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Seven Hills Camera Club

For Photography In Central Massachusetts
Last Updated: June 16, 2008

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* * * Club News... * * *


Our next meeting...
About 7HCC - originally called the Photo-Color Club of Worcester, the founding members formed a non-profit organization dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of color slide photography. The first meeting was held on April 20, 1946. Check out the "About 7HCC" section of Club Clicks on the left-side navigation panel for more.

This Month's Camera Club Photo Exchanges

Worcester, England Picture-a-Month  7HCC Picture-a-Month

Here, we celebrating the sister camera clubs of Worcester, England and Worcester, MA with a periodic photo exchange. Click either image to see more.

Calumet Summer Sessions

Calumet's all over the country are hosting training and demo days. For Boston, here are some of the events:
  • June 6 - HP Printer Demo
  • June 7 - Tabletop Lighting
  • June 9 - Discover Portrait Photography
  • June 21 - Travelite Lighting for the Beginner
  • June 21 - Inkjet printing done right
  • June 23 - The Power of RAW
  • June 28 - Understanding your Digital SLR
  • July 7 - Imaging for Publishing
  • July 12 - HP Printer Demo
  • July 16 - Phase One 645 Launch
Some of the events are free. Check the Calumet website for more information.

One Dollare Camera Support

How about a $1.00 Camera Anti-shake System for your camera bag?

Saw this tidbit on the internet and thought we should pass it along. Click the image to go to the site to view it. What exactily is it? ...check out the string coming out of the bottom of the camera. Should we all have one? Why not?

West Boylston Art Fair

West Boylston Invites Artist To Exhibit

West Boylston is seeking artists that would like to reserve sales booth spaces for the West Boylston Bicentennial Arts Festival on September 20, 2008.

The West Boylston Arts Foundation (WBAF) was established last year as a result of budget cuts to the School Department which eliminated the arts programs in our schools...the main goal West Boylston Bicentennial Arts Festival will be to raise funds to continue to assist the arts program in the schools. All our Festival proceeds will be dedicated to the school arts programs. The Festival will include artwork sales, music, and cultural performances throughout the day and into the evening.

The Bicentennial is a major event for West Boylston with happenings ongoing throughout the year. The West Boylston Bicentennial Arts Festival will be a part of a weekend celebration culminating with a parade and fireworks the following day.

Photographers of the Seven Hills Camera Club are invited to participate. Click here for the Festival's Artist Registration Form and Call for Artists.

Multiscreen Images Are Up!

Finally, we have the winning Multiscreen images up and available for viewing. Usually, we do this right away, the day after the competition. Sorry for the delay, everyone.

By the way...congratulations to all clubs but especially to PSRI for their first place. We were only three points behind. So, we did a good job. PSRI did better!

We are hosts for next year, by the way.

You can alwasy click the Multiscreen link in the sidebar to find the images throughout the years.

At our year-end meeting, the first place ribbons were distributed to Laurie Church for City Lights, Carol Morocco for Hat, Don Roberts for Peaceful, Mary Colburn for Relaxing,  Michelle Fontaine for Skimpy and Wildlife, and finally  Steve Morse for Stormy.
City Lights  Hat  Peaceful
Relaxing  Skimpy Stormy

Nice Work, Nan!

Wonderland by Nan GinnsCongratulations to Nan Ginns for her image, Wonderland, which took Third Place in the Black and White Category in Worcester Magazine's recent photo contest.

Click the image to view a larger version.

Some of you may recall that Nan won an Honorable Mention in last year's contest for her Flying High 2.

Our NECCC Report Card

Results are in for the year. Congratulations to Michelle, Carol, and Joe for winning ribbons throughout the year in these competitions. Read Carol's complete report below.


Next Time...

August and September

Note to newcomers - our meeting are always held on the third Wednesday of the month, from September to May, at , 7:00 PM, Merriman Hall, United Congregational Church, 6 Institute Road, Worcester.
It'll be up to our new club officers to pull together an interesting and wonderful year for the 08-09 season. Wonder who the new officers are?
  • Michelle Fontaine - President
  • Casey Danek - Vice-President
  • Steve Morse - Treasurer
  • Lou Swinand - Secretary
We often have a planning meeting in August. This is entirely up to the discretion of our officers. The first, regular meeting is in September. Traditionally, we've had a pot-luck imaging presentation where members bring in their images from the Summer's production. Maybe our officers will have something different for us this time...who knows.


Last Time...

May

Our banquet started at 6:00 PM (with a setup time of 5:30). About 20 members and guests were on hand. We ended the meal with JoAnn Audette, or exiting VP, going over some some business for the evening. We normally try to get this out of the way quickly at our last meeting because, well, it's our last meeting and folks are eager to get on their way after the main event. In this case, our "event" was Gary Stanley.

Here are some notes from Gary’s website...

"As a professional nature, landscape and wildlife photographer, Gary has been leading photo tours, and lecturing on photography since 1990. He has photographed seriously for over twenty-five years, and has spent over five years as a general manager of a large camera shop working with everything from camera repair to Photoshop and camera sales. What that means to you is that Gary has the skills and understanding of both photographic technique and the mechanics of photography."

Gary put on an interactive program where he demonsted his techniques in image manipulation using Photoshop Elements, CS3 and Lightroom.  He skimmed over items in his book addressing the needs of photographers at all levels. His show ended with a slide presentation set to music of beautiful scenic images.

One of our walk-in guests, Sandy Taylor from Westminster, had this to say about Gary...

"It was a good opportunity to get to see a nature photographers work and talk to him. He had good advice and was very open to questions."

April's Meetings

Our Friend Ron Pays A Visit

April 16: Ron Rosenstock was our guest speaker at the regular April meeting. He brought with him stories about how he got started in photography, where he taught, and how he got into leading tours. Mostly, though, he entertained us with a terrific slide show of recent images made with his new found passion, digital photography.

April 2: We spent the entire meeting going through our collection of Multiscreen images and selected the 24 images we need. Members whose images were digital were told to get them made into slides. Next step...WIN BACK THE TROPHY!

April 16: Ron Rosenstock was our guest speaker.


Going Digital...

Our Digital Meetings

Next Digital Meeting: 7:00 PM, Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at the Banx Room of the Worcester Public

Note: If you go to the Worcester Public Library website (just do a Google search on "Worcester Public Library"), and click on Meeting Rooms, you'll see what night we have reserved. For convenience, we've added a link in the navigation panel on the left.

Well, another Digital Group meeting was held June 12th in the Banx Room of the  Worcester library. This was very well attended with some Meetup folk stopping by.

The meeting started with Lori Church showing a ProShow presentation of some work she is doing with the Douglas Cemetery Commission in an effort to get the utility company to either move lines and poles that encroach on the cemetery,  or put them out of sight.  A small discussion was held after the show with suggestions on how to make it more effective. I think this turned out quite well, and I would like to see this type of project shown in the future. Thanks Lori.

I then covered what my image workflow looks like at the moment. I must point out, my workflow seems to change every couple months.

My workflow:
  1. Catalog the image in Lightroom.
  2. In the develop module:
  • Under Basic:
    • Run Auto.
    • If you have burned out highlights use Recovery slider.
    • Pump up Clarity slider.
    • Maybe add a little on the Vibrance slider.
    • If the image is a little dark work with the brightness slider.
    • Under Tone Curve check out how the Linear, Medium, or High Contrast works on image.
  • Under Detail:
    • Move the Amount and Detail sliders to increase apparent sharpness
    • If you have noise work with the luminance slider.
  1. Right click on your mouse and select work in CS3. This will create a PSD file and keep the PSD in Lightroom . So you end up with the original cataloged image and a new psd cataloged image.
  2. In Photoshop I have been using some of Gary Stanley’s tips in his book “Image Preparation, The Key to Success”.
  • Gary’s setup for Adjusting Shadow and Highlights is first.
    • Under the Image drop down select Adjustments and then Shadows/Highlight. In the dialog set Shadows amount to 50%, Tonal Width to 25%, and Radius to 153 px. Then Highlights Amount to  10%, Tonal Width to 62%, and Radius to  30%.  Then Save As Defaults. What happens is every time you go into Shadows/Highlights these will be the values you start with.  I normally find that 10% on the  Highlights is too high for me and also the 50% on Shadows is also a little high. Use Gary’s defaults as a starting point.
    • I then like to use Nik’s Filter Viveza.  This is a new plug-in from Nik which is at least worth downloading the 15 day trial. I like this filter because of it’s ability to isolate tones or colors on an image.  A real good place to use it is on  faces which are too dark because you didn’t use a fill flash. I don’t use a flash.
    • Casey pointed out that Nik Color EFEX has the same technology. I didn’t know that so we tried it out with a couple filters. I really need to look into this. You should look into this.
    • I sharpen with the Edge Enhancer filter from OPTIPIX. There a hundred ways to  sharpen and this is what I use.
    • The final Gary Stanley Tip if to finish off you image with Unsharp Mask in Photoshop.  Gary sets  The Amount to 18, the Radius to 40, and Threshold to 0. This tip makes the image really pop.
  1. Save the image and you can see the results in Lightroom. Now you can print, create jpegs, etc with the finished image.
Michelle Fontaine next showed a family reunion show which was held in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

Casey finished the meeting off suggesting we look at some Youtube shows about Photoshop. Search with  “You Suck With Photoshop” .  They are funny and offer some good techniques.  Thanks, Casey.

-- Don Roberts
* * * Across The Pond * * *

About Our Image Exchanges With Worcestershire Camera Club

Monthly Exchange

If you read the piece at the top of this web page, you know we've started a new monthly photo exchange to better share information about our locales. Thumbnails in the feature column (right side) will get  you to the pages. The two clubs will have slightly different presentations of the images, but each site will show both. It's a nice way to learn a bit more about one another.

Anytime, All-the-time, Photo Exchange

We also are starting a more ad hoc image sharing/critiquing site using wiki technology. Wiki is probably best known because of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia-like site whose information is generated by hundreds, if not thousands, of people. The idea is to make a site freely updateable (is that a real word?) by anyone with the hope that, the massess will collectively keep the information honest and accurate. In our case, we are using Wetpaint.com to host us. It's free and it looks like it may be fun. The first two images are up and we're looking for folks to give it a shot. You don't have to be a registered Wetpaint user to view the site, but you do if you want to upload or make comments.

Give it a try. Here's the link: http://worcester-shire.wetpaint.com/

There's even a discussion forum. The website page is busy because it's advertising based, but you should be able to find what you need.
 
* * * Art & Photo Exhibits * * *




* * * Club To Club * * *

NECCC Report


Multiscreen

New Subjects For Multi-Screen 2007-2008

Images must be made after May 1, 2008.
Abandoned Gooey Shell(s) Bell (s)
Hand(s)
Silhouette(s)
Butterfly(ies)
Lighthouse(s)
Spiral
Chair(s) Moss Sweet(s)
Curve(s)
Patriotic Tree(s)
Feather(s)
Reflection(s)
Upside Down
Framed
Rock(s)
Waterfall(s)
Glass
Seascape
Wave(s)


* * * Things You Might Want To Know * * *

These are some emails and tidbits we've received recently...

Note: You can look up other such items in our This Just In section. Not everything we receive appears on our top level page. It's a good idea to check this just in every once in a while.



** * 7HCC Merchandise * * *

7HCC Merchandise Available Online

Newproducts have been added along with corrections to the web page addressin our graphics.

Checkout the 7HCC Merchandise Website (http://www.cafeshops.com/7HCC)for neat products with our logo on them. They make great gifts forfriends and family. (No, we make no money on these items.)

*** Submitting Content To This Website * * *

If you have images that are relevant to the content of this website, (and you are a member or have a compelling reason why your images should be included here anyway), send them along to the Contact information below. Images should be no larger than 800 pixels in their largest dimension. We will select an appropriate thumbnail size. We will not provide a separate copyright notice for your image. (It's really not necessary because US Copyright law already affords you exclusive rights and protections to your images.)

Club Members!!! ...please consider submitting images you make during club events. They help make this page more interesting and, afterall, you are all photographers.

** * Welcome To The Seven Hills Camera Club Home Page * * *

We are one of the few camera clubs in central Massachusetts open to the general public and the only such club in the city of Worcester. We meet from September to May and, through this home page, make ourselves accessible throughout the year. Our goal is to encourage people to enjoy all aspects of photography. We don't mind if you don't join our club - you can visit us any time for free. But, we'd certainly be pleased if you did join and, as an incentive, when you do, you'll have access to certain club sponsored events and activities which aren't available to everyone. Just click our links to find out more about us.

Can you name the seven hills of Worcester? (Answer)

Click here for the Club Calendar.
Questions? Comments? Contact 7HCC.
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