The next meeting of the Pagosa Springs Photography Club will be held on Wednesday May 8, at the Community United Methodist Church on Lewis St. We will begin with social time at 6 pm, and the program will begin at 6:30 pm. This month’s program will be presented by Keith Bruno, who will discuss Birds, Birding and Conservation Photography.
Keith Bruno is the Southwest Colorado Community Naturalist for Audubon Rockies, and is based in Pagosa Springs. Keith works also closely with the Weminuche Audubon Society here in Pagosa Springs. He develops and runs a variety of education programs in the region. Keith enjoys teaching about birds, native plants, pollinators, food security, snow science, and generally anything that gets him outdoors. He has a Master’s Degree in natural resources from the University of Idaho and has worked throughout the west.
This meeting will also be available on Zoom. The Zoom link will be emailed to members; others who wish to attend may request the link by email to abutler@mac.com .
As usual, the presentation will be followed by our member’s image share. Photo Club members may bring up to five images to show and discuss with the group. Please bring these on a thumb drive. They should be saved as jpeg files of at least 2000 pixels on the long edge.
The Pagosa Springs Photography Club welcomes all who enjoy making and viewing great photography. The club sponsors educational programs and outings to help our members improve their photography. For more information about the club, and to download a membership application, visit our website at https://pagosaspringsphotoclub.org/about/ .
The next meeting of the Pagosa Springs Photography Club will be held on April 10, at the Community United Methodist Church on Lewis St. We will have social hour at 6 pm, and the program will begin at 6:30 pm. This month’s program will be a discussion of Building your Photographic Website, presented by Andy Butler and Doug Coombs.
If you are a photographer, the chances are you like to share your images with others. Whether you just want to show off your photos to family and friends, want to reach a wider audience, or perhaps sell your work, there are numerous on-line tools available to help. The choice of which of these tools you might use will vary, depending on your goals. For some, social media may be enough. But if part of your audience doesn’t partake in social media, or you want a platform where you have more control over your images and their presentation, building your own website to share your photos may be the best choice. Andy will briefly discuss a variety of different platforms available for photographers to show their images, and considerations for choosing between them. Doug will then demonstrate the basics of creating a site using one popular photo hosting service, Smugmug. Doug has built a preliminary version of a Smugmug site which is available to members of the Photo Club to highlight some of your own images, which he will also discuss.
Following the presentation, we’ll have our usual image share. Members may bring up to 5 images on a flash drive to share with the group. If attending by Zoom, please email your photos to abutler@mac.com by April 9. Please save your images as JPEG files, at a size of around 2400 pixels on the long dimension.
The Pagosa Springs Photography Club will next meet on March 13, at the Community United Methodist Church, 434 Lewis St. Come at 6 PM for socializing. The presentation will begin at 6:30 PM. Our featured topic this month will be the Geologic History of Colorado, presented by Jeb Baxter. The meeting is open to the public.
This will be a hybrid meeting, also available on Zoom. The Zoom link will be emailed to members; others who wish to attend remotely may request the link by email to abutler@mac.com .
If you are a landscape photographer, then you well know how important geology is to finding photographic opportunities. Just look at the San Juan Mountains near Pagosa Springs, Chimney Rock, or the red rock canyons and arches of Utah.
Baxter’s presentation will provide an overview of the geologic history of Colorado and localities where the evidence of this history is visible in the rocks. The talk will begin with the screening of a 25 minute video by the Interactive Geology Project. The video will then be followed by an explanation of key geologic processes and additional evidence of geologic history in the Four Corners region. The talk is designed to provoke discussion with the audience and questions are welcomed throughout.
James Baxter is a retired professional geologist and professor of geology, who now lives in Pagosa Springs. He earned a BS in Geological Sciences at Lehigh University and MS in Geology at The Pennsylvania State University. His professional career included 16 years of experience in the environmental consulting industry followed by 20 years on the faculty of Harrisburg Area Community College.
The Pagosa Springs Photography Club welcomes all who enjoy making and viewing great photography. The club sponsors educational programs and outings to help photographers build their skills. For more information about the club, and to download a membership application, visit our website at https://pagosaspringsphotoclub.org/about/ .
The February meeting of the Pagosa Springs Photography Club will be held on Feb 14 at the Community United Methodist Church. Come at 6 PM for socializing; the presentation will begin at 6:30 PM. This month, we will have a presentation by Doug Coombs on Masking in Lightroom.
Lightroom (LR) introduced very powerful new masking tools in October of 2022. Learning to use these new tools is a game changer for photographers who are serious about post processing. Before this, LR had masking but it was not nearly as powerful as tools in Photoshop (PS). When you shoot a photo with your phone, the manufacturer’s software is using sophisticated algorithms to post-process it. If you shoot .jpg in your camera, your camera is doing the same. Ansel Adams was a master at post-processing in the darkroom and altered his original image greatly to take it beyond journalism to fine art.
Today we can do much more, with more control and more options digitally, which has raised the bar considerably. People used to ask me if a photo was “photoshopped”, as if post-processing in Photoshop (PS) is somehow cheating. All fine art photos of all sorts have been post-processed from the beginning of photography, at least to adjust overall light balance, contrast and emphasis. LR and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) use the same photo processing engine. LR is separate from PS and includes many photography-specific tools. PS incorporates ACR with many additional tools in PS itself, often used after post-processing in ACR. In terms of processing a raw photo, ACR and LR are basically equivalent. Doug will discuss the masking tool in LR and ACR from the LR perspective and then demonstrate how he has processed some photos using LR masking. It is not uncommon for him to use multiple masks in a photo. Each mask is considered a local adjustment and emphasizes some particular aspect of the photo. It could be an animal’s eye, head or portion of its body. It could be the sky, foreground or band of vegetation in a landscape. It could be part of a person’s face including eyes, lips, teeth, cheeks and more. Doug will provide useful links from YouTube at his presentation.
Even if you don’t use LR or ACR, masking is a universal tool found in other post-processing software, so this presentation should be useful.
The photo of the eagle below, has four masks.
The naturescape below, has three masks.
This program will also be available via Zoom. Members will receive an email with the Zoom link, others may request it by email (abutler@mac.com).
The Pagosa Springs Photography Club welcomes all who enjoy making and viewing great photography. The Club sponsors educational programs and outings to help photographers hone their skills. For more information about the club, and to download a membership application, visit our website at https://pagosaspringsphotoclub.org/about/ .
The Pagosa Springs Photography Club will meet on Wednesday, January 10, 2024, 6:30 p.m., at the Community United Methodist Church, 434 Lewis Street in Pagosa Springs. Feel free to arrive any time after 6 p.m. for socializing.
Our January program will be Top Ten: Show and Tell. This has been a popular program, where members may bring up to ten of their photographs taken in 2023 for brief discussion. These might be what you consider your best, your most interesting, or your most challenging photos of the year. This is a good exercise in selecting your best images of the year. The goal is to inspire Club members through a conversation about what makes great images, including aspects such as composition, impact, and technical quality. This will be a more extensive discussion than what we typically have during our image share sessions (which we won’t do this month). Please bring your images to the meeting on a flash drive, or (if attending by Zoom) email them by the evening of January 9 to abutler@mac.com.
This will be a hybrid meeting, also available on Zoom. The Zoom link will be emailed to members; others who wish to attend may request the link by email to abutler@mac.com .
Did you get a new camera or lens for Christmas? What better way to learn more about photography and get tips on your gear than by joining the Photography Club! The Pagosa Springs Photography Club promotes educational, social and fun interactions between all who enjoy making and viewing great photography. The club sponsors educational programs and outings to help photographers hone their skills and learn from each other. The Club’s membership year begins in January. Dues remain at $25 per year ($35 family). The membership form may be downloaded and mailed in with your payment (instructions are on the form) or brought to a Club meeting.
On October 11, the Pagosa Springs Photography Club held an Awards Celebration in conjunction with its Sixth Annual Digital Photography Contest. The Celebration was held at the PLPOA Clubhouse. The contest included four categories: Creative, Landscape, Nature, and People. Images in each category were evaluated by impartial judges on the basis of composition, impact, and technical quality. In addition, Club members voted to determine “People’s Choice” winners for each of the four categories. During the evening, we enjoyed a pizza dinner, socializing and viewing all of the entries in this year’s competition.
In the Creative category, winners were:
1st Place: Gregg Heid, Drafty Wall
2nd Place: Dave Anderson, Aster Zoom
3rd Place: Adrienne Disbrow, Flower
Honorable Mention, Andy Butler, Aspen Glow
In the People’s choice voting for creative images, 1st place went to Anderson’s Aster Zoom, 2nd to Scott Galabota for Fleur de Matisse, and 3rd to Heid’s Drafty Wall.
People’s Choice favorites in the Landscape group were Coombs’ Bosque sunrise (1st) and his Monument Valley (2nd). Anderson’s Williams Creek Reservoir was 3rd in People’s Choice voting.
In the People genre, the top photos were:
1st Place: Andy Butler, Dune Runner
2nd Place: Chris Roebuck, The Portrait
3rd Place: Barbara Jetley, Yobusame Girl
Honorable Mention: Dave Duquemin, Baby Jackie
Honorable Mention: Scott Galabota, Clean
Results of the People’s Choice voting for this group were: 1st Place, Doug Coombs, Brazil Indigenous; 2nd Place, Roebuck’s The Portrait; and 3rd place for Jetley’s Yobusame Girl.
Pagosa Springs Photography Club 