Photo by Bob Baikauskas
Lincoln Hills
Photography Club
This is an Archive Page for the December 2017 News Page. Some Links may no longer work as the site has changed.
If a link does not work go to the current subject pages for links to archived content pertaining to stories contained on this page.
The Photo Club is comprised of residents of the Sun City Lincoln Hills community in Lincoln, CA.
Below is a list of our monthly meetings and activities
General Meeting - 2nd Wednesday @ 8:30am
The General Meeting usually features a guest speaker on a specific aspect of photography. It also is a forum for the President or Board Members to discuss current and upcoming events of interest to the membership.
Summaries of General Meeting Presentations are archived HERE
YouTube links to General Meeting videos are HERE
Field Trips
Find information on recent and upcoming trips HERE
Exhibits
Exhibitions offer club members an avenue to show their photographs. Some use these occasions as an opportunities to sell their work. Find information on current and upcoming exhibits and how to participate HERE
Lifestyle Photography Group
The Lifestyle Group provides photo journalistic services to Sun City Clubs and Community Association sponsored events and activities. They meet the first Thursday of the month. To learn more visit the Group's page HERE
Board Meeting
Board Meetings occur on the second Tuesday at 9:00 am in the Multipurpose Room at Orchard Creek.. It is open to any current Photography Club member. Copies of the approved "Board Meeting Minutes" are posted on this site on the MEMBERS page HERE
The purpose of the Photo Enhancement SIG is to help you make your photos better using photo editing software. Meetings are held in the Orchard Creek Multi-Purpose room. For more info go to the SIG's Webpage HERE
Round Table SIG - 4th Wednesday @ 8:30am
The Round Table SIG provides an opportunity for any member to discuss any topic related to photography. It is the perfect forum for asking all of those, "How do I" questions. For more info about the Round Table SIG click HERE
Print SIG - 4th Wednesday @ 10:30am
The Print SIG will meet quarterly (January, April, June, October) in the Orchard Creek Multi-purpose room immediately following the Round Table SIG. The Print SIG provides an opportunity for members to present and discuss their prints and receive feedback from fellow Club members. To learn more about the Print SIG visit our page HERE
Video SIG
The last Video SIG met on November 21, 2017. In early 2018, a Learning SIG will take its place at 9:00 AM in the Multi-Purpose Room of the Orchard Creek Lodge.
Action Camera's Pete Perez Gave "Street Photography" Presentation
at November 8th General Meeting
At the November General Meeting, Club members learned about the art of street photography from Pete Perez, the manager of Action Camera. Pete is an accomplished photographer well-known in the Sacramento region. Although Pete enjoys all types of photography, he chose to speak to us on street photography because of its wide appeal.
Mr. Perez provided information regarding equipment selection, preparing for the photo shoot, safety tips and how to deal with the people you will encounter while shooting. He also provided some very useful ‘how-to’ tips on street photography techniques.
​
A more detailed summary of the meeting can be seen in our General Meeting Archives HERE
​
A YouTube video of Petes's presentation can be seen by visiting our General Meeting video archives HERE
​
Photo Club’s Holiday Party Slated for December 13th!!
Just like last year, the Party will be held in the Sportsman’s Bar at Meridians.
Holiday Breakfast tickets went on sale at the November General Meeting. At last update, we had one ticket remaining!
Tickets are $10.00 per person which includes breakfast, coffee and orange juice as well as tax and tip. The meeting will be a breakfast buffet and will start at 8:00 am.
Following last year's Holiday Party, members expressed concern that the time spent on giving away the raffle items took away from social time. This year, there will not be a raffle to allow members the time to socialize with as many people as possible.
Holiday Revelers - A scene from last year's party which was a resounding success.
Grey Lodge Wildlife Reserve was target for November 29th Field Trip.
The Field Trip was scheduled during the peak of the waterfowl winter migration season for this wetlands paradise. This is part of the great Pacific Flyway and Gray Lodge is home to more than 300 kinds of resident and migratory animals.
​
More than one million waterfowl spend part of the winter at Gray Lodge. Many of their “friends” include eagles, kites, hawks and other raptors plus shorebirds, songbirds, river otters and other animals.
Everyone from beginners to pros enjoyed this opportunity. More experienced photographers and birders shared their expertise.
​
Our expert guides were: Larry White, Truman Holtzclaw, Don Baylis, Carole Haskell, Maxine Johnson and Phil Robertson.
Lift-Off - Witnessing hundreds of birds launching themselves into the sky at one time is a site to behold... magical. Photo by Larry White
Wanted: Webmaster for the Lincoln Hills Photography Club Website
Lincoln Hills Photography Club
This January Bob Baikauskas, who has served as Webmaster for the Club website, will retire his duties so he can once again focus on photography.
Our website is built using WIX, a website development platform that uses an easy drag and drop editor, so there’s no coding experience needed. If you are familiar with Powerpoint or Keynote you will be able to quickly learn the WIX platform.
We have a great website team providing input and support for the NEWS, GALLERY, RESOURCE, SIGs and BLOG features. The webmaster’s job is to work with contributors and publish the website every month. The time required, after you become familiar with the WIX editor is about 10-12 hours/month.
If you are interested in serving as webmaster for our Photography Club website, let us know. Training for this job can start immediately. Contact Bill Kress Email or Bob Dale Email
Fall Colors, Salmon Runs and Bears were on the docket for the October Field Trip
We have posted 30 trip photographs by our members in a gallery on the Field Trip page HERE
Photo by Debra Raach
The Photography Club Fall Color Field Trip targeted the South Lake Tahoe and Hope Valley areas this past October.
The aspens, cottonwoods, willows and mountain maples provided fantastic displays of gold, yellow and smatterings of red against spectacular mountain and lake backgrounds.
Club members also visited Taylor Creek to see the Kokanee salmon spawn and photograph the bears feeding on the salmon in preparation preparation for their winter hibernation. In addition to the bears there were plenty of mergansers, gulls and other birds feeding on the salmon.
Some even made the trip to Silver and Caples lake to photograph the Milky Way Galaxy.
Check out the gallery of scenes and people photographs from the trip on the Field Trip page.
Next Enhancement SIG Meeting - Wednesday December 6th
The next meeting of the Photo Enhancement SIG will feature a discussion of the free photo editor Polarr. Polarr runs on Windows, Mac, and Chromebook, as well as on iPhones, iPads, and Android phones and tablets. It has an Auto Enhance feature that much like Photolemur will attempt to automatically enhance your photo. In my limited use of this tool I got mixed results. Some photos turned out great and some were utter failures. However if the Auto Enhance feature fails unlike Photolemur Polarr has the most commonly used tools to manually enhance your photo. One of those tools is Dehaze which will often make your photo look better just by itself. It also does facial recognition in that it will recognize faces in a photo and has special tools for making them look better. Unfortunately no matter how hard I tried I couldn't make myself look 25 again. There is a "Pro" version that costs $20. It adds Denoise and some other features. Definitely worth checking out HERE.
​
While on the subject of free photo editors I will also discuss another one which is RAW Therapee. As the name implies it will edit RAW photos from most cameras and it will also edit JPEGs if you don't shoot RAW. It is a very good photo editor with many tools to enhance your photos and you can't beat the price. You can check it out HERE.
​
If you have any photos you would like to enhance but are not quite sure how to do it then bring them on a flash drive and our resident experts will be happy to help.
Enhancement SIG Image Processing/Interpretive Challenge
will resume after the 1st of the year.
The Enhancement SIG "Image Processing/Interpretive Challenge" has been well received by our membership, and will take a hiatus in December. It will resume after the first of the new year. Watch for an email that will contain links to the new photos for the challenge.
To participate in the challenge members need to download one (or more) of three photos that will be posted to this site and process/enhance it for presentation to the SIG attendees.
​
The idea is to take a look at how different people interpret,
and put their personal touch to the same image.
​
There are no rules other than you must still be able to recognize the enhanced photo as being derived from the original photo. You can turn it into a work of art such as a painting, a sketch, a cartoon, an abstract or you can just make it a better photo. It's up to you. Feel free to let your creativity and imagination run wild or show off your skills at creating a great photo using your favorite post processing software.
​
The images will be posted unprocessed (the way they came out of the camera) as high-rez 14Mb images (see below) on a separate page so you can download the images to your computer.
​
Here are the three unprocessed photos from the November Enhancement Challenge.
Allen Adler
Allen Adler
Bob Baikauskas
To download the full size 14Mb files click HERE
Enhancement SIG meets 1st Wednesday in Orchard Creek Lodge Multi-purpose Room at 8:30 AM
Here are the two "processed" photos from the November Enhance Challenge.
You can see all of the "Processed Photos" in a Gallery by clicking HERE
Image Processed by Truman Holtzclaw
Image Processed by Ronald Parker
The New Year Brings Changes to the SIGs
The Video SIG will no longer be offered. The print SIG will change from monthly to quarterly: Jan, Apr, Jul and Oct. And at least some of the meeting time and space available as a result of these changes will be filled by a new "Learning SIG". The Learning SIG is still in development stages and will be widely publicized to members and potential members when it is fully defined. A preliminary launch date is set for Feb 20, 2018.
Out With The Old and In With The New
Jack Ferrante updates his Gallery
Click on photos to go to his Gallery Page on this website.
Photo by Jack Ferrante
Photo by Jack Ferrante
It's time to get off your duff and follow the example set by Jack. Create your own photo gallery or refresh your current gallery with new images.
​
Club Member Individual Galleries have now been expanded to accommodate a total of 32 photographs.
With this expansion members who want to showcase their photos on the website have the option to present as few as four photos up to a maximum of 32 photos. The prior maximum was limited to 20 images.
Those needing guidance resizing their images should refer to the instructions posted on the Members Page HERE
Member Galleries now accommodate a maximum of 32 images, up from 20.
"Field Trips and Other Adventures" Replaces "Colorful Summer" as Theme of the Fall Simple Pleasures Exhibit that will be on display until January 22nd.
Mold Room at Gladding McBean - Photo by Debra Raach highlights the concept of the theme - "Field Trips and Other Adventures" - our current exhibit at Simple Pleasures Restaurant from October 23rd - January 22.
Our current exhibit - "Field Trips and Other Adventures" is at Lincoln's Simple Pleasures Restaurant
The exhibit features work by Club Members:
Allen Adler, Rhonda Campbell, Bob Dale, Stephanie Huntingdale, Bill Jensen, Debra Raach, Steve Stewart, Larry White, Vicki White and James Wronkiewicz. The exhibit will be on display until January 22, 2018. For a look at the current exhibit visit the Exhibit page HERE
​
Check out the Exhibits Page for information on the upcoming Winter Challenge - "Long Exposure, effects on streams, stars, clouds, etc" AND "Motion Photography".
Simple Pleasures is located in downtown Lincoln at 648 Fifth Street. It's a great spot for breakfast and lunch. Check out the Exhibit and support this local venue.
Nine Club members have their photo prints showcased at Kilaga Springs Spa.
You can see a Gallery of the images by clicking HERE
Kilaga Springs Spa Exhibits Pictures from Club Photographers including Allen Adler, Brad Senn, DeAtley Cahill, Klara Kleman, Mary Selfridge, Michael Johnson, Klara Klamen, Pat Monda, and Patrick Jewell. The pictures chosen for display were hung on November 5. All Club members are invited to the Artists' Reception at the Kilaga Springs Spa on Sunday, December 17 from 2pm-4pm. There will be light refreshments served. Please join the group to view the pictures chosen for the exhibit.
Year-long Challenge - California Missions!
Don't forget our year-long challenge to photograph California Missions which ends July 1, 2018. More information available on the Exhibits page.
Kate McCarthy presented an exploration of local and online sources for learning videography at the November 21st Video SIG
Kate has taken numerous courses at Sierra College and presented the ones she has found beneficial and cost effective for both videography and photography. She answered questions about the Program in time for Spring enrollment. Additionally, she also presented choices in Internet Learning opportunities including the vast variety of courses on Lynda.com.
​
A PDF of Kate's presentation is here:
This was the last meeting of the Video SIG. A Learning SIG is being developed which will meet in its place on the 3rd Tuesday of the month in the Orchard Creek Lodge Multi-purpose Room at 9:00 AM. The first meeting of the Learning SIG will be February 20, 2018.
Coloma, California
Like to photograph antiques, old artifacts from gold rush days, people, and old building? Coloma has all of these and more. In early November, Betty Sederquist had a photo workshop in Coloma, where we were allowed access to many interesting buildings.
​
In this historic town, there’s a yearly public open house event, called Historic Holiday Houses, which take place on December 9-10, 2017. During this two-day period, thirteen historic buildings are open and decorated for Christmas. Hours: 10 am to 4 pm. Parking is $8.00 and the event fee is $5.00/person. Park docents wearing period clothing will be standing in front of old buildings to explain their history.
​
To see a few photographs taken during November, 2017 Betty Sederquist workshop in Coloma,
click HERE
Bill Kress
Blacksmith Shop, Coloma.
Photo by Bill Kress
The BLOG is Here!!! Check it Out.
The latest blog post is on backing up your photos
​
We all know we should backup our photos but how many of us do and more importantly are we doing it properly? The latest blog post gives my opinions and that of experts on backing up photos as well as other important files and presents links to articles that deal with the subject of backups. It will discuss backup software some which is free and some you have to pay for. It will also list cloud based solutions for backing up your photos and other important files.
​
You may think you are doing everything right when it comes to backups but are you? Check out this blog post and then you can make an informed decision on whether to keep doing it the way you are doing it or switch to a different and hopefully better way.
​
The For more information go to the Blog.
​
We want to hear from You!
One of the nice things about the Blog is you have the ability to comment on blog posts and respond to someone else's comments. You can even put a photo in your comment. So far no one has commented on any of the posts. We were hoping members would get involved and express there opinions. In fact we encourage you to do so.
If you have any experience with, or opinions about, any of the information presented in the blog posts please share your thoughts with your fellow Club members. Post a comment. I would prefer the Blog be a conversation and not a lecture.
​
Have a post idea... Let us know.
One final reminder. Any member can make a Blog post. Just write it up and send it to me. You can even remain anonymous however you do have to tell me who you are but I won't use your name as the author.
To navigate to the blog look for the BLOG link at the end of the main menu, or click HERE
We hope you will enjoy this feature and participate by commenting on blog posts, responding to the comments of others, and asking questions.
Gary Stephens is our Blogger!!
If you would like to reach Gary directly you can email him at:
