Member, Photographic Society of America
Winner of the 2008, 2011, and 2012 PSA Henricks Award for best newsletter!
Sherm Edwards, Editor, Cable Release, at cablereleaseeditor@ssccphotography.org.
KEY EVENTS
The following scheduled events will be conducted online as Zoom teleconferences, except for the Field Trip. Look for announcements and invitations by e-mail, Meetup, and on the club’s Website.
- Jan 6 – Speaker Night (7:30 p.m.)
- Jan 13 – Competition – Open (7:30 p.m.)
- Jan 20 – Photo Forum (7:30 p.m.)
- Jan 27 – Board Meeting- (7:30 p.m.)
If Montgomery County Schools close due to inclement weather, Silver Spring Camera Club meetings and outings will be cancelled. See montgomeryschoolsmd.org for closure information during the work week. For Mon-Fri AFTER 5:00 pm & on the weekends, call 240-777-2710 or 311 from within Montgomery County. Sign up for text alerts: AlertMontgomery and choose both a local MCPS school and ‘Community Use of Public Facilities Alerts’. Note that this policy does not apply to online meetings!
For general information about the club, contact us at: info@ssccphotography.org
A list of the club officers and committee chairs, and their emails, is located here: Officers and Committee Chairs
More information is available in the Silver Spring Camera Club (SSCC) Member Handbook:
© 2020 Silver Spring Camera Club and its contributors. Copyright Notice & Disclaimer Policy
PLEASE CONSIDER PROVIDING MATERIALS FOR THE FEBRUARY CABLE RELEASE:
e.g., articles, awards. exhibitions, links, reviews, and letters to the editor, particularly with appreciation of other members’ articles, photos, contributions to the Club. Let’s reach out to each other as we remain physically separated by the pandemic.
DEADLINE: BY JANUARY 24th TO cablereleaseeditor@ssccphotography.org.
MEETINGS AND FIELD TRIPS
MEETING LOCATION
All meetings will be online by Zoom teleconference until further notice. We are hopeful of being able to meet in person again before this Club year is over.
SUMMARY OF LAST MONTH’S SPEAKER NIGHT
If you missed December’s speaker, Lewis Katz, on FROM CAPTURE TO PRINT: THE ART OF BLACK-AND-WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY, or would like to review what you learned, you can find a summary here.
SPEAKER NIGHT WITH ELIZABETH GRAY – USING EXPOSURE CREATIVELY
For our first speaker night of the new year, we are pleased to have Elizabeth Gray, a professional photographer from Vancouver, Canada. In photography, exposure is the amount of light falling on the camera’s film or sensor. However, there are practically limitless combinations of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, which produce a “correct” exposure. So how do we determine which of these is the “best” exposure? In this presentation, we will answer that question. Read more, and check out a few of her images below.
COMPETITION COLUMN
Our January topic is Open.
In open competitions, free rein is given to the choices the photographer makes in the creation of the submitted image. Images of any and all subjects or themes, created using any photographic or post- processing methods or techniques, are acceptable. The images are evaluated based upon the judge’s general assessment of their creativity, emotional and/or intellectual impact, aesthetic beauty, uniqueness of subject, and technical skill. The judge need not assign any specific weight to any single attribute of the image.
Members may submit up to two images meeting this definition. The images should be emailed to: competition@ssccphotography.org by midnight on Thursday, January 6. (One important detail – In order to participate in the competition, you must pay the club’s annual dues before the start of the competition.)
Here’s the schedule for the remainder of the year:
- February – High or Low Key
- March – Open
- April – Patterns or Geometric Forms
- May – Monochrome Photography
- June – End of Year Competition (special rules apply)
Please refer to the website link for the definition of each topic.
WAYNE WOLFERSBERGER – JUDGE – JANUARY 13 OPEN COMPETITION
Wayne, an ecologist-naturalist, educator and nature photographer by professional education and passion, integrates all areas and is a well-respected professional nature photographer. His photographic expertise was honed while working for a D.C. area commercial photography firm, the US Navy Photographic Center, involvement in numerous professional seminars and workshops and working in Yellowstone NP for many years. He is a member of NANPA (North American Nature Photography Association), FCC, VPS & NVPS. He is co-chair for the student competition with Mid-Atlantic Photo Visions.
Wayne has been teaching photography classes for over 20 years, led workshops and seminars, (most recent to Yellowstone). He has delivered numerous photography programs in the DC area, Southern Appalachians, and internationally in the UK and Australia. His images have appeared in local, national, international magazines, on calendars, postcards, exhibited and sold as fine art prints, and now across the globe in the world of stock photography. Awards include Nature’s Best (5), NANPA Showcase (4), PSA, Glennie, and many other juried exhibits.
PHOTO FORUM
Thursday, January 20, 2022, from 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
“Photo Forum” is our monthly opportunity to share ideas, images, questions, and inspirations on a wide variety of photographic topics.
This is an online event. We will meet using Zoom – look for the meeting link in an email and via Meetup.
Open Forum Discussions:
Half an hour will be an open forum discussing your photography thoughts:
- What’s on your mind?
- What do you get out of competitions (whether you submit images or not)?
Presentations:
- Pete Morton – “The Contest from the Other Side” – What are judges trained to look for?
- Dennis Freeman – “The C&O Canal – 184.5 Miles on a Bike with my Camera”
Image Sharing:
We will have member image sharing. We have two categories to pick from:
- Submit up to 3 color images with a black and white (monochrome) conversion of each. Tell us how you got to your final result!
- Or, similar to last month, you can submit an image sequence. Provide a number of images (up to 10 images) to be shown in order as an automated slideshow. (We will build the slideshow from your images). Our slideshow setup will cut from image to image, dwelling for several seconds on each. Hint: use landscape format (4:3) for all images.
Your jpg images can be up to 1 MB size each. If doing the slideshow, number the image sequences in their titles. Send your images to Dennis Freeman before 5:00 p.m., WEDNESDAY, Jan. 19 (dennisfreeman4510@msn.com).
This is expected to be a great evening of sharing and learning. What topics would you like to explore? Topics can be wide ranging, such as photo book reviews, an aspect of your own photography that you’d like to share, reviews or discussion of shows, photo gear, software, etc.
Please join us for a fun and educational evening!
NO FIELD TRIP CURRENTLY PLANNED IN JANUARY
Here are the tentative plans for the remainder of this Club year, all outdoors:
- February 19 — Street photography in Alexandria VA
- March TBD — Ann Marie Sculpture Garden, Solomons MD https://www.annmariegarden.org/annmarie2/
- April TBD — Pittsburgh PA
- May TBD — Annapolis City Dock and Harbor
- June 3-5 — Mid-Atlantic Air Museum’s World War II Weekend, Reading PA https://www.maam.org/maamwwii.html
- June TBD — Soleado Lavender Farm, Dickerson MD https://soleadolavender.com/
CLUB NEWS
The SSCC Board met on December 23. Minutes of the meeting may be found here.
WILL RABINOVICH HAS PHOTO PUBLISHED
Club member Will Rabinovich has had one of his images published in the book Our Magnificent Planet 2021, published by LensWork. Each year LensWork magazine publishes a collection of images submitted by readers. Sometimes these are image projects, but for the last two years they have published the Our Magnificent Planet series which features single images of the natural world. This year they received 2500 images and chose 300 to publish in the book.
Will submitted 3 images, and they picked the one shown below. The photo was taken in Brookside Gardens and is a focus stack of 30 images taken with a Sony A7riv and a Sigma 105 mm macro lens. Helicon Focus was used to stack the images and the result was converted to black and white and toned using Capture One.
FEATURES
CALL FOR ENTRIES: TWELFTH ANNUAL JOSEPH MILLER ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT
The Joseph Miller Center for the Photographic Arts is announcing its twelfth annual juried abstract exhibit. It will be virtual again due to Covid. All interested photographers are invited to submit entries for this much anticipated spring event. The exhibition will occur May 1 – May 31, 2022. See https://nvacc.org/home/
The deadline for submissions is Saturday, February 26, 2022.
Sign up for their mailing list to stay up to date.
SSCC photographers have done well in past Joseph Miller abstract exhibits – see prior year’s galleries here: Joseph Miller Abstract Photography Exhibit galleries
8TH ANNUAL ALLEGANY NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION AND EXHIBITION – APRIL 2022
Martin Heavener, a prior SSCC judge, reminded us about this nearby national photography competition and its fabulous prizes: $$$. The April 2-23 exhibition will be in Cumberland, Maryland. The entry deadline is February 11, 2022. For further details, read the announcement: ANPCE-2022-Call-for-Entries-Announcement.pdf
CONFERENCES AND EXPOS
MEMBER ARTICLES
Editor’s note: It takes considerable effort (and maybe some courage) to put together an article for the Cable Release. If you find something in an article that inspires, intrigues, or informs you, let the author know if you can. You can also send your reactions in a “Letter to the (CR) Editor.” Send to cablereleaseeditor@ssccphotography.org.
FUN WITH IPHONE PANORAMAS
by Tanya Riseman
One day in June 2021, it popped into my head: what if I rotated my iPhone the wrong way when taking a panorama? This was the start of a fun, hit-or-miss exploration with my iPhone SE 2nd generation. (Read more.)
SOMETHING TO DO IN JANUARY
by Bruce Schaefer
Last month, we posted here about a museum double-header in Richmond VA: concurrent exhibits of Ansel Adams and someone named Man Ray at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. We finally went and are here to report the show was excellent. Ansel Adams will be gone by the time you read this, but the Man Ray show stays until February 21 and is well worth the trip by itself. (Read more.)
PHOTOGRAPHING WHITEWATER KAYAKERS
by Beth Kosiak
Do you ever wonder where and how Beth gets those wonderful action shots of kayakers? (See an example from last month’s competition below.) Click here for her discussion, which she submitted as a caption for the competition entry.
COMPETITION RESULTS
STRONG EMOTION COMPETITION – DECEMBER 9, 2021
Three categories were judged: Advanced Projected (i.e. digital images), Novice Projected, and Beginner Projected. The Print categories are suspended until we start in-person meetings again. Awards in the Advanced and Novice categories are given for first, second, and third place, and multiple honorable mentions (HM) – the number of awards depends on the total number of entries in the category. Two HMs are given in the Beginner category if there are entries from more than one photographer.
See an image that speaks to you? Let the photographer know next chance you have!
ADVANCED PROJECTED
1st Place: Beth Koller ~ ARGH
2nd Place: Renee Shaefer ~ Wailing at the Wall
3rd Place: Karen Finkelman ~ Thoth
HM – Lisa Auerbach – Go Away
HM – Sherm Edwards – Who You Lookin’ At?
Karen Finkelman ~ Thoth
If I'm in NYC during the summer months, I always make a point of stopping by the Bethesda Terrace in Central Park with the hope of catching Thoth and his partner, Lila'Angelique, performing their unique blend of music and performance art. Taken with a Canon 77D and Tamron 18-400 lens @ 128mm, F7.1, 1/125s. Converted to B/W in Lightroom.
NOVICE PROJECTED
1st Place: llona Linnoila ~ Extreme Covid Halloween
2nd Place: Cheryle Galloway ~ Untitled
3rd Place: Ilona Linnoila ~ Yes, I Love You, Too
HM: Maude Svensson ~ Feel the Baltic Sea
HM: Kim Keller ~ Joy
Ilona Linnoila ~ Extreme Covid Halloween
Halloween has always been very big in my oldest son's family. While they were not able to go trick-or-treating or parties this year, they still acted up several scenarios. My favorite was this one featuring Count Dracula. iPhone XR back camera. ISO 320; 4.25 mm; f/1.8; 1/60sec. Post processing with Photoshop and Nik.
BEGINNER PROJECTED
George Faison ~ Garden
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
This new section of the Cable Release offers members a chance to share whatever photography-related thoughts they wish, including appreciation of articles, photos, or other CR content. Send to cablereleaseeditor@ssccphotography.org.
COURSES, CALLS FOR ENTRY, AND EXHIBITS
PHOTOGRAPHY COURSES AND WORKSHOPS
Needed: Someone to author the Classes and Workshops List for the 2021-2022 Cable Release club year. Please let Catherine [ president@ssccphotography.org ] know if you might be interested. This is an opportunity to inspire the learning of club members. In the meantime, we will show some online sources.
Thanks to Joe Willmore from the Shutterbug Excursions Meetup group for this list:
- CreativeLive: (not local but very popular and when I reached out for resources, several of our previous presenters mentioned this). https://www.creativelive.com
- Capital Photography Center: With both virtual and in-person classes, this is a popular resource locally. https://capitalphotographycenter.com
- Art League (located in the Torpedo Factory): Both in-person and virtual classes. https://www.theartleague.org/classes/
- Arts of Great Falls (I’m a photography instructor here): Both in-person and virtual classes. https://greatfallsart.org/school-of-art/
The online course providers typically listed in The Cable Release are still operating—
Please let us know of other online opportunities you discover by emailing us at cablereleaseeditor@ssccphotography.org.
CALLS FOR ENTRY
by Dennis Freeman
This column offers a number of competitions for your consideration this month. Some of these sources having standing calls for entry, and others are one-time calls. Some offer cash and prizes, and others don’t. See three interesting calls in the FEATURES section above.
See the full January Calls for Entry article here. (Read More).
EXHIBITS AND EVENTS
by Bruce Schaefer
Man Ray exhibit in Richmond VA October 30, 2021 – February 21, 2022
Organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and curated by Michael Taylor, VMFA’s Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Art and Education, Man Ray: The Paris Years is timed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Man Ray’s arrival in the French capital. The exhibition includes more than 100 portraits of such cultural luminaries as Kay Boyle, André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Ernest Hemingway, Miriam Hopkins, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Méret Oppenheim, Pablo Picasso, Alice Prin (Kiki de Montparnasse), Elsa Schiaparelli, Erik Satie, and Gertrude Stein. Man Ray’s portraits went beyond merely recording outward appearances and instead captured the essence of his sitters as creative individuals and documented the collective nature and character of Les Années folles (the crazy years) of Paris between the two world wars. https://www.vmfa.museum/exhibitions/exhibitions/man-ray-paris-years/
See Bruce’s Member Article above about his and Renee’s trip to see this exhibit.
WASHINGTON POST
Here are links to the online Washington Post’s lists of D.C., Maryland, and Virginia photography-related exhibits and museums. I have found that the various photography-related exhibits appear in different parts of the online paper, making a simple search or link unreliable. You can search within:
Photography section: Photography
Going Out Guide: Going Out Guide
Art Section: Art
Take a look at what our sister camera club, the NIH Camera Club, has going on. Here is a link to their site. There you can find their newsletter, the Cameraderie: nihcameraclub.com
