Experiments, competitions, and musings about photography.
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Spring Break Interclub Competition
Every year the Twin City Area Council of Camera Clubs (TCACCC) holds a “Spring Break” meeting with speakers, classes, and a competition. Individual competitors are allowed to enter up to four images in each of five categories. Last year I only entered a couple of categories, but the competition is free for camera club members, Read More …
March 2017 Saint Paul Camera Club Salon
I was in town for the March Saint Paul Camera Club salon, so I could hear for myself what the judge had to say. In hindsight, maybe I should have gone on vacation somewhere instead! Prints: Open color Kamikaze 2 I hate to repeat myself, but I love shooting the state fair midway rides at Read More …
February 2017 Saint Paul Camera Club Salon
As I write this (in June), the Saint Paul Camera Club has already held the year-end awards banquet. That means I know how I did in this year’s club competition. However, you are going to have to wait until I’ve gone through the rest of the season before I give you the final results. Maybe Read More …
January 2017 Saint Paul Camera Club Salon
I had lots of options again this month, with what was essentially open color print and open digital monochrome competitions. Prints: Open color Maybe it was too much openness, because I really struggled to find something to enter. Middle falls at Kuang Si It felt kind of lazy to submit another image from Kuang Si Read More …
December 2016 Saint Paul Camera Club Salon
Usually there isn’t a salon in December, but they added one after a bunch of us whined about wanting more opportunities to compete. So I had another chance (like October) to enter pretty much anything I wanted. Prints: Open monochrome Of course, I still haven’t figured out how to do good monochrome prints. . . Read More …
November 2016 Saint Paul Camera Club Salon
I was out of town for the November salon, but a friend of mine took a few notes for me, so I have some idea what the judge was thinking. Prints: Open Color Mt. Edith Cavell I took this shot at Jasper National Park in Canada a couple of years ago after waiting a very, Read More …
October 2016 Saint Paul Camera Club Salon
While you wouldn’t know it from looking at this blog over the past few months, I have been competing in Saint Paul Camera Club salons again this year. The salon season started in October with themes that were pretty open. That seemed like a great opportunity to enter my best stuff and get a jump Read More …
An (over)abundance of awards
This year’s camera club season is well under way and I haven’t even wrapped up last season for you yet! The Saint Paul Camera Club ends its season with a banquet and awards ceremony in June of each year. Last spring I returned form a road trip just a few hours before the banquet AND Read More …
A bit of a lens disaster
Disaster lurks I’d been trying to take my new Olympus OMD EM-1 everywhere, both to learn to use it before leaving for a month in Europe and to get into the habit of shooting regularly for stock. So I had it with me when I got caught in the rain outside a neighborhood café. The Read More …
Checking out the Olympus OMD EM-1
It’s time for a new camera I bought an Olympus OMD EM-1 last spring. I’ve been thinking about going with a mirror-less camera since I bought my Nikon D600 (now D610) a couple of years ago. I’d heard really good things about Sony’s camera, but it was so new on the market that I just Read More …
Concentrating on the details at Back to the 50s
The Minnesota Street Rod Association’s Back to the 50s festival (it seems like so much more than a car show), is one of the largest vintage car shows in the world. That means the options for photography are almost overwhelming. So, sometimes, focusing on the details is in order. Fortunately there is a seemingly never-ending Read More …
May Saint Paul Camera Club Salon
May was the final salon for the year. Print Competition: Color Going into the salon I had the most points in the color print category, so I really wanted to do well to retain that position. But I also wanted some realistic feedback on a shot I had taken the summer before and wasn’t sure Read More …
Ghost rookery
I was out shooting bridge pictures one evening and found myself across the river from a heron rookery. A straight shoot of it was fine, but kind of boring, so I played with it bit to get a scene reminiscent of an old-fashioned horror movie. Too strange? Or did I need to go farther? I Read More …
April Saint Paul Camera Club Salon
April brought another competition for the Saint Paul Camera Club. Print Competition: Monochrome I had a horrible time choosing prints for this month’s monochrome competition. Well, that’s not exactly true. I had no trouble choosing prints; it was the printing that gave me problems. Both of the prints I wanted to use looked best with Read More …
March Salon
After my pathetic showing in the February salon a week earlier (the February salon was delayed by a snowstorm), I wasn’t really looking forward to the March salon. Print Competition: Color I was really pleased with both of my color print entries, but nervous about them since one of the images I thought was a Read More …
Re-imaging winter at Minnehaha Falls
I spent a morning shooting Minnehaha Falls last winter. Then I spent a couple of evenings experimenting in Lightroom. I started off by just moving sliders around to get a soft feel. Not sure what I was looking for, I started going through my collection of presets. I like the way Trey Ratcliff handles images, Read More …
February Camera Club
The February salon was scheduled for the same day as a snowstorm, so it was delayed several weeks. That was more than ok – it turned out to be a salon that I would have been happy to have skipped all together! Print Competition: Monochrome I was really excited about this month’s monochrome print competition Read More …
Cholla cacti
I’ve been experimenting with how to get photos that reflect the way a scene FEELS, rather than documenting the exact way it LOOKS. For example, these chain fruit cholla cacti looked surreal glowing in the early morning light and became even more alien when a dead branch on the ground decided to attack me. I Read More …
January Camera Club salon
After having a break from competition in December, the Saint Paul Camera Club held its next salon in January. Digital competition: Animals With “animals” as the theme for the month’s competition, I went back to my 2005 safari in Botswana. The judge liked my cheetah family, but didn’t think I had sharpened it enough, so Read More …
November Camera Club Salon
You may recall October’s salon was pretty brutal. Not one to give up, I put as much of my limited time as I could into preparing submissions for November. And then I left for a month in Vietnam and Laos. Because I missed the salon itself (you don’t have to be physically present for your Read More …
October salon enteries
Somehow the new year has rolled around without my actually publishing anything here. Time to change that. First up: October’s Saint Paul Camera Club salon. This year started off with a change. Last year, each monthly salon had both an open print (rotating between mono and color) and a themed digital component. with members allowed Read More …