April 2013 www.ParkWestCameraClub.org 1 Park West Camera Club PHOTO NOTES April 2013 In This Issue Who’s Who & What’s What.......2 & 3 President’s Letter .................................3 Competitions.... ...........................4 & 5 Boston Field Trip.................................6 Expanding Visions..............................7 Club Info.......................................8 & 9 Election Procedures..........................10 Minutes...............................................11 Meet the Members............................13 Auction...............................................14 Year-End Competition......................14 Portfolio Page....................................15 Depth of Field....................................16 Gallery Watching..............................18 Inquiries.............................................22 B&H Event Space..............................22 Adorama Workshops.......................23 Exhibits, Workshops, Etc.................24 Schedule of Activities...............25 - 31
Transcript
April 2013 www.ParkWestCameraClub.org 1
Park WestCamera ClubPHOTO NOTES
Ap
ril 2
013
In This IssueWho’s Who & What’s What.......2 & 3President’s Letter.................................3Competitions.... ...........................4 & 5Boston Field Trip.................................6Expanding Visions..............................7Club Info.......................................8 & 9Election Procedures..........................10Minutes...............................................11Meet the Members............................13Auction...............................................14Year-End Competition......................14Portfolio Page....................................15Depth of Field....................................16Gallery Watching..............................18Inquiries.............................................22B&H Event Space..............................22Adorama Workshops.......................23Exhibits, Workshops, Etc.................24Schedule of Activities...............25 - 31
Park West Camera ClubThe Park West Camera Club is an independent not-for-profit corporation. Guests are always welcome at meet-ings and activities.
The Park West Camera Club newsletter, Photo Notes, is published every month by and for the members of the Park West Camera Club. Subscriptions are included with Club membership. Yearly subscriptions are avail-able to non-members by e-mail at no charge. Printed issues are available at PWCC meetings.
Submissions of full-length articles or smaller items of photographic or general interest are always accepted. The staff of Photo Notes reserves the right to edit any submissions which are published.
Deadline for submissions is the first Monday of each month.
Photo Notes is optimized for viewing on the internet.
Spring is here and photogra-phers who live in the colder climes are thinking thoughts of love—of photography. The Club has an exciting agenda for the spring, so let me high-light a few items. Details are available in the Schedule of Ac-tivities or elsewhere in this is-sue of Photo Notes.• Tuesday, April 9th. Rooftop
Project. See things from a new perspective, High Up! Meet at a member’s home on Riverside Drive at 5 p.m. for evening light and a great sunset, we hope. An-other one is scheduled for April 24th (see the listings).
• Thursday, April 11th. Gal-lery Hop. Join me for the second such event of the season, this time to view the photo galleries on 57th Street and nearby. We may stop in a few interesting atria along the way, so bring your camera.
• Monday, April 29th. Club Auction. A big spring event for the Club. Bring your old photography related items to sell, checkbooks, and in-terested friends. Come a little early to review the stock on hand. This meet-ing also marks the return of President Emeritus Chuck Pine (our auctioneer) and Corresponding Secretary
Helen Bohmart Pine from their Florida sojourn.
• Thursdays, May 2nd thru June 27th. Expanding Vi-sions 19. Chuck Pine’s an-nual class to enhance pho-tographic seeing while traveling to interesting out-door locations in the City. Always a great opportunity to explore and learn!
• Monday, May 13th. Election of Officers. Be sure to at-tend this one! Who will be the next President?
• Monday, June 3rd. The Club’s Year-End Competi-tion wherein three judges select the best images of the past year’s competitions.
• Monday, June 10th. Otto Litzel Dinner. We plan to have it at last year’s loca-
tion, the Salmagundi Club. New officers will be instal-led, awards for service and competition achievements will be given out, plus other thrilling activities!
Of course, there are many other great happenings both club-related or at other venues listed in the Schedule of Activi-ties, or perhaps not yet listed. Spring is a great time to be a photographer. A time which I always look forward to with pleasure!
All the best.
Paul
Photo Notes
Publisher:! Paul PerkusEditor:! Chuck PineCommittee:! Bill Apple, Elsa Blum, Madeleine Barbara, !! Ruth Formanek, Gladys Hopkowitz, Hedy Klein, Helen ! Pine, and Judy RosenblattContributors:! Janna Amelkin, Bill Apple, Christine ! !! Doyle, Marilyn Fish-Glynn, Ruth Formanek, Paul Grebanier, George Hansen, Paul Perkus, Chuck Pine, ! Helen Pine, and Judy Rosenblatt,
Photo Notes is produced on a MacBook Prousing iWork Pages and Adobe Photoshop.
All uncredited images are royalty-free clip art or other-wise believed to be in the public domain.
Credited images remain the sole property of their copyright holders—all rights reserved.
Honor PDIsMermaid by Janna AmelkinBumper Stuffed Toys by Bill AppleClimbing the Dune by Madeleine BarbaraSeltzer Bottles by Madeleine BarbaraRiverside Park Garden by Rain BengisDecay by Ann BroderMorris Jumel by Carole DeBeerCircle Around Sun by Marilyn Fish-GlynnMacaque Monkey by George GrubbSwans in Japan by George GrubbIsmir by Marjorie GurdProgression by George HansenRed Bull Gives You Wings by Barbara MartensThe Head (1) by Elena PierpontShowing Off by Chuck PineBarn Door by Cheryl RicherCorona Park, Queens by Rita RussoLotus Textured by Joan Slatkin
Slide-of-the-MonthStatue with Homeless by Joan Slatkin
Honor Slidesnone
Print-of-the-MonthHavanese Meet-Up by Sarah Corbin
Honor PrintsGoats and Red Door by Sarah CorbinWeb Droplets by Alice Somma
Thanks to our April judge, Marilyn Stern , for an excellent job of critiquing and judging our images.
Congratulations to the winners of Image-of-the-Month and Honors. Thanks to all who entered the competitions.
And a special thanks to all who made this competition happen.
Competition Committeeby George Hansen
The Competition committee has a request for all members who compete in our monthly print competitions.
Prints must be securely mounted. Photo corners are not enough—use some kind of removable tape to keep your pictures from sliding around on the board.
Prints must be labeled with the maker‘s name, a descrip-tive title (for identification purposes), and a mark indicat-ing the top of the print. Many of the entries are on boards or mats that have been used over and over—without removing or covering the old info. Use a new label for each entry (and not Post-It notes). Use differ-ent mats/boards for vertical and horizontal photos and place the label on top of the previous one.
The Park West Camera Club is now planning a 4-day, 3-night trip to Boston, Massachusetts and the surrounding area (if we have enough cars) which includes Lexington, Concord, Walden Pond, Plymouth, and a lot more.
Just think of it… historic Boston… home of the Freedom Trail, the tea party, Paul Re-vere, Faneuil Hall, the USS Constitution, the shot heard ‘round the world… modern Boston… home of the Com-puter Museum, the Boston Sci-ence Museum, dozens of art museums, Fenway Park… gas-tronomic Boston… home of Legal Seafood, No Name Res-taurant, Cheers… natural Bos-ton… with its parks and wooded areas, and, of course, photographic Boston… the people, the architecture, the Charles River…
We leave New York City on Friday, May 24th, traverse the 230 odd miles to the Boston area, settle into our motel for a good night’s sleep, and then awaken to two-and-a-half days of Boston and its environs. We depart on Monday, May 27th, time depending upon what
we’ve already accomplished and what else we’d like to do, arriving back in the Big Apple in the late afternoon or early evening.The estimated cost is $350. This includes a three-night stay at the Best Western Ad-ams Inn (over this holiday
weekend), breakfast each morning, a CharlieCard (un-limited rides of MBTA sub-ways and buses), and a Boston CityPass (admissions to the New England Aquarium, the Prudential Center Observatory Skywalk, the Art and Science Museums, and more). Not in-cluded are transportation costs to and from Boston, other meals (lunches, dinners, snacks), and any other sun-dries, souvenirs, etc.
We will attempt to arrange car pools—if we have enough cars and drivers. Otherwise, public transportation options will be provided.
We have 10 rooms reserved for a total of 20 people. (Addi-tional rooms may be available,but no guarantees.) A $100 de-posit holds your place—full payments gladly accepted.
First come, first (re-) served!
An information sheet will be available at Club meetings.
For more info and/or res-ervations, contact Chuck Pine via phone at 646-549-0187 or e-mail at <[email protected]> or <[email protected]>
Get out your calendars. Find a bright red or blue marker. Cir-cle each and every Thursday from May 2nd through June 27th. These are the dates for the all new version of the ever-popular Expanding Visions.
As usual, this nine-week class will be free to Park West Camera Club members, and only $75 for non-members (or $15 per session up to the $75 maximum payment).
Expanding Visions is a marriage of a field trip class with a class in photographic seeing. We throw in composi-tional and technical aspects as well. This nine-week class will open your mind to new ways of looking at photographs, sub-ject matter, equipment, and more. It will also allow you to explore five of the City’s parks that you may not have visited before.
The format of the class is simple: We start with an intro-ductory session. We will dis-cuss equipment, techniques, and the specifics of the course; a term project will be assigned. For the next two weeks we’ll go on field trips to different places around town and work on the assignments. The fol-lowing session will bring us back indoors where we’ll share our photographs, talk about our experiences, and evaluate what and how well we learned. Two more weeks of
trips and assignments will be followed by another review. Then, the last trip and assign-ment and the final review (in-cluding the term project pres-entations).
The basic thread running through the assignments in Expanding Visions 19 is Draw-ing Your Attention—all of the weekly assignments will have to do with ways to lead the viewer’s eyes to the subject matter and keep them there. The term project will also deal with drawing your attention to the subject in your images.
Not too complicated, is it? Lots of fun and educational, but most of all it will expand your vision in the photographs you take, and allow you to grow as a photographer.
Here’s the class syllabus:
May 2!Introduction—Overview of Equipment, Assignments, Des-tination, and Techniques
May 9!Trip #1—Battery ParkRule of Thirds
May 16!Trip #2—Central ParkLeading Lines and Repetition
May 23!Review of Trips 1 & 2
May 30!Trip #3—Madison Square ParkFraming
June 6!Trip #4—Brooklyn Bridge ParkTriangles and S-curves
June 13!Review of Trips 3 & 4
June 20!Trip # 5—Riverside ParkSelective Focus
June 27!Final Review
As usual, the instructor of this class is the creator of the Ex-panding Visions concept, and PWCC’s president emeritus, Chuck Pine.
Fees (for those non-PWCC members taking the class) are due at the first session (or at each session if paying by the week). Cash or check only.
Let us know if you’ll be attend-ing by sending a message to <[email protected]>
Here’s some information for our members re-garding our Club competitions. All the details may be found in the PWCC By-Laws (Article III) and/or in the illustrated PWCC Competition Manual.
There will be one slide, one print, and one projected digital image (PDI) competition each month.
Each member may submit up to four images each month but no more than two in any com-petition.
Print and slide entries must be submitted to the Competition Committee by 6:45 p.m. on the evening of the competition. PDIs must be e-mailed to <[email protected]> at least one week prior to the competition.
All entries must be sized, labeled, formatted, etc. as described in the Competition Manual.
For the Year-End Competition held in June each member may submit up to four prints, four slides, and/or four PDIs. Only images which competed in this year’s (October through May) monthly competitions are eligible. These entries must be unaltered from their original entry. The Club does not keep records of which slides or PDIs you entered. You should make a list of all your entries (and their scores) for your own benefit when you are ready to submit to the Year-End Competition.
Did You Know?
Did you know that the on-line PDF version of Park West Camera Club’s Photo Notes offers you advantages?
Did you know that all of the website and e-mail addresses are hyperlinks? That means if you click on them, you will be taken to that website (if you are connected to the internet) or to your e-mail program to send an e-mail.
Did you know that the images are in color and of higher quality than when printed out? And, you can enlarge them a bit, too, for detail.
Did you know that reading Photo Notes on-line saves trees, landfills, inks, toners, water, and other natural resources?
Did you know that reading Photo Notes on-line saves the Club over $100 each and every month?
PWCC’s Yahoo Group
Do you have an idea to go out shooting but don’t want to go alone? Have a question about Photoshop, or your camera, or some technique, but don’t have someone to ask? Know of a great photo op or workshop that you’d like to share with your fellow Club members? What are you to do?
Ta Da! The Club’s Yahoo group is the an-swer to your questions. You can communicate with other PWCC members about these and more. All you have to do is sign up for the group. It’s easy and it’s free.
All you have to do is send an e-mail to the Club at <[email protected]>We will respond with an e-mail from the group website, and…you’re in.
If you have a (free) Yahoo e-mail account you can go to the group site. There you can see all prior e-mails, post pictures, post links to other websites of interest, and more. If you don’t have a Yahoo account, you can only send and receive e-mails.
…volunteers to write for the Park West Camera Club’s Photo Notes. Could be on a continuing basis or as a one-shot deal. Experience not nec-essary. Enthusiasm is a must-have. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar or the like—our crack editorial staff handles all the details.
Some suggestions for individual articles or monthly columns are:
• photo magazine reviews• photo workshop reviews• Club field trip reviews• photographic gallery reviews• equipment reviews• technical/technique articles• photographic hints and tips• computer hints and tips• photographic poetry• photography puzzles (X-word, jumbles, word-search, etc.)• recipes from Club pot-luck dinners• anything else you can dream up—as long as it is photo- or Club-related.
PWCC Flickr Groupby Paul Grebanier
Did you know that there is a way for PWCC members to share their pictures with other members and the world? Probably not! Seven years ago, a “Park West Camera Club” Group was set-up on the “flickr” picture sharing and social networking site, just for such a purpose. Unfortunately, the idea never really caught on at that time. The weeds of neglect and disrepair have overgrown the site. But the structure is still there—awaiting rehabilitation. What a waste!
When we go on field trips and attend other PWCC events and take pictures, how do we easily share them? We don’t! How do we get feedback on these images? We can’t! The Solu-tion? Join our flickr group with many other members, and actively add to and comment on the images to be viewed there.
For those who are not flickr members al-ready, you should know that the site allows members to store and share their pics with mil-lions of other members throughout the world–and also with non-members. Uploading pic-tures and making comments is easy. Groups of images and people that share an affinity are also easily created and can be shared by any-one. The site is free to join. But if you really be-come an active member, showing over 200 pics, full membership costs $25 a year.
To view the Park West Camera Club Group, go to<www.flickr.com/groups/pwcc>
To join flickr so you can add pics to the group, and also to make and receive comments, go to <www.flickr.com> or click on the “join group” button shown on the Group front page.
At the March competition meeting we began our yearly election procedures when President Paul Perkus ap-pointed the Nominating Committee. This year the Committee’s responsibility is huge since Paul has announced that he is stepping down from the presidency after three very successful years. The Commit-tee presented a preliminary re-port at the March business meeting.
The Nominating Commit-tee will present its final re-port—a slate of at least one nominee for each position on the Executive Committee (president, vice president, treasurer, corresponding-membership secretary, and re-cording secretary) to the mem-bership at the last meeting in April (the night of the Club Auction).
Also at this last meeting in April, nominations will be opened to the floor. At each succeeding Club meeting lead-ing up to, but not including,
the May business meeting, nominations will again be accepted from the floor.
The third phase of the elec-tion process is the election it-self. This occurs at the May business meeting. If there is only one nominee for each po-sition, then the presiding offi-cer at the meeting can ask the secretary to cast a unanimous vote for the slate. Should there be more than one nominee for any of the five positions, then a written ballot must be pre-pared and a secret vote taken for that/those position(s). (The secretary can still cast the unanimous vote for the unop-posed candidates.)
Members must be present to cast a vote. Ballots will be counted by the Nominating Committee and announced be-fore the end of the business meeting.
Finally, the outgoing offi-cers will be thanked and the incoming Executive Committee installed at the Otto Litzel Memorial Dinner held on the second Monday in June.
African Safari, Anyone?
An opportunity has come to the Club—a ten-day photo sa-fari into Kenya at the height of the Great Migration in Masai Mara Game Reserve. Also in-cluded are nights in Lake Na-kuru National Park, Lake Nai-vasha, and Nairobi.
The dates of the trip are Oc-tober 4th to the 13th, 2013 (not including flight days before and after the trip). The cost is under $5,000 plus air fare from New York to Nairobi (another $1,200 to $1,500). You will be staying at four- and five-star hotels and camps. A maximum of six photographers will be on this tour. Transportation will be in 4X4 vehicles with only three photographers per car.
You will receive personal-ized attention from world-renowned photographer, Paolo Torchio. He will show you daily the best techniques for wildlife photography. At night, he will teach you post-produc-tion techniques and how to improve your photography.
Special bonuses include a welcome dinner upon arrival and a final day lunch at the world-famous Carnivore Res-taurant. During the safari, all meals are included as well as all park fees and airport pick-up and drop-off.
This is a draft copy and has not yet been approved by the membership.
Call to Order – President Paul Perkus called the meeting to order at 7 p.m. A quorum was present. Minutes of Previous Meeting – The minutes of the November 26, 2012 meeting were approved.
Treasurer’s Report – Bank balance of $13,630. $320 is reserved for trips, leaving an adjusted balance of $13,310.
Committee ReportsArchives – George Hansen
(speaking for Myrna Changar) reported that members of the Archive Committee are working on Phase Two of their Scrapbook project, and would like additional members to help with the scanning. A replacement scrapbook of a suitable size has been found. The Archive Committee is also working on an audio/visual history of the club, and will be contacting older and former club members to discuss both the contents of the scrapbook and their reminiscences. The next meeting of the Archive Committee is on Wednesday, April 3rd, at 10 a.m. at Myrna’s
apartment. George will send a notice of these activities to Chuck Pine to include in the next newsletter.
Competition – Joan Slatkin reported that members who have entered slides in competi-tions in the past have decided that they will no longer do so. Paul Perkus suggested this matter be discussed further under New Business.
Field Trip – Paul Grebanier announced that two field trips are scheduled for the coming week: one to the Kings County Distillery and another to Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Bill Apple, leader of the distillery trip, stated that he believes that members will be able to use tripods on the field trip. There is a fee of $8 to sam-ple whiskey produced at the distillery; there is no charge for taking photos.
Gallery – Maria Fernandez reported that Gladys Hopkowitz has arranged a Club exhibit at the Calumet store for the last two weeks in September 2013. Installation is tentatively scheduled for September 16/17; the opening is tentatively scheduled for September 18/19. No theme
has yet been chosen. Maria reported that she still has not been able to contact Maggie Peyton at the Manhattan Borough President’s Office; Marilyn Fish-Glynn noted that because Scott Stringer will be leaving the Borough President post, it is possible that Maggie will be accompanying him.
House – Chuck Elster thanked everyone for helping to put away chairs and keeping the gallery space clean.
Membership – Marlene Schonbrun reported that the membership count is 74 (70 active and 4 inactive).
Newsletter – Paul Perkus reported that the deadline for articles for the April newsletter is April 1st.
Nominating – Chuck Elster reported that some officers are going to continue in their positions, but Paul Perkus will be stepping down as pres-ident. Paul offered to mentor the next Club president. Janna Amelkin suggested the Club consider establishing a co-presidency, which, if adopted by the Club, will entail chang-ing the Club’s Constitution. Discussion among members ensued.
Program – Marilyn Fish-Glynn reported that Marilyn Stern is tentatively lined up to judge the April 1st competi-tion. Marilyn has not lined up any judges for the year-end competition as a motion to change it is pending. The
Social – The Social Com-mittee has refreshments set up for after tonight’s meeting. Paul reported that Sid Georgiou is doing better.
Website – No report (no chair present).
Workshop – Ed Lee reported that there will be a portfolio review on April 8th and a Photoshop workshop on April 22nd.
Old BusinessMotion to eliminate year-end
competition and replace it with a regular monthly competition – Motion put forth by Cheryl Richer and seconded by Jerry Harawitz at the last business meeting. Following discussion among the members of the pros and cons, a vote was taken: 8 in favor, 11 opposed. As the motion was defeated, the year-end competition will continue as is. Paul Perkus asked the Competition Com-mittee to look into some of the other suggested alternatives to replace the year-end competi-tion that were raised during the discussion.
New Business from the ChairClub Auction – Set for April
29th. Ed Lee has prepared instructions, inventory sheets and a press release.
Expanding Visions – This year’s Expanding Visions class will start on May 2nd and run
through June 27th. A fact sheet for the workshop is available.
Extended Field Trip to Boston – Planned for Memorial Day weekend.
Discussion of Monthly Competition – Paul reported that the Executive Committee recommends that the slide part of the monthly competition be discontinued. Joan Slatkin noted again that members who enter slides have decided that they will no longer do so. Chuck Elster put forth a mo-tion to remove “slide” and “slides” from the section(s) of the Bylaws and Constitution that relate to competitions.
Otto Litzel Dinner – Members voted to hold this year’s Otto Litzel dinner at the Salmagundi Club on June 10th. Marilyn Fish-Glynn and Paul Perkus will follow up about the arrangements for the din-ner. Marvin Fink suggested that Club funds be used to defray the cost of the dinner. Marilyn noted that the rent the Club pays to the Soho Photo Gallery to use the space for its meetings will be going up shortly, as Soho Photo Gal-lery’s rent was recently raised, and that the Club should not spend its money yet. Currently the Club pays $120 per meet-ing, but it is not yet known how much that will increase. A discussion ensued among members as to the pros and cons of using Club funds to defray the cost of the year-end
dinner. Marilyn will report back as to the status of the upcoming rent increase.
New Business from the FloorChuck Elster suggested that
a system of naming shadow or assistant board members to fill in when the respective officers are away be considered. Paul Perkus asked the Nominating Committee to explore this option.
Maria Fernandez an-nounced that she is stepping down as chair of the Gallery Committee.
Bill Apple asked if the deadline for entering PDIs could be shortened since he does not think loading and proces-sing them for competit-ion night should take that long. Eileen Duranko and Sarah Corbin, who have both taken on this task in the past, said that the process was more time -consuming than he imagined.
Marilyn Fish-Glynn asked if members would like her to ask certain competition judges to return more often than every other year, which is her current practice. The consensus of the members was that Marilyn is doing a fine job selecting judges and should continue to do as she sees fit.
Elena Pierpont asked if PDIs of prints could be inclu-ded in the competition slide-show that is circulated each month. Discussion followed about who would undertake
the task, including following up with members to make sure that they submit their PDIs, and whether a rule should be adopted that bars members from competing if they don’t submit a PDI of their print. Paul Perkus asked that mem-bers fully consider the issue and discuss it further at the next business meeting (May).
Good & WelfarePaul reported that life-
member Gary Koulish is doing well. Gary has spoken with Sid Georgiou, who reports he is doing better. Paul and Gary plan to visit the Bill Brandt exhibit at MoMA this Friday. Paul also saw the Roman Vishniac show at ICP and recommends it (a review of the show will be printed in the April Photo Notes).
Marilyn Fish-Glynn reported that the Soho Photo Gallery will be doing a show on New York street photo-graphy next month.
Adjournment The meeting was adjourned
at 8:20 p.m.
Meet the Memberby Janna Amelkin
Michael Schleiff was born and raised in New York City. He earned a Bachelors Degree in Print Management at Roches-ter Institute of Technology. He did film photography and worked in the darkroom for his classes at the Institute as well as for himself. Subsequently, Michael worked for large cor-porations purchasing printed materials.
Michael took photos on and off for many years and af-ter he retired he picked up his interest in photography again. In the beginning he actually did not take many pictures, but concentrated on creating in Photoshop. Eventually, he be-gan to take more pictures.
Michael has been taking photos of landscapes, birds, and other animals. He has traveled a great deal for his work, but did not always have the opportunity to see much of the countries he visited. For
example, he spent four to five months in Australia, but had only limited opportunities to see this country. He would like to go back to some of the places he traveled to in the past, such as Machu Picchu, Yellowstone, and Yosemite. At the time, Michael did take some photographs in these lo-cations, but he was not really serious about it.
About five years ago, Mi-chael started working digitally, initially using a point and shoot camera. Subsequently, he used a Nikon D3000, and a few years ago he purchased a Nikon D5200. Because he wanted to improve on his pho-tography, Michael looked into camera clubs by using the internet and talking to people. He likes that Park West has competitions and critiques, be-cause these sessions give him ideas and help him expand his horizons. Michael looks for-ward to taking some of the day trips the Club organizes, at-tending meetings, and making new friends along the way.
Welcome to Park West Camera Club, Michael.
CLU
B
Why?
Why is abbreviated such a long word?
Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
More Why?
Why do supermarkets make the sick people walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy ciga-rettes at the front?
April 29th is the date for the annual PWCC auction. Mem-bers and guests are invited to bring any photography, com-puter, or photo-related items which they want to sell.
Items must be brought on the night of the auction start-ing at 6:00 p.m. but not later than 7 p.m. (Sorry, but items may not be stored earlier at Soho Photo.) Each item must be accompanied by a com-pleted “Auction Inventory Sheet” which includes your name, a description of the item, a minimum opening bid (optional), and what percent of the final selling price you wish to donate to the Club (PWCC gets at least 20%, but you can give more—up to 100%). These forms will be available the week prior to the auction; they will also be available on auc-tion night.
As a buyer, you must have cash on hand, (or a personal check if you are a Club mem-ber) to pay for the items you
bid on and win. Purchased items must be taken home at the conclusion of the auction.
Items not sold will return to their original owners and must be taken home that night. Un-wanted items may be disposed of in the trash receptacles.
Those people who sell items will be paid their per-centage at the Club’s business meeting in two weeks on May 13th. If you cannot attend, a check will be mailed to you. [Note—if you’re not a PWCC member please be sure to leave your mailing address with us so we can send your payment in a timely fashion.]
Good shopping!
Year-End Competition
The Year-End Competition will be held on June 3rd. It is different from our monthly competitions: the rules of entry are different; the judging is dif-ferent; the rewards are, too.
Each Club member may submit up to four prints, four slides, and four PDIs. But, and this is a big but, all the submis-sions must have been entered into one of the monthly com-petitions held this year (Octo-ber through May). It doesn’t matter if the images were awarded honors or got a ‘C’— they are eligible for this com-petition. But, images may not be altered from the way they were originally entered. You can’t reprint a print; you can’t spot out a speck of dust; you can’t even crop a slide with a piece of tape—it must be the original, unaltered image.
There will be three judges. Each of the three will score from one to nine points for each image. A Club member (one who is good at math) will add the scores and immedi-ately call out the totals. Pic-tures can accumulate any-where from 3 to 27 points. For each group of entries—prints, slides, and PDIs—there will be one winner (the Print-, Slide- and PDI-of-the-Year) plus four runners-up.
Good luck to all the en-trants!
CLU
B
Definitions
Depth of Field—The degree to which the scene remains in acceptably or perceived sharp focus in front of and beyond the focal plane. A larger aper-ture number (i.e., f/16) pro-duces a broader depth of field. A smaller aperture number (i.e., f/2.8) can be used to throw the background out of focus, drawing the viewer's eye to the main subject. Often abbreviated as DoF.
This month we feature the photographs of the Club’s Recording Secretary, Helen Bohmart Pine.
“All of these images were shot at an Indian powwow last month in Fort Pierce, Florida, just an hour or so north of our condo in Delray Beach. It was a field trip sponsored by one of our camera clubs down here, PASFLA (Photographic Arts of South Florida).”
As a tyke, it took me years to master coloring between the lines, one of life’s essential skills. Of course, like many other things coloring was far simpler back then.
Your basic 1950s box of crayons offered eight colors— though if you knew how to wheedle, persistence might eventually pay off. You might wear Mom down sufficiently to spring for the giant 48-color box.
Even eight crayons, how-ever, was more than enough for budding artists. The smart-est kids in class—they some-how knew color theory—had discovered early on that you needed just black and the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. To them, the other crayons—orange, green, brown and violet—were simply be-side the point. You could make those colors by combining the other four. Magic!
Today’s tykes, by contrast, suffer a surfeit of crayons: The bulging Crayola box now packs 120, a cornucopia. Yet picking the right sun from among, say, Sunglow, Golden-rod and Dandelion could send a child running for Tylenol or an early nap. The choices—the artistic decisions—have multi-plied to beyond overwhelm-
ing, which can actually bring on creative paralysis. Who can keep track of 120 crayons? Who can keep track of 120 any-thing?
(A chart located here <http://tinyurl.com/ycqk6hr> shows all of Crayola’s 120 hues with their RGB values, so you can replicate them in Photo-shop. (Don’t act surprised if the new shades of Mauvelous or Radical Red should creep into my photos.)
This glutted gamut hasn’t come out of left field. Crayola’s marketing no doubt reflects business’ current obsession with “supersizing” and a re-tailing gospel that more is al-ways merrier, if you want to sell, sell, sell. What a U-Turn from Henry Ford’s stance of 1908, when he told car buyers that they could have his Model T in any color they wanted, “as long as it was black.”
What’s this to do with pho-tography? Well, camera makers aren’t insulated from market-ing trends. They’re selling cameras these days in more styles and varieties than ever. Companies have “segmented” photographers many ways, targeting buyers by budget, skill, “seriousness” of purpose, and their desire for features like the “compactness” of a camera, its ruggedness, or wa-terproofing.
The canniest of manufac-turers have sliced and diced the market even more finely within traditional camera types like point-and-shoot cameras versus DSLRs and the newer mirrorless technology: cameras with interchangeable lenses but lighter weight than stan-dard DSLRs.
Other factors figure too: prowess in video, in standard resolution or Hi-Def; sensor
PH
OT
OG
RA
PH
Y
Riot of Color Since 1903, the number of hues in Crayola’s ! color assortment has grown 15-fold. But who really needs 120 ! crayons, and is more always merrier?
size and megapixel count, and zoom ranges when lenses are built in. And let’s not forget the frivolity factor: color, important when accessorizing your out-fits.
All this adds up to gazil-lions of choices. Even more, considering how features are implemented. Lack of a spacious LCD, for example, could be a deal-breaker. Likewise, convo-luted menus might nix a pur-chase in favor of a camera whose body bristles with dials, switches, and buttons, for quicker, more direct access to settings.
And other features. My mirrorless Olympus PEN E-P3, neat and compact, offers a “Scene” menu like many be-ginners’ models (though the Olympus isn’t for novices). Set it for Fireworks, Beach, Night Photography, Portraits, and several other photographic tasks. The camera then takes care of exposure settings, so you needn’t remember just how you handled those tricky fireworks last July 4th. Was it a fast or slow shutter, high or low ISO, narrow or wide f/stop, over- or underexposed shot? Not to worry. The camera will know.
But relying on that Scene feature, I’m afraid, is guaran-teed to make anyone dopey. You’ll never master capturing fireworks—or the principles in-volved—if you let your camera do all the heavy lifting.
I often cope with too many features by ignoring them, not letting them overwhelm me. I figure I can learn what I need to, when I need to, and pick up the rest later. That’s also a good strategy for software as com-plex as Photoshop: learn a core of operations, and whatever else you need you can master as the situation demands. For-tunately, the Internet offers many free how-to videos and advice.
Business is slowly discover-ing that too much choice might be, well, too much. Researchers several years ago comman-deered a supermarket for a few days. On certain days, shop-pers could choose among 24 flavors of jam in the jam aisle; on other days, that choice was pared to just 8 flavors. Per-versely, the more flavors on display, the less jam sold that day. Shoppers couldn’t decide, so they moved on.
We live in a more compli-cated world than did our par-ents. That shouldn’t put you off or stifle photographic crea-tivity. But why deny yourself learning opportunities by tak-ing the features and conven-iences manufacturers offer in-stead of turning to your own resourcefulness?
Likewise, giving a child 8 crayons can only foster creativ-ity far more than providing 120 crayons. I cannot prove that, but it makes sense. I imagine van Gogh didn’t need a 120-
color palette to create Starry Night or those famous Sun-flowers. Certainly, he mixed pigments, but I’m equally cer-tain that he did far more with far less.
Street PhotographyBy Marilyn Fish-Glynn
In conjunction with their April themed exhibit on street pho-tography, the Soho Photo Gal-lery (PWCCs hosts) is sponsor-ing a panel discussion and a screening of a documentary film about New York street photographers.
Everybody Street illuminates the lives and work of New York’s iconic street photogra-phers and the incomparable city that has inspired them for decades. The documentary pays tribute to the spirit of street photography through a cinematic exploration of New York City, and captures the vis-ceral rush, singular persever-ance and at times immediate danger customary to these art-ists. The film features Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Jill Freedman, Joel Meyerowitz, Rebecca Lepkoff, Mary Ellen Mark, Jeff Mermelstein, and others.
The panel discussion will include a number of the pho-tographers who are participat-ing in the Gallery’s featured street photography exhibit.
Bill Brandt, Shadow and Light; Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street; through August 12th Judy writes:Before seeing this exhibit, Bill Brandt’s name conjured up for me only vague images of dis-torted nudes on beaches. That his work encompasses so much more is the revelation of this superb retrospective. The exhibit’s plan tells the story: it is divided into six clearly de-fined sections: London in the 30s, Northern England, WorldWar II, Portraits, Landscapes, and Nudes. Coming to appreci-ate Brandt’s earlier work by writing about it here, I can readily understand why he is considered England’s foremost 20th Century photographer.
Actually, Brandt was born to a wealthy family in Ger-many in 1904; it wasn’t until 1934 that he finally settled in England, always going to great pains to obscure his German origins. He took up photogra-phy when, suffering from tu-berculosis as a teenager, he was sent to Swiss sanitariums. His later wanderings took him to Vienna and Paris, where he worked briefly as Man Ray’s
assistant and was greatly in-fluenced by Atget, Kertesz, and especially the night pho-tography of Paris by Brassai. Scrapbooks of his youth and examples of his early work start off the exhibit. In London he set out to document the various strata of British soci-ety: “The extreme social con-trast during those years before the war was, visually, very in-spiring for me.” And so in Sec-tion 1 we have the upper classes enjoying the races at Ascot or a game of backgam-mon, as well as a chamber-maid testing the temperature
of a bath and a
working class men in a pub. Although he considered this early work as documentary and stated that after the war he turned more to the “poetic trend” in photography, I feel his work to be full of poetry from the start. Note the word “visually” in the above quote. His concern for aesthetics and strong composition was ever present; he felt strongly that he must make his own prints and manipulated extensively to get
just the right tones. I think the dark, brooding atmosphere in much of his work (the Shadow side of the exhibit) goes far be-yond a straight documentary approach. Brandt, who died in 1983, never had a chance to experience digital technology. He stuck with black and white, feeling he didn’t do well with color.
In Section 2 Brandt photo-graphed coal miners in the northern mining towns; here a miner, blackened from his day in the mines, eats dinner with his wife, or, in another image, is washed down by his wife. One of Brandt’s most beautiful images, to me, is that of an un-employed miner in Jarrow: A dark, hunched figure on the right side walks toward us pushing a bike laden with a bag of his meager coal pick-ings. He stands out against the silvery path he’s on, which cuts through a field of dark grass. If you look closely you
can see where Brandt probably manipulated the shot to make the figure stand out more starkly. A hill rises through gray mist in the background. This can bring up the argu-ment that the beauty of an im-age can undermine its social message. But I think the sense of weary struggle is very pal-pable here. Brandt’s dark scenes of Halifax, (England) are also memorable, some with a silvery road—or a "snicket" —cutting through them.
The publication of two books of his early work se-cured Brandt’s reputation as a photographer during the 1930s and led to assignments in lead-ing British picture magazines. During WWII (Section 3) he was commissioned by the Brit-ish Ministry of Information to photograph people in air raid shelters, along with Henry Moore, who drew them. His scenes of sleeping children and others taking shelter wherever they could, are affecting re-minders of what Britons had to endure during this time.
Brandt also wandered Lon-don during blackouts and took luminous photos of deserted streets lit only by moonlight, which he found “so soft, like stage lighting.” Again, here is the incongruity: a horrible war calls forth cityscapes of great beauty. Is the message strengthened or diluted? Still another facet of Brandt’s photography can be seen in
Section 4, his portraits of emi-nent British artists, actors, and
literary figures—all in their own environments. In Section 5 Brandt applies the same sen-sibility to brooding literary landscapes that he does to his early cityscapes. As I've men-tioned, I feel Brandt’s work was poetic from the start, eventhough he only applied that word to his later work (to be covered by Ruth). The earlier work I’ve covered here pre-sents a unique and enduring record of mid-century Britain by a virtuoso photographer. I prefer it to the later, surreal nudes, for which Brandt is re-nowned.
Ruth writes:Bill Brandt wrote about his photography in a 1948 article. I have used parts of it and you can read all of it and get more information on him online, at The Bill Brandt Archive <www.billbrandt.com>
Towards the end of the war, he wrote, “My style changed completely. England was no longer a country of marked social contrast. Whatever the reason, the poetic trend of pho-tography, which had already excited me in my early Paris days, began to fascinate me again. It seemed to me that there were wide fields still un-explored. I began to photo-graph nudes and landscapes. Orson Welles’ film Citizen Kane had a definite influence on my work at this time.
“Feeling frustrated by mod-ern cameras and lenses which seemed designed to imitate human vision and conven-tional sight, I was looking everywhere for a camera with a very wide angle. One day in a secondhand shop I found a 70-year-old wooden Kodak. I was delighted. Like a 19th-century camera, it had no shut-ter, a wide-angle lens, and its aperture, as minute as a pin-hole, was focused on infinity.
“I began to let myself be guided by this camera and in-stead of photographing what I saw, I photographed what the camera was seeing. I interfered very little, and the lens pro-duced anatomical images and shapes which my eyes had never seen. For over fifteen years I was preoccupied with photographing nudes. I learned very much from my Kodak. It taught me how to use distortion to convey the
weight of a body or the light-ness of a movement. In the end, it had also taught me how to use modern cameras in an unorthodox way. In 1961, I dis-carded the Kodak altogether.”
Brandt’s nudes are his most innovative work: His photographs of curled-up tor-sos on the East Sussex beach look like Henry Moore sculp-tures. His models’ knees and bottoms rise to form moun-tains or rocks, arms become columns, fingers become living creatures set against smooth beach pebbles. Buttocks as-sume balloon proportions in some prints. Brandt’s titles re-fer to sites, not to the model, for example, ‘East Sussex Beach,’ suggesting that his in-terest was on the form quali-ties and environment of his nudes, not on their erotic value. One can, of course, con-tinue to interpret: Does his omission of the name of the model in favor of the locale suggest what was important to
him? Does he express an atti-tude toward the nude—seen one, seen ‘em all? This dismis-sive view contrasts, however, with contemporaries’ descrip-tions of Brandt as ‘empathic.’
Most photographed nudes are influenced by the ancient Greek ideal. Think of the pro-portions of the Venus of Milo, probably a standard dress size 14 or 16. Bill Brandt’s non-standard nudes, due to his Kodak’s wide-angle lens, differ
from the Greek ideal in their distortions, positions, and pos-tures, and could never find a dress in Macy*s.
One could also debate the issue of surrealism, defined as the combination, inside the same frame, of elements not normally found together, re-sulting in the production of unrealistic, illogical, and fan-tastic effects. As such, the compositions contribute to the freedom of artistic production. Think of Dali!
If, however, like Brandt, you use your camera to distort the reality of a nude body, does the photograph not just resem-ble a surrealist image? Is it not surrealist-like rather than sur-realist? Or am I quibbling?
Fellow Club Members: Do not let this exhibit leave town without seeing it!
Two other “do not miss” ex-hibits are:
Thierry Cohen, Darkened Cities; at Danziger Gallery, 527 West 23rd Street; until May 4th
Judy writes:Thierry Cohen, born in Paris in 1963, is considered a pioneer of digital photography. I have to state straight out that I think what he has achieved here is amazing and profound, and I hope everyone who reads this will see his work. He has ex-tended Brandt’s vision of city nights with a whole new per-spective in mind: to show us what our night skies would look like if city light pollution hadn’t wiped them from our view.
To do this, he photo-graphed various city views during the day, which could easily be turned into darkened skylines in Photoshop. The cit-ies he covered are Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Rio, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, San Fran-cisco and New York. Next he photographed night skies in
unpolluted locations, like de-serts, at the same latitudes as the cities. Then he combined city and sky images—in effect restoring our actual city skies. We can now see our great ur-ban achievements dwarfed and silenced by the dazzle and immensity of the star-filled cosmos.
In Bill Brandt’s words, we are “given again a sense of wonder.” If you can’t make the exhibit, you can view it on-line at his website located at <www.thierrycohen.com> But either way, don’t miss it.
Wang Wusheng, Celestial Realm at Barry Friedman Ltd., 515 West 26th Street, to April 27th
Ruth writes:This is a solo exhibit of photo-graphs by the contemporary Chinese artist Wang Wusheng, born in 1945. Wang attended college during the Cultural Revolution, and was sent, as
were most other college stu-dents at the time, to an army reclamation farm for ‘re-education.’ In 1971, he found what became his lifelong pas-sion, photography, and he has worked for news magazines and as a freelancer, mostly in Japan.
Celestial Realm has been de-scribed as a symphony of dark and light, of both substance and emptiness. Vertical peaks emerge from mists that veil a deep abyss. Tall trees are dwarfed by precipices, sug-gesting a sense of mystery and infinity.
All images are from the Yel-low Mountains, known as the Mount Huangshan range. With its 72 peaks, it has been a main subject of Chinese artists for centuries. The range is located in Anhui province, not far from Shanghai.
Wang Wusheng violates a major rule we learned as black-and-white photographers: Avoid large all-white ‘blown-out’ areas in your images. But not this photographer! He in-cludes vast portions of all-
white mist and fog which add to the drama.
Don’t miss the show!
Back-Up Day
Sunday, March 31, was World Back-Up Day. Like Mother’s Day, Earth Day, and Ground-hog Day, Back-Up Day is a somewhat arbitrary, made-up date to help people become more aware of something im-portant. Instead of calling at-tention to Mom, the environ-ment, or prognosticating ro-dents, Back-Up Day stands as an annual reminder of a simple fact: If you don’t have good back-ups, you will inevitably lose data.
This message is doubly im-portant for photographers. You must back-up your image files!—unless you’re looking for disaster (or you simply just don’t care about your photos).
There are many ways to as-sure the safety of your files: use storage facilities on/in the mists of the Cloud; buy lots of media cards (SD, CF, etc.) and keep them in a shoebox; or (my favorite), invest in an ex-ternal hard drive (or two, or three,…) and stick to a strict regimen of downloading and backing-up all your precious photo files.
I often see the word aberration when reading about digital pho-tography and equipment. What is an aberration (in photographic terms)?
Essentially, anything in an image that is not supposed to be there is referred to as an ab-erration. There are two kinds of aberrations in photos: spherical (or optical) and chromatic (or color).
For example, optical imper-fections within a lens may cause spherical aberrations such as barrel distortion (the outward curvature of straight lines; it is most noticeable in wide-angle lenses) or pincush-ioning (the inward curvature of straight lines, almost as if the image were pinched; it is most common in telephoto lenses). Similarly, imperfec-tions within a lens may cause chromatic aberrations (a failure of a lens to focus all colors at the same convergence point—the sensor or the film). Chro-matic aberrations result in color fringing (usually cyan or magenta edges around parts of images).
Modern lenses, usually the more expensive ones, include optical elements which reduce both spherical and/or chro-matic aberrations. They may also be reduced or eliminated with your favorite image-editing software programs.
B & H Event Space
B&H Photo offers free work-shops. Here are a few of this month’s offerings:
Wednesday, April 10thOperation I.D.Speaker: NYPD
Monday, April 15thTax Day Photo WalkLeaders: The B&H Mavens
Tuesday, April 16thOptimizing in LightroomSpeaker: Tim Grey
Tuesday, April 16thCreate Your Own WebsiteSpeaker: Natalie Gourvitch
Wednesday, April 17thWedding PhotographySpeaker: Denis Reggie
Thursday, April 18thBe a Headshot HotshotSpeaker: Ron Goodman
Thursday, April 25th15 DSLR Hidden FeaturesSpeaker: Jeff Cable
Sunday, April 28thPinhole PhotographyLeaders: The B&H Mavens
Tuesday, April 30thPractical Travel PhotographySpeaker: Ron Wyatt
Tuesday, April 30thPortrait PhotographySpeaker: Brian Smith
Check out the B&H website at <www.bhphoto.com> for all the details as well as a com-plete list of additional presen-tations, and to register for the course(s) of your choice. Please note, they do accept walk-ins for events that have not reached capacity. The B&H Event Space is located on the second floor of their Super-Store, at 420 9th Avenue.
Can you name this photog-raphy accessory? No prizes, just a fun challenge! Send your guesses to the website <[email protected]>Googling not permitted—on your honor!
Answer next month in Photo Notes.
Last Month’s Answer
This is an Accessory Port Adapter that lets you connect a wide range of accessories to your camera through the hot shoe.
Last Month’s CorrectAnswerers…
There were no correct an-swers this month. In fact, there were no responses at all. Are these too difficult…or is there just no interest?
Workshops @ Adorama
We have listed the workshops at B&H for many years now, and some members have been asking why we don’t list those offered by the competition—at Adorama. So here we go…
But, before we get started here are some things you should know. The workshops at Adorama cost $25 each. Payment is due upon registra-tion. No walk-ins are permit-ted. It’s not all bad, though. At the end of the presentation you are given a voucher worth the same $25 which is good to-wards any purchases in the store or on-line. The voucher, however, must be used within one month of the workshop.
If you can get past the high finances and the deadlines, the actual workshops are just as high a caliber as those given by B&H.
Tuesday, April 9thMastering FlashSpeaker: Arlene Collins
Sunday, April 21stExploring Brooklyn’s DUMBOSpeaker: Joe DiMaggio
Wednesday, April 24thMyths in Digital PhotographySpeaker: Tim Grey
Tuesday, April 30thThe Passionate PhotographerSpeaker: Steve Simon
Tuesday, May 7thLighting for HeadshotsSpeakers: David Piazza
Wednesday, May 22ndCreativity & InnovationSpeaker: Keith Ladzinsky
Wednesday, May 29thAdvanced DSLR PhotographySpeaker: David Snyder
The live learning workshop events are held in the multi-media learning space at the Adorama Building on 42 West 18th Street, unless otherwise indicated. Sign up for any workshops you want to join at <www.adorama.com/workshops>
Space is limited and the Workshops fill up fast—so don’t miss your opportunity to learn from the best in the busi-ness. Sign up now!
PhotoTalk is a cable TV pro-gram devoted to…guess what? Well, you’re almost right—it is about women in photography. The episode airing in April fea-tures fine art photographer, Martine Fougeron, and is hosted by Barbara Leven, the Club’s critic at our April port-folio review.
PhotoTalk airs in Manhat-tan only on one of the munici-pal channels: RCN’s 82, FIOS’s 33, and Time Warner’s 34. This episode will air on Tuesday, April 9th at 8 p.m., Thursday, April 18th at 9 p.m. and on Sunday, April 28th at 11 a.m.
For those of us not living on the Island of Manhattan, you can see the program via live streaming on channel #1 at <www.mnn.org>
For the Horse Lovers
Don’t you just love those pho-tos of wild horses running across an open field, dust set ablaze by the rising sun, and maybe a cowboy or two twirl-ing a lasso? If you do, this Bud’s for you!
Photographer and work-shop leader Lynne Pomeranz is offering several workshops in New Mexico, Utah, and Wyo-ming where you can shoot horses to your heart’s content.
Go here for full details <www.wildhorseworkshops.com>
Northern Lights, Anyone?by Chuck Pine
I am thinking about planning a Club field trip to photograph the northern lights—the Aurora Borealis. Anyone interested?
Here’s the basic outline for the trip. It’ll occur next winter, in January or February. We’ll fly to Bergen on the southern coast of Norway and take a few days to explore this World Heritage Site city. We then board our Hurtigruten ship to sail north along the Norwegian coast, exploring many small towns, dozens of fjords, is-lands, and the like. We disem-bark in the town of Kirkenes along the border with Finland and Russia where we spend a few more nights. Finally, we fly to Oslo to spend time there shooting the sights.
All along the way, we’ll have opportunities to photo-graph the wonderful land-scapes and seascapes, the peo-ple, the wildlife, and, of course, the nighttime skies.
The trip will probably be about two-and-a-half weeks in length and will cost roughly $4000 per person, double oc-cupancy including airfare, all meals while on the ship, and lodging in the cities and towns.
Interested? Let me know at <[email protected]> or speak to me at a Club meeting (we’ll be back in the Big Apple by the end of April).
The Park West Camera Club meets every Monday night (with some exceptions for holidays and a curtailed sum-mer schedule). Please join us at a meeting or on one of our other scheduled activities.
All Club Monday night meetings take place at the Soho Photo Gallery located at 15 White Street, between West Broadway and Church Street/Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue) unless indicated oth-erwise in the listings below. Following the schedule of ac-tivities are detailed directions to each of our meeting sites.
Check the PWCC Website <parkwestcameraclub.org> for late-breaking details on all meetings and other PWCC activities.
All meetings begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise indicated below.
An asterisk (*) preceding the date indicates an official PWCC activity. Other listings included below are: Photo Events which may be of inter-est to photographers; and Photo Ops which offer oppor-tunities to take pictures.
* Monday, April 8!Portfolio Review Night
Four or five Club members are invited to bring a concise port-folio of their work for an in-depth review and critique. Each will present up to 12 im-ages on the same subject or theme. Our critic for this eve-ning’s review will be Barbara Leven. Barbara is a New York City-based fine arts photogra-pher specializing in close-ups of details in the world around us. She has judged at Club competitions, presented her work to the Club, and presided over one of our previous port-folio reviews—all with great
success. You can see more of Barbara’s images and a resumé at <www.barbaraleven.com> The participants for tonight are Club members Susan Sigrist, David de la Rocha, Barbara Martens, and Jerry Harawitz.
* Tuesday, April 9Field Trip—Rooftop Project
We continue shooting for the rooftop project as we return to the scene of the first event in this series, on the Upper West Side, the home of Marlene Schonbrun. We meet in the lobby of her building, 315 Riv-erside Drive, at 104th Street (the entrance is actually on West 104th Street), at 5 p.m. Be sure to dress for the weather. Since we’ll be shooting both before and after sunset, be sure to bring a tripod to achieve those rock-steady shots. Sign up at a Club meeting or contact Barbara Martens, 551-655-8068, <[email protected]>to let her know of your interest in joining the group.
Tuesday, April 9Photo Event—
Tuesday Evening HourTuesday Evening Hour is an artists non-profit slide-show program whose mission is to expose the works of artists to the public. Each Tuesday a working photographer pre-sents a slide show/lecture. No reservations required—just ar-rive. Tonight’s slide presenta-tion is South America: Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia by Vlassios Pyrpyris, engineer, naturalist, world traveler, photographer. The show begins at 6:30 p.m. and is held at St. Margaret’s
House, 49 Fulton Street (near South Street Seaport). The clos-est subway is the #2 or #3 train at the Fulton Street station, but others are nearby. A $2.00 do-nation is requested.
* Wednesday, April 10Field Trip—Butterflies
PWCC member Marvin Fink works as a volunteer guide at the American Museum of Natural History's live butterfly exhibit. He has obtained free passes for Park West mem-bers—admission normally costs about $30. We’ll meet on the front steps at the Central Park West entrance, near 81st Street, at 11 a.m. You are then invited to visit the cafeteria and/or the rest of the Mu-seum’s exhibits. Please note, the butterfly exhibit is quite warm, so dress appropriately. To register, contact Marvin at 718-469-5478, by e-mail at <[email protected]> or sign up at any meeting.
* Thursday, April 11Field Trip—Gallery Hop
PWCC president, Paul Perkus, will be leading another of his
gallery hops—this time to the City’s original art and photog-raphy hot spot, upper Mid-town Manhattan. We’ll meet on the northeast corner of East 57th Street and Madison Ave-nue at 11 a.m. (in front of the Fuller Building) and explore from there. There are dozens of galleries plus lots of street ac-tivity as well, so bring your camera and this can be a shoot-ing field trip as well. Be sure to sign up for this trip so we know whom to expect and/or to wait for if you’re late.
* Monday, April 15Guest Speaker-Raissa VenablesTonight’s guest photographer is Raissa Venables. Raissa’s photographs portray distorted rooms with intoxicating colors in a surreal manner. De-spite the ab-sence of people in her photo-graphs, we still feel their souls in the rooms. Although her work is con-temporary, in-volving the engagement of the latest tech-nology, Venables is in-
fluenced by important artistic innovations in history. This in-
cludes the usage of perspec-tives and colors of the classical Renaissance, the Expressionist exploration of the relationship between color and emotions, and the Cubist experimenta-tion of depicting an object in multiple viewpoints on canvas. The result is the mesmerizing impact Raissa’s photographs have on us, the viewers, al-lowing us to imagine the dreams, nightmares, and events that took place in those spaces. For more information on Raissa, you are invited to check out her website at <www.raissavenables.com> The curtain raiser tonight is Park West Camera Club’s very own long-time member and president, Paul Perkus.
Tuesday, April 16Photo Event—
Tuesday Evening HourTonight’s slide presentation is Exploring Greenwood Cemetery by Louise Luger, published photographer, workshop in-structor, NYSCA grant recipi-ent. See the listing under April 9th for more info.
* Monday, April 22!Executive Committee Meeting
Prior to tonight’s meeting, the Club’s ExCom will meet to dis-cuss the future of PWCC. All members are invited to attend “with voice but without vote.” The meeting begins at 6 p.m. and will be held in the meeting room at Soho Photo Gallery.
For this evening the Workshop Committee has scheduled a lesson in using the Photoshop software program. This will be led by two of our resident Pho-toshop experts, Eileen Duranko and Natalie Manzino. They will start with basics and go up from there. All Club members are encouraged to attend, contribute, and partici-pate.
Tuesday, April 23Photo Event—
Tuesday Evening HourTonight’s slide presentation is Cruising Columbia Gorge by Ron Nelson and Al Lees, retired editors, travelers to 155 coun-tries. See the listing under April 9th for more info.
* Wednesday, April 24Field Trip—Rooftop Project
We continue shooting for the rooftop project as we return to the roof that spawned the whole idea at the Club’s Chuck Pine Labor Day Picnic, the home of Gladys Hopkowitz. We meet in front of the West-minster, 180 West 20th Street at 7th Avenue (the entrance is on 20th Street). The meeting time is yet to be disclosed. Be sure to dress for the weather. Since we’ll be shooting both before and after sunset, be sure to bring a tripod to achieve those rock-steady shots. Sign up at a
Club meeting or contact Bar-bara Martens, 551-655-8068, <[email protected]>to let her know of your interest in joining the group. Space is limited, so sign up early.
Wednesday, April 24Photo Event—Sierra Photo
The New York City Sierra Club’s Photography Commit-tee is holding its meeting to-night. The program for this evening is Determining Creativ-ity, a presentation by photog-rapher Carl Heilman II. Carl brings over 30 years of photo experience and enthusiasm for many different aspects of pho-tography to his presentations.He has been working with Photoshop since 1997 and with a digital SLR since 2007—and thoroughly enjoys the freedom afforded by digital photogra-phy. Carl Heilman has led photo workshops since the early 1990s. You may see more of Carl’s images at his website <www.carlheilman.com> The meeting, open to the general public, begins at 6:30 p.m. A $6 donation is collected upon en-try. The NYC Sierra Club Pho-tography Committee meets at the Metropolitan Opera Guild, on the 6th floor of the Rose Building at Lincoln Center. The address is 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, located on the north side of West 65th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, closer to Amsterdam. From the street level, take the
stairs, elevator, or escalator up one level and proceed through the revolving doors into the lobby to get the elevator up to the 6th floor.
Thursday, April 25Photo Event—Soho Gallery
During the month of April,the entire Soho Photo Gallery is being devoted to Street Pho-tography. Tonight there will be a screening of a documentary film followed by a panel dis-cussion. All are invited. See page 17 for more details.
Sakura Matsuri, the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival, takes place this weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, as well as at many other sites around the world. Among the events and activities in Brook-lyn this weekend are Taiko drumming, tea ceremonies, Samurai sword fighting, bonsai exhibitions, a Cosplay fashion show, Ikebana flower arrang-ing, hands-on kids’ workshop, Nihon Buyo classical dance—
and, of course, blossoming cherry trees. Admission to the Garden is $20/$15 for seniors. The hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., both days. There are many ways to get to the Garden, which is located in Prospect Park, but the closest subway stop is the Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum station on the 2 and 3 trains. Other ven-ues for the blossoms them-selves, but not the festivities,include Manhattan’s Riverside Park, Newark, New Jersey’s Branch Brook Park, and many areas of Washington, DC.
* Monday, April 29Club Auction
The amassed crowd is abuzz with anticipation as Chuck Pine swings the gavel,… and with a loud bang the 2013 PWCC auction of photographic items begins. See “Going, Go-ing, Gone” on page 16 of this issue of Photo Notes for all the details. [This meeting will be-gin with the final report of the Nominating Committee and nominations will be accepted from the floor.]
* Monday, April 29!PDI Entry Deadline
PDI entries are due tonight for next week’s competition.
Tuesday, April 30Photo Event—
Tuesday Evening HourTonight’s slide presentation is Special Country—Mustang in Northern Nepal by Miriam Bal-muth, Professor of Reading Education, world traveler. See the listing under April 9th for more info.
Wednesday, May 1Photo Event—
Audubon Photo ClubThe NYC Audubon Photo Club meets tonight. These meetings are for all photographers. The cost is $7 per meeting, or $45 for the year/$35 for Audubon members. Please pre-register at <www.gifttool.com/registrar/ShowEventDetails?ID=1123&EID=10442> The program be-gins at 6:30 p.m. and is held at the National Audubon Office, at 225 Varick Street—a blockand a half north of Houston Street. The nearest subway stop is the Houston Street sta-tion on the #1 train.
* Thursday, May 2Expanding Visions 19
Tonight is the first session of the all new Expanding Visions 19 class. Tonight is the intro-ductory session in which we
will discuss the equipment re-quired, the assignments for the field trips (all of which fit into the theme of Drawing Your At-tention) and term project, plus the destinations, meeting places, times, etc. This session is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and will take place at the Soho Photo Gallery.
Sunday, May 5Photo Op—Photo Safari
The New York Photo and Sa-fari Meet-Up group will be vis-iting Roosevelt Island today. In case you are not aware, Roose-velt Island has a new park that opened last year, the Four Freedoms Park, a memorial to President Franklin Roosevelt. The group will be meeting at the subway token booth of the F train’s Roosevelt Island sta-tion at 11:30 a.m. First, you should join the meet-up group by going to their website at <www.meetup.com> and then register of this trip. Joining is free but there is a $5 fee for this trip (payable to the leader, Bill Bert, at the train station).
This is the last monthly compe-tition of the year. The point standings are bound to change. Will you be here to witness the results first hand? Full rules are available from the Compe-tition or the Membership Committees at any meeting, and on our website. Remem-ber, print and slide entries must be submitted by 6:45 p.m. so that we may get under way with the competition promptly at 7 p.m. PDI entries must be submitted by midnight one week prior to today—April 29th. Tonight’s judge is Peter Kolonia. Peter is a professional photographer and a senior edi-tor at Popular Photography magazine.
Tuesday, May 7Photo Event—
Soho Photo OpeningSoho Photo Gallery is pleased to announce that in May 2013, the gallery will be devoted to Seeing the Unseen: Equiva-lence in Photography, a special exhibition curated by John Paul Caponigro and Alison Hoornbeek, featuring guest artist John Paul Caponigro and 13 Soho Photo artists. The re-ception will run from 6 to 8 p.m. The show will run through June 1st. The gallery hours are Wednesdays to Sun-days, 1 to 6 p.m., and by ap-pointment (and, of course, dur-ing our PWCC meetings).
Tuesday, May 7Photo Event—
Tuesday Evening HourTonight’s digital presentation is Scandinavia by Gary Kazin, railroad enthusiast, engineer, photographer. See the listing under April 9th for more info.
* Thursday, May 9Expanding Visions 19
Tonight is the first field trip/assignment of the all new Ex-panding Visions 19 class. To-night’s assignment is on the rule of thirds. This session will begin at 6:30 p.m. and will take place in Battery Park.
* Monday, May 13!Business Meeting
Tonight is our final business meeting of the year and we have a lot of business to cover. To begin with, we will be vot-ing for next year’s officers. We will also be approving the bud-get for the 2013-2014 Club year. Lots of other items are on the agenda to be discussed, as
well. Members will receive a copy in advance. As usual, we’ll end up with refreshments and a bit of socializing.
Tuesday, May 14Photo Event—
Tuesday Evening HourTonight’s digital presentation is Grand Canyon—West Rim to River by Vicki Dolce, environ-mentalist, writer of nature and macro tutorials. See the listing under April 9th for more info.
* Wednesday, May 15Field Trip—Bronx Zoo
Spring has sprung, and by now it should be warming up nicely, so how about a trip to the zoo? All your favorite ani-mals will be out in their best outfits for you. And, best of all, the Bronx Zoo is free on Wed-nesdays. Our leader, Jerry Harawitz, will be taking the BxM11 express bus from Madi-son and 29th Street. The bus is scheduled for 9:45 a.m., so be early. If it is more convenient for you, the bus also picks up
passengers on Madison and 54th Street at 9:56 a.m. and from Madison and 99th Street at 10:09 a.m. You will need a Pay-Per-Ride MetroCard (or bring lots of coins). You can also take the #2 subway to the Pelham Parkway station and walk 2 blocks to the Bronx River Gate (Gate B) to meet up with Jerry at around 10:40 a.m. To register, contact Jerry at 646-823-7223 or e-mail him at <[email protected]>or sign up at any meeting.
* Thursday, May 16Expanding Visions 19
Tonight is the second field trip/assignment of the Ex-panding Visions 19 class. To-night’s assignment has to do with leading lines and repeti-tive elements in images. This session will begin at 6:30 p.m. and will take place in the south end of Central Park
Saturday—Sunday, May 18 and 19
Photo Op—Food FestivalThis is a New York City tradi-tion you can't miss! Every Spring, The Ninth Avenue In-ternational Food Festival wel-comes guests who gather to celebrate New York City’s prosperous and diverse food culture and cuisine. Experience the delightful tastes of various cuisines from many countries including Poland, Italy, Spain,Greece, Japan, Thailand, and
many others. There will be games and fun activities for the children. There will be live stage entertainment of interna-tional music and dance at 55th Street. The Fair runs from noon to 5 p.m. on both days and stretches from 42nd Street up to 57th Street. Bring your cam-era, bring your walking shoes, and bring your appetite.
* Monday, May 20Guest Speaker--Justin QuinnellTonight’s guest photographer is Justin Quinnell. Justin is a master at making weird and
wondrous pinhole photos. He recently worked as the pinhole consultant for the movie The Brothers Bloom and his cameras are featured in the film. Justin is also one of the forces behind World Pinhole Day (this year it was on April 28th). For more information on Justin and on pinhole photography, visit <www.pinholephotography.org> The curtain raiser tonight is Club member Marilyn Thypin.
Tuesday, May 21Photo Event—
Tuesday Evening HourTonight’s digital presentation is Northeast India and Tiger Sa-fari by Laurie Campbell, educa-tor and world traveler to 192 countries. See the listing under April 9th for more info.
Wednesday, May 22-29Photo Op—Fleet Week
Starting today, and hosted nearly every year since 1984, Fleet Week New York is the City’s celebration of the sea services. This annual event also provides an opportunity for the citizens of New York City and the surrounding area to meet Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, as well as witness first hand the latest ca-pabilities of today’s Navy, Ma-rine Corps and Coast Guard. Fleet Week includes dozens of military demonstrations and displays throughout the week, as well as public visitation of many of the participating ships. For details, go to < www.fleetweeknewyork.com>
* Thursday, May 23Expanding Visions 19
Tonight is the first review session/critique of the all new Expanding Visions 19 class. Please follow the instructions in preparing your digital im-ages for projection. This ses-sion is scheduled to begin at 7
p.m. and will take place at the home of our instructor, Chuck Pine. [See below for direc-tions.] Please note, if there are too many participants, we will have to split into two groups, an early group at 4:30 p.m. and late group at 7 p.m.
* Friday-Monday, May 24-27Field Trip—Boston
See the article on page 30 of this issue of Photo Notes for complete details. Please note, the deadline for reserving a spot and paying the deposit is Monday night, April 15th.* Monday, May 27
No MeetingThere is no meeting tonight in celebration of Memorial Day.
* Monday, May 27PDI Entry Deadline
Please note that PDI entries are due tonight for next week’s year-end competition.
Tuesday, May 28Photo Event—
Tuesday Evening HourTonight is the annual year-end fund raiser and dinner party. Reservations are required—call 212-964-3936. The digital pres-entation this evening will be Worldwide Architecture by Car-los Esguerra, computer analyst and landscape photographer. See the listing under April 9th for more info.
Wednesday, May 29Photo Event—Sierra Photo
The New York City Sierra Club’s Photography Commit-tee is holding its meeting to-night. The program for this evening has not yet been an-nounced. The meeting, open to the general public, begins at 6:30 p.m. A $6 donation is col-lected upon entry. See the list-ing under April 24th for direc-tions and details.
* Thursday, May 30Expanding Visions 19
Tonight is the third field trip/assignment of Expanding Vi-sions 19. Tonight’s assignment is on framing your subject. This session will take place in Madison Square Park and be-gins at 6:30 p.m.
Directions to Soho Photo at 15 White Street, between Ave-nue of the Americas/Sixth Avenue and West Broadway. Take the #1 train to the Franklin Street station (one stop below Canal Street). Walk one block north on West Broadway to White street, make a right turn, and walk half a block to the gallery. Take the A, C, or E train to the Canal Street station. Walk south on Sixth Avenue/ Church Street 3 blocks to White Street, make a right turn, and walk half a block to the gallery. Although a little bit longer walk, take any other train to Canal Street, walk west to Church Street, and follow the directions immediately above. Evening park-ing is limited, but available.
Directions to the Pine’sat 680 West End Avenue at 93rd Street, Apartment 5D: Take the #1, 2, or 3, trains to 96th Street (exit at the south end of the sta-tion) or the M7, M11, or M104 bus to 93rd/94th Streets. From the train or bus, walk the few steps to 93rd Street, make a right turn and head west to the apartment en-trance on the corner of West End Avenue and West 93rd Street.
SC
HE
DU
LE O
F A
CT
IVIT
IES
Very Interesting…
Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
