I trust you have already submitted your images for our next competition on February 28^th.  I am looking forward to seeing you and your work.  Many of us got together last week at a reunion of those who attended the Eastern Sierra field trip.  We had a wonderful evening of socialization and the opportunity to see each other’s images.  Each of us brought 10 images on a thumb drive and had a lot of fun seeing what each of us came up with, we sure have a lot of talent in this club.  A huge thanks to our hosts Dick Weston and Terry Connelly for putting this together.  Dick BBQed a tri tip, it was fabulous, along with the other items, salads, desserts and appetizers the other members brought.  A great deal of fun was had by all.  We even got a good laugh at my wife’s expense.  If you haven’t attended a field trip, I encourage you to do so.  This is really how you get to know the other members and get to chat about our favorite subject photography. 

Speaking of field trips, I hope you all received an email from Dick White about the Bodie trip in June.  This is a great opportunity to stay through sunset and not only get golden hour photos but try out or hone your skills at astrophotography.  I strongly urge you to book your reservations as soon as possible, as rooms are becoming scarce during this peak period of the season.  I already made my reservations and am really looking forward to this trip.     

Eleven of us attended the N4C awards luncheon in Walnut Creek on Sunday.  A great event and one where we got to see the winning print images.  Our club doesn’t do print images so this was another chance to see and examine the art that is being generated by members of the various clubs.  The Santa Rosa Photographic Society was well represented among the winning images.  Our host explained there were about 2000 images that were judged and if you made it to an Honorable Mention up to First place you have really accomplished something.  Two of our members took first place awards, Gustavo Arizmendi took a first place in Pictorial Images and Dick Weston received a first place in Creative. Congratulations to Forrest Booth, Tim Allen, Loujean LaMalfa Prince, Michael Funk, Dan Murray, Sherri Oster, Nancy Goodenough, Joel Brown, Richard White, Greg Pech, Tara Pavis, Bill Stacy and Trisha Brown for their 2^nd though Honorable mention awards. 

Our new website is up and running now.  Please take the time to look at it.  What a huge improvement and a site we can certainly be proud of.  Many thanks to Nick Allen for all his hard work, along with Tara Pavis who did a poll to find out what our concerns were and how to improve the site.  Nick has plans to teach those of us who will be entering information on how to accomplish this.  Once this happens, we should be fully functional.  Check it out!

More to follow after our next meeting.  See you then.

Mike

I recently sent out two votes for your consideration. One dealt with membership. Currently our membership is year-to-year, January to December. The new wording was proposed as; Membership is annual and starts the first of the month a new member joins. Membership must be current in order to enter the club competitions.  This change came about from feedback given by guests and members. Prospective members were not joining the club in the latter half of the year due to the fact they would have to pay an entire year at the time they joined, and then again shortly thereafter. This change was approved by a vote of 30 yes to 2 no votes.

The second vote was to make the Silverman’s, currently associate members who judge and do presentations to our club, honorary members due to their long-term service to our membership. This vote passed unanimously 34 to 0. I have written to them and advised them of their new status.

One of the items this board is working on to assist our members in improving their photography skills is a mentorship program involving our members who have progressed to the Master level. We are currently in the process of soliciting feedback from our Master level members both current and past. Terry Connolly is taking a lead on this project with the assistance of Nancy Goodenough and Liz Lawson. I will update you as we obtain the various ideas presented and look forward to taking advantage of the great opportunity and experience available from these Master level photographers.

It never ceases to amaze me the talent pool we have in the membership of this club. When I watch the competitions and view the various submissions from every category from “B” up to Master level and listen to the comments from the judges I learn something every time. One of the ways we improve our photography is to challenge ourselves and do something new or different. Recently our competition chair Tara, reviewed and put together charts showing the various levels of competition in the various categories that we compete in, Pictorial, Creative, Nature, Journalism and Monochrome.  The most entered category is Pictorial which isn’t surprising. When you start entering the other categories you will force yourself to look at things differently and expand your knowledge base.  I will attach the charts to this email. 

Tim Allen was the winner of Best in Show this last competition with the photo to the left.  Tim is a very talented photographer and is also our Exhibition Coordinator. You will be hearing from Tim before long about an upcoming exhibition, I hope you will take part in it.   Exhibitions are a lot of fun and you may even sell an image.  

Our next program is Studio/Portrait lighting and will take place February 28^th.  Other upcoming programs are Flash Photography and Light Box photography. I could go on but won’t keep you.  In the next several days I will be sending out another vote as we now have a volunteer to be our secretary.  Thanks to everyone who voted on the last two subjects.  Till next time, keep shooting.

Mike

Hello Everyone,

A quick note to let you know what you missed if you didn’t attend the last competition and the outing to the Phoenix Theatre. We had 18 people attend the outing at the Phoenix. It was a very interesting location with no shortage of colorful subjects to photograph. It was challenging however, in that the light levels were low, and it you didn’t bring a tripod you had to become creative. Many of us were taking photos of the skateboarders, which proved to be extremely challenging due to fast movement, low light and low shutter speeds. Many went out to dinner afterwards and from what I know a good time was had by all. Many thanks to Trisha and Joel for setting this outing up.

Our latest competition reminded me of how many very talented photographers we have in our club at all levels. The Best in Show image went to James Radford who did a self-portrait of sorts using an app called Photospiralysis. You cansee for yourself how it turned out.

Our judge for this competition was Stephen Hinchey, the President of N4C. He did an excellent job of keeping things moving and providing excellent feedback on the images submitted.

Thanks again to all of you that attended and a special thanks to our members who provide the delicious snacks that I tend to eat too many of. See you at the next competition. Remember we have two this month.

Lastly, I am in the process of setting up our first board meeting of the year. I would appreciate it if you email me any ideas you would like brought to the boards attention, or any thoughts you have on what we can do to improve our club for its members.

My name is Michael Funk and I have taken on the daunting task of trying to fill Trisha Browns shoes as president of the SRPS.  Now I don’t know if Trisha has big feet, but I do know she has big shoes, because it is time for me to try to fill them.  What I can promise you, is that I will do my best to make sure the SRPS continues to be a great place for us to meet, learn, and grow in the art form we know as photography. 

OK, so who am I?  I’m a 72-year-old guy who grew up in New York, studied Hotel and Restaurant administration in college, went into the US Air Force for 6 ½ years because the Vietnam war was in need of young men.    A number of years later I became a cop.  I retired in 2001 and have been enjoying life ever since.  Along the way I met my wife Nancy who also worked at the police department.  We have two children, who also have two children. I have an older son, who also has two children.  We all live in Petaluma.   

I have always enjoyed photography. When I was stationed in Taiwan, I spent my free time learning to develop my prints in the darkroom. Over the years I thought I took adequate photographs; however, it wasn’t until about four years ago I actually began to think about what I was doing with my camera. I went to a few photography workshops, and began watching my favorite learning medium, YouTube.  I joined the SRPS almost two years ago and continued to learn by competing and listening to our professional judges.  So here I am now, continuing to learn, and hopefully growing as a photographer.  

OK, so what is ahead, and how do I plan to tackle this position as president?  With the help of all of you that have volunteered to be involved on the board, on committees, and those who participate in our meetings and outings, I believe we can all grow as photographers.  We continue to build on what the SRPS has been doing for long before I became involved.  To begin with, this email is just the first you will receive from me.  I will be writing a monthly email to make sure we are all kept up to date on the goings on in the club.  I will make a concerted effort to get to know all of you better than just saying hello over the snack table, while eating too many of the wonderful treats that our members have worked so hard to provide us.  I will listen to ideas and suggestions.  By working together, we can all continue to become more proficient photographers and further enhance our experience in the Santa Rosa Photographic Society.  

I look forward to seeing you at our meetings and outings. 

Mike