Yearly Archives: 2016

/2016

2016-2017 Season Begins September 10

Our 2016-2017 meeting schedule begins on Saturday, September 10. Our first photo contest theme will be “Summer Share” as we normally do for our first meeting after the summer break. We’ll discuss contest themes for the rest of the year at our first meeting.

 

By |September 5th, 2016|Uncategorized|Comments Off on 2016-2017 Season Begins September 10

Photo Blogs, VR and Free Tools

In the last few months of meetings and announcements some websites and tools have been mentioned. Here’s a quick post to provide references for anyone who’s interested.

Digital Photography School

Before we start, here’s a new one that I’d like to share. This blog/newsletter offers pretty inspiring tips for the aspiring photographer. He’s eager to sell his classes and books, but what he gives away for free is pretty good. Link: http://digital-photography-school.com/tips

Google Nik

Google has a set of photo filters that they just made available for free called Nik. They used to cost about $150, but they just decided to give them away. Be warned, it’s a big download (~500MB).  I’ve been using them in Photoshop, but there may be other ways to work with them. Check it out here: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

Google Cardboard (VR)

Back in February Don showed us some of his VR (virtual reality) viewers. One of the software applications that Don mentioned was Jaunt VR (website: http://www.jauntvr.com) which allows you to use your phone to view VR. You’ll need a VR headset viewer such as Google Cardboard or similar units. Look online for inexpensive units. Here’s a place to start: https://www.google.com/search?gs_ivs=1&q=Google+cardboard+viewers

That’s all for now.

By |April 17th, 2016|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Photo Blogs, VR and Free Tools

January Meeting Wrap-Up

Before we get to the January wrap-up, remember that our February club meeting is on Feb 13, the day before Valentine’s day.

In our January meeting, we had some technical difficulties (Stuart wasn’t there) so we couldn’t get our voting software working. As a result, for our next club photo competition in February, we’ll have a combined contest theme of Food / Nature.

We also had a frank conversation about the food situation. Marilyn and Joyce have been managing the significant effort for providing, organizing and cleaning up our monthly buffet. There are a few things that they’d like to request.

  1. We need more volunteers to bring food. It generally falls to the same people, month after month.
  2. Please don’t call Marilyn or Joyce to check on the food status. Please check the website to see what’s needed. Note that you can now sign-up AND cancel on the sign-up list. The sign up list automatically notifies our food coordinators whenever there’s a change on the list, and will automatically send you an email reminder the day before the event. You can also sign up months in advance. Nevertheless, if you sign-up and later can’t provide food for some reason, please make an effort to find someone to take your place. We all agreed that if there are gaps on the sign-up sheet, there will be gaps on the lunch table. No one should be expected to fill the gaps at the last minute.
  3. Joyce requested occasional assistance with driving food to the meeting during bad weather. She’s in the North Seattle area. Please write Joyce directly if you’re willing to help in this respect.
  4. It was also requested that our newsletter/meeting reminder/email be sent two weeks ahead of the meeting requesting food volunteers, and that a second reminder be sent one week ahead of the meeting to point out any gaps in the menu.

Food Reminder: Please sign up to bring food. ? Here’s the link to the sign up page.

We also addressed our meeting location. It was suggested that a more convenient location would help existing members come more often, and might even bring in new members. Don said he’d check out a church venue in Kirkland, but any change wouldn’t happen until our next club season (2016-2017) because we’ve committed to the Federal Way Senior Center. I have also sent email inquiries to two Seattle-area churches that rent space to other photo clubs, but have yet to get a response from either.

Don showed us some of his VR (virtual reality) viewers. One of the software applications that Don mentioned was Jaunt VR  which allows you to use your phone to view VR. You’ll need a VR headset viewer such as Google Cardboard or similar units. Look online for inexpensive units.

Spring will be in the air next month, and we’ll all start to get that itch to be outdoors more often. But for now, it’s still cold and wet, which is perfect weather to work on your photo submissions for “Food / Nature” for February 13.

See you then.

By |February 7th, 2016|Uncategorized|Comments Off on January Meeting Wrap-Up