Winner of the 2008, 2011, and 2012 PSA Henricks Award for best newsletter!
Key Events
October 1 – Field trip to Carrie Murray Nature Center
October 6 – Speaker night (7:30 p.m.) – NEW LOCATION!
October 13 – Competition night: Nature Photography (7:30 p.m.) – NEW LOCATION!
October 15 – Field trip to Rockville Antique & Classic Car Show
October 20 – Seminar night (7:30 p.m.) – NEW LOCATION!
October 27 – Board meeting (7:30 p.m.) – NEW LOCATION!
KERNELS OF KOREN
This month, Michael reacts to the digital revolution’s impacts on the photography industry, and in particular, the sad closure of three photography schools in August. (read more)
SPEAKER NIKHIL BAHL DISCUSSES TECHNIQUES FOR DYNAMIC IMAGES
Nikhil Bahl
The Silver Spring Camera Club welcomes back Nikhil Bahl as its speaker on October 6. Nikhil is a full-time professional photographer, author, educator, workshop instructor and environmentalist.
His presentation will focus on techniques for creating dynamic images. (read more)
COMPETITION COLUMN
October is almost here and that means the Nature Photography competition is fast approaching. October 13 is the date and, as past is prologue, the competition should be a highlight of the club season! (read more)
⇒ PROJECTED COMPETITION ENTRIES ARE DUE OCT 6 BEFORE MIDNIGHT! ⇐
KAT FORDER TO JUDGE NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
Kat Forder
Kat Forder has graciously agreed to judge our October Nature Photography competition. Kat brings varied skills and background to her judging.
You may recall that Kat was among a group of accomplished photographers who reviewed the member portfolios in May. (read more)
SEMINAR NIGHT (OCTOBER 20)
Group Activity: RTFM (i.e. “Read the Manual”), and bring your camera with its flash and manuals. We will help each other learn something new.
Image Evaluations: Bring your images that complete the assignment from the previous 
meeting (printed or laptop). The assignment is to photograph using back-lighting or side-lighting.
We will have the usual book reports, gallery reviews, equipment and software discussions, or any photo-related topic on your mind. Anyone who wishes to give a 5 to 10-minute presentation should get in touch with Dave: Dave@davidwpowell.com
OCTOBER 1 AND 15 FIELD TRIPS
Phil Boyer – Owl at Carrie Murray Nature Center
This month we will have two field trips that you might fancy! The first one is to the Carrie Murray Nature Center to photograph captive raptors on October 1 (read more).
Andrew Rein – Rockville Antique & Classic Car Show
The second is to the Rockville Antique and Classic Car Show on October 15 – where you will need to add terms like “yesteryear” to your vocabulary! (read more).
♦ CLUB NEWS ♦
MEMBERSHIP NEWS
MEMBER SNAPSHOTS
This is now a regular column to provide introductions of new members to the club. We have a new member who joined in September! To see all about Naomi Kawin (read more).
SUMMARY – AUGUST 24 BOARD MEETING
The Board met on August 24 at the Grace Episcopal Church. (read more)
♦ FEATURES ♦
SEPTEMBER FIELD TRIP TO THE MARYLAND RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL
Michael Koren – Maryland Renaissance Festival
Five SSCC members attended the field trip to the Maryland Renaissance Festival in Crownsville MD, near Annapolis, on September 5. They photographed people in medieval costumes, jousting, archery, jugglers, street entertainment, and stage productions. We have many striking photos to share with you! (read more)
AUGUST FIELD TRIP TO LONACONING SILK MILL
Bob Catlett – Light bulb
On August 27, several members and a number of our Meetup followers traveled to the Lonaconing Silk Mill in Lonaconing, MD for some pre-season photography of a factory frozen in September, 1957. (read more)
TIPS FOR EXPLORING ABANDONED BUILDINGS
One of our members, Andrew Rein, came across an article about preparing for and dealing with risks when exploring abandoned buildings to do photography (e.g., the Lonaconing Silk Mill). (read more)
TIP FOR SHOOTING FALL LEAVES
When you are out on Skyline Drive (or other location of your choice), trying to capture the fall colors that will be here soon, bring your polarizing filters! Leaves frequently have a sheen that results from the reflection of sunlight from their smooth surfaces. This results in washed out colors in your pictures. The process of reflection, however, polarizes that light, and this is your salvation! You can filter it out, and enhance those colors.
The greatest amount of polarization occurs when you, the leaves, and the sun form a 90° angle. This means you will see a lessening effect of your filter as you move the camera more toward, or away from, the sun’s direction.
Be careful if you are using a wide angle lens. If you have blue sky in your frame, the filtering of reflections from tiny water droplets in the atmosphere will be uneven across the image, making the sky look unnatural.
♦ MEMBER ARTICLES ♦
SSCC Helps Judge Annual Montgomery County Photo Contest – by David Terao
An urgent call came in from the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) for SSCC photographers to help judge its annual amateur photography contest! (read more)
What We Learned Last Summer: Sizing Up a City – by Bruce Schaefer
Amarillo Graffiti
“Renee retired in February, and her first act resulted in a 10,000 mile drive across 20 states in 8 weeks … ”
For an interesting perspective on cities that have it, with explosively colorful photographs, (read more)
Plan Ahead for the Fair Next Year (August 11-19) – by Beth Koller
The Montgomery County Agricultural Fair (Gaithersburg) offers several photographic opportunities to club members, including entering the general public competition, viewing the exhibits, and volunteering to help.
Beth also shares her first place prize-winning ($) photo from this year’s fair! (read more)
♦ COMPETITION WINNERS ♦
OPEN COMPETITION: SEPTEMBER 8, 2016
September’s competition was in the Open category – any topic (or no topic) goes. Lew Lorton served as our judge that evening. Even the Advanced entrants who did not win should be pleased. Lew found it extremely difficult to eliminate anyone.
There were four main categories: Novice Prints, Novice Projected (i.e. digital images), Advanced Prints, and Advanced Projected. Awards were given for first, second and third place. The number of honorable mentions depended on the total number of entries in the category.
NOVICE PRINTS
- 1st Place: Kate Woodward – Shades of Blue: Yellowstone Lake
- 2nd Place: Kate Woodward – View of Florence
- 3rd Place: Larry Gold – Gettysburg Field
- Honorable Mention: Elise Shurie – Smile II
Novice Prints ~ 1st Place ~ Kate Woodward ~ Shades of Blue: Yellowstone Lake
I took this photograph on my June 2016 trip to Yellowstone Park, right outside of my hotel. While the geo-thermal landscape was probably what most amazed me about Yellowstone, I found the contrasting shades of blue in Yellowstone Lake mesmerizing and soothing. In processing the image, I softened it slightly.
ADVANCED PRINTS
- 1st Place: Beth Koller – Cacti Sprouting
- 2nd Place: Lyndon Marter – Fire One
- 3rd Place: Michael Koren – Ghostly Apparition
- Honorable Mention: Mike Lux – Pueblo Crosses
- Honorable Mention: Jim Turner – On The Move
Advanced Prints ~ 3rd Place ~ Michael Koren ~ Ghostly Apparition
This picture was taken on the pre-season field trip to Lonaconing Silk Mill. I had the concept of trying to show a worker near a loom but as a ghost from the past. I looked for a bright window that would serve as a good background and allow a silhouette of my willing participant. The camera was placed about a foot off the ground so as to look up at the ghost and to make it the most important element in the frame. My model then walked quickly away from the camera during the exposure to cause a ghostly blur. The setup was a Nikon D7000 with a 24mm Rokinon lens on a Bogan tripod. Exposure was 2 seconds at f/9.0 at ISO 200. Exposure mode was manual and the shutter was released with an IR remote. Processed with Photoshop to convert to B&W and add the halo with layer effects of outer glow and inner glow.
NOVICE PROJECTED
- 1st place: Larry Gold – Bubbling Fruit
- 2nd place: Lisa Ross – Bethlehem Freight Car
- 3rd place: Larry Gold – In Transit
- Honorable Mention: Elise Shurie – Tri-umph
- Honorable Mention: Andrew Rein – Old School
- Honorable Mention: Lenore Boulet – Tulips
Novice Projected ~ 1st Place ~ Larry Gold ~ Bubbling Fruit
I was with my family on the front porch of a house in Fort Valley, VA. The glancing light of the setting sun lit up the glass of my wife's cocktail - blueberries and grapes in club soda. I took the shot from above and then created a dark vignette in Lightroom to frame the rim of the glass.
ADVANCED PROJECTED
- 1st place: Charles Bowers – I’ll Wait for You
- 2nd place: Nick Williams – Cavernous
- 3rd place: Bob Catlett – Light Bulb
- Honorable Mention: Nick Williams – DisArming Smile
- Honorable Mention: Charles Bowers – The Grid
Advanced Projected ~ 1st Place ~ Charles Bowers ~ I'll Wait For You
This was an image capture taken at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philly. It is a single image frame from a movie project. I scripted the scenes live and made sure I had enough variety of images to accomplish my movie goal. The resulting images were heavily processed to mimic a 1940’s film noir look and feel. For entry into competition I post-processed the image in a more “normal” fashion.
CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS
The following describes sample photography courses and workshops from a variety of providers. This month’s list has some added and removed courses from last month, plus two new providers. (read more)
CALLS FOR ENTRY
The following 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 the full article here. (read more)
EXHIBITS AND EVENTS
Last month’s link to Washington Post photography-related exhibits and events is not working, as the category is not there. This link for a tailored search is more helpful, and will update as you revisit it and more content is put there:
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.
