landscape – Pagosa Springs Photography Club

Bosque del Apache for Photographers, Nov 12

The November meeting of the Pagosa Springs Photography Club will be held on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. The Club meets in the Community United Methodist Church at 434 Lewis Street in Pagosa Springs. The program will start at 6:30 p.m., but feel free to arrive anytime after 6 p.m. to socialize. Photography Club meetings are open to the public. Please use the side door near the parking lot to enter.

Our speaker this month will be Club member Doug Coombs. Doug will present a program on Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Bosque del Apache and nearby Ladd S Gordon wildlife areas in New Mexico are renowned for their opportunities to see and photograph many species of birds and other wildlife, but Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese in particular. These over-wintering species can put on a remarkable show when they lift off from the ponds at the Refuges around sunrise. Doug has traveled to these areas for quite a few years to photograph these amazing sights, and will share his knowledge of when to visit, where to photograph, and other tips; along with many of his outstanding photos from these Refuges.

Following Doug’s presentation, we will hold our monthly Image Share session. Club members may bring up to 5 recent images to show and discuss with the group for this. Keep in mind that with the 4K monitor now available at the Church, it is recommended that your images be at least 3840×2160 pixels. Otherwise they may not fill the screen.

Virtual Shutter Therapy

This month’s theme for Virtual Shutter Therapy is Long Exposure and Motion Blur. Capture the passage of time in a single frame — flowing water turned silky, car lights streaking through the night, clouds drifting like dreams. Use a tripod, slow your shutter, and let movement paint the story your eyes can’t normally see. Please share up to three images by commenting on the Nov. 2 post about this subject on our Club Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PagosaPhotoClub. Like and comment on the works of others. (Thanks to Barbara Jetley for these VST topics!)

Audubon Rockies After Dark: Beyond Turkey , November 20

Join Audubon Rockies After Dark: Bird Story Hour – Beyond Turkey on November 20! This is a virtual event held on Zoom from 7 – 8 pm, MST. Conservation photographer Dave Showalter and Audubon Rockies Executive Director Alison Holloran will team up with the After Dark crew to share stories about grouse, ptarmigans, and other fascinating land fowl of the Rockies. Showalter is an outstanding photographer, as exemplified in his conservation book Sage Spirit, with his photos of landscapes, Sage Grouse, Antelope, and other creatures of the “sagebrush sea”. To sign up for this Zoom event, see:

https://www.mobilize.us/audubon-rockies/event/854901/

(Thanks to Keith Bruno for this item)

Of interest: Pro Photographer’s Showdown, at Fort Lewis College in Durango, November 19.

Five award-winning professional photographers will project their best work on the giant screen of the Fort Lewis College Community Concert Hall. Each show is curated to music, presenting a lifetime work in five 10-minute shows with party breaks in between. This event is from 7 – 9 pm. Tickets are $25-35.

See https://photoshowdown.org for details about the photographers, and for tickets. Sounds like a fun evening.

Digital Photo Contest Winners, Part 2

The Pagosa Springs Photography Club held an Awards Celebration on October 8, to announce the winners of its Eighth Annual Digital Photography Contest. Images were entered in four categories: Creative, Landscape, Nature and People. Part 1 of this series presented the winners of the Creative and Landscape categories. Images in each category were judged on the basis of composition, impact, and technical quality. Judges selected the top 3 images in each category; and Honorable Mention (HM) was awarded to those images within one point (out of ten possible) of the top 3. In addition, Club members voted to determine “People’s Choice” winners for each of the categories. In this post are the results for the Landscape and People categories. These were judged by Pagosa Springs photographer Mark Langford (https://marklangfordphotography.com).

Among the entries in the Landscape category, Chris Roebuck won first prize for Dark Lands. In second was Chimney Rock Solstice, by Herb Grover. Third place was awarded to Gateway of the Arctic, by Dave Anderson. This is always highly competitive category, and honorable mentions were awarded to Andy Butler, for Canyonlands Sunrise, Doug Coombs for Three Sisters Milky Way, Sharon Duquemin for Train, John Farley for Village Lake Aurora, and Barbara Jetley for Ripple.

People’s Choice voting in the Landscape category awarded 1st place to Chimney Rock Solstice, by Herb Grover. Canyonlands Sunrise, by Andy Butler, received 2nd place. Doug Coombs received 3rd place for Three Sisters Milky Way.

The fourth category in the contest was People. For this group, 1st place went to Climb High, by Andy Butler. Second was awarded to Greg Heid for I Hope I Make It. In 3rd place was Belay On, by Chris Roebuck. Receiving Honorable Mention in this group were Wizened, by Kathie Disner, and Victory, from Scott Galabota.

People’s Choice voting for this group awarded 1st place to Wizened, by Kathie Disner. In 2nd place was Andy Butler’s Climb High, and 3rd went to Chris Roebuck for On Belay .

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all the photographers in the Club who submitted photos for the contest this year. And many thanks to our judges, to the Club members who helped organize the contest and Awards Celebration (Scott Galabota, Susanne Russell, Doug Coombs, and Russ Durrer), and to those who voted for People’s Choice awards.

Eighth Annual Digital Photo Contest

The 2025 Pagosa Springs Photography Club Digital Photography Contest is now open for entries. The Contest is open to all Photography Club members in good standing. New or renewing members may join the Club at the time they enter the contest. The submission deadline is September 10, 2025, and prizes will be presented at an Awards Celebration on October 8. As in previous years, members may submit up to 6 photos (2 per category) for a flat fee of $10. You only need to submit your digital image files, not prints. The top three images in each category will receive ribbons and cash prizes at the Awards Celebration, and all entries will be displayed at that time. There will be “People’s Choice” voting on the images entered, as well.

This year there will be four categories: Nature (such as flowers, wildlife, pets, domestic or farm animals, birds, insects); People (such as sports/action, candid, portrait, wedding, street, photojournalism), Landscape, (scenery is the main subject; may include city-scapes and night-scapes) and Creative (an OBVIOUS DEPARTURE FROM REALITY, such as a photo painting or abstract photo). See below to obtain the contest guidelines and entry form.

If you haven’t entered the contest previously, this is a great opportunity to get feed back, both from the judge and from other Club members, about your images. Our goal with this contest is not only to recognize members for their talent, but also to encourage everyone to share their best work with the group. So select your best images and submit them!

For contest guidelines, and directions on entering your images, click here . The guidelines have instructions on how and where to submit your files. Then, download a contest entry form and fill it out with your entries. Note: you should be able to fill in the information on the entry form using the text tool of Adobe Acrobat Reader or Mac Preview. The best way to submit your images is to use the Dropbox link in the entry form, but you may also bring entries on a flash drive to the PSPC August 13 or September 10 meetings.

Journey to Africa, April Meeting

The Photography Club’s April meeting will be on Wednesday, April 9, 2025, 6:00 p.m.,at the Community United Methodist Church located at 434 Lewis Street. Our program this month will feature Club member, Doug Coombs, who will take us on a Journey to Africa. Arrive any time after 6 p.m. for socializing; the program will begin at 6:30 p.m. Please use the side door near the parking lot to enter.

Photography Club meetings are open to the public. This will be a hybrid meeting, live, in person, as well as by Zoom. If you need the Zoom link, please contact Andy Butler.

In his presentation, Doug will be discussing photographs he took in Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, and Botswana on four different safari trips. His photos will include the Big 5: Elephants, Lions, Leopards, Hippos and Cape Buffalo. He will also share images of numerous smaller mammals and birds, as well as of the Maasai people, and some classic African sunrises and sunsets.

Doug will also bring some books and literature provided by one of the safari companies, used for two of his adventures, to hand out to the audience. These are great resources if you want to plan your own “Journey to Africa”.

Doug Coombs is a landscape and wildlife photographer who moved to Pagosa Springs following his retirement from Los Alamos National Lab, in New Mexico. In Los Alamos, Doug was chairman of both the Los Alamos Photography Club, and the Los Alamos Adobe Users Group. Doug and his wife Miyuki love to travel around the western US and the World, while photographing wildlife, birds, and landscapes.

As usual, we will have our Members’ Image Share following Doug’s presentation. Club members may bring up to 5 images on a thumb drive to share and briefly discuss. Images should be saved in jpg format. The Methodist Church now has a great 4K monitor in the room where we meet. With this increased quality, please save your landscape aspect images with a horizontal resolution of about 4000 pixels, and portrait aspect images at a vertical resolution of 2000-2400 pixels to take full advantage of the screen.

Seventh Annual Digital Photography Contest Results

On November 13, the Pagosa Springs Photography Club held an Awards Celebration in conjunction with its Seventh Annual Digital Photography Contest. Members attending the Celebration viewed the 101 images entered in the contest by 20 photographers. During the evening, Club members and spouses also enjoyed a pizza dinner, socializing, and discussing the photos entered and photography in general. This year the contest included three categories: Nature, Portraits, and Manmade/other. Images in each category were judged on the basis of composition, impact, and technical quality. Our judge this year was Shanda Akin, from Durango. Akin selected the top 3 images in each category; Honorable Mention (HM) was awarded to those images within a half point (out of ten possible) of the top 3. In addition, Club members voted to determine “People’s Choice” winners for each of the categories.

In the Portraits category, the top images were:

1st Place: Doug Coombs, Maasai Warriors

2nd Place: Kathie Disner, On the Outside

3rd Place: Scott Galabota, Playing in the Mud

HM: Herb Grover, Cattail Family

HM: David Lenderman, Llama Kiss

HM: Andy Butler, Maasai

HM: Dave Anderson, News of Ukraine

HM: Doug Coombs, Maasai Midwife

In the People’s Choice voting for this category, 1st Place was awarded to Galabota for Playing in the Mud, 2nd Place to Coombs for Maasai Warriors, and 3rd Place to Chris Roebuck for Higher Grounds

(Click on a group of images to view them larger)

This year’s winners in the Nature category were:

1st Place: Chris Roebuck, Grizzly

2nd Place: Adrienne Disbrow, Dragonfly

3rd Place: Dave Minkel, Valles Caldera

HM: Doug Coombs, Cranes Crossing the Moon

HM: Doug Coombs, Sunrise Bear

HM: Rondi Ballard, Milky Hoodoos

HM: Rondi Ballard, Texas Totality with Clouds

HM: David Lenderman, Foxy Portrait

HM: David Lenderman, You’re Next

People’s Choice results for this category were: 1st Place, Coombs for Cranes Crossing the Moon, 2nd Place, Disbrow, Dragonfly, and 3rd place to Lenderman, Foxy Portrait.

The best images in the Manmade/Other genre were as follows:

1st Place: John Farley, Alton Bridge at Sunset

2nd Place: Doug Coombs, Kodiak Harbor

3rd Place: Chris Roebuck, My Ride

HM: Dave Duquemin, 4 July

HM: Herb Grover, July 4th Flyover

HM: David Lenderman, Night on the River

HM: Chris Plemons, Steaming in the Storm

HM: Scott Galabota, Snow Swings

The top photos in this category, based on the People’s Choice voting, were: 1st Place, Plemons for Steaming in the Snow, 2nd Place, Andy Butler for Canal Reflections, and 3rd Place went to David Lenderman’s Yokohama Street Scene.

Thanks to everyone who entered the Photography Club contest this year, and all those who helped make it a success.

Aztec Arches Photo Outing

Just across the border in northern New Mexico, is an area with hundreds of arches of various sizes. In early September, Greg Heid organized an outing to this area for Photography Club members. We had a great day driving the back roads outside of Aztec, exploring several arches and natural bridges. Here are a few photos from the expedition. (Click on the photos to view larger)