice pictures!Thanks, I taught it everything it knows.

That’s it for now, stay well and stay safe.

Mike