Cliff Anderson is having a Black & White exhibit at Craig Carmichael’s Island Exposures Gallery.  The exhibit will contain flowers and landscapes.  Cliff is a wonderful photographer and was our Club’s photographer of the year in 2015 based on the winning votes he received throughout the year’s assignments.

Be certain to stop by the Gallery and enjoy Cliff’s photography.

Annual General Meeting

Elections for our new management team will be held at this meeting.  Richard will offer his final message, announce our photographer of the year and turn the meeting over to Vivienne Bearder to conduct the elections.  Once the new team has been voted on, announced and introduced, we will have our slideshows from the Weather assignment, the field trip to Cowichan Bay and our favourite shots from April.

Our speaker for the month is Thomas Dawson, a travel and landscape photographer from Victoria. His main objective is to capture beautiful and inspirational moments in time at some of the most amazing places on Earth. His travels have taken him to a diversity of places such as China, Thailand, Colombia, the Canadian Rocky Mountains, several locations in the US, Cambodia plus many others.

He has been involved with art and playing musical instruments since being young, however, photography is his main passion. He loves to visit and capture grandiose scenes with vivid colours but his goal is to show the world far more than just iconic locations. On Vancouver Island, where he lives, Thomas has diligently searched for and found locations out in the forests and mountains that no other photographer has ventured to and these photos are part of his ‘My Secret Paradise’ series.

Many people comment how there’s a spiritual, relaxing appeal to many of his photos and this is reflective of his inner nature. He loves the outdoors, promotes a healthy lifestyle and hopes that people feel a sense of joy and peace when viewing his photos.

We are pleased to have Adam Gibbs join us for a special meeting to talk about his photography and travels. Many of you will have seen hundreds of Adams photos in Gardens West magazine when he was their professional photographer.  Here is a link to Adam’s website
Adam enjoys photography, and especially the opportunity to experience the subjects. The act of hiking to a location and simply setting up a camera and taking a few images is what he enjoys about photography. To watch beautiful light on a snowbound peak or camp in an alpine meadow surrounded by wildflowers are the things that draw him to photography, not the other way around. For him, photography is an extension of the outdoor experience, nothing more, nothing less.

Be certain your membership is up to date for free admittance.

We are in for a special presentation from one of our members, Michael Van der Tol.  Michael will be speaking on “Using Textures in Your Photography”. The presentation will cover texture overlays as well as using textures with displacement maps. He’ll show some examples of each and if there is enough time walk through both type of examples using Photoshop.

First, we’ll go through the club business and then view the slideshows from our field trip to Elk Falls Provincial Park, our favourites for May and our Backyard assignment.

Be certain to visit Michael’s great website – click here !

Our August meeting’s presenter will be our past president, Richard Peeke-Vout.  Richard has been organizing our field trip and annual favourite slideshows for over two years. He will present some of the ones he has most enjoyed and will tell us a few of his secrets for how he organizes the images and selects the great music he picks.

We will be looking at the slideshows from our trip to the July outing, the Bamfield outing and the Construction assignment.

We will have coffee, tea and water at the break, bring a loonie!!!

Three of our club members are among the founding members of a group that are working to bring world class photographers and instructors to the Island to share their skills and knowledge that will allow photographers to become the best they can be.

Mark Koegel will be speaking about:

• Minimalism, Leading Lines, and Negative Space: seeing the world through a lens versus our eyes
• Fine-Art Long Exposure Photography Case Study
• From RAW to FINAL: The Complete Workflow from Capture to Print

Our November meeting has moved to a different date for this month. We are very pleased to have Eiko Jones come and speak to us about his photography. The topic is Watershed Awareness – one photo at a time.

At times he is overwhelmed by the beauty of the world around us. He is passionate about sharing this Pacific Northwest environment with everyone. Through artistic and dramatic imagery, he endeavours to offer people a glance of that world, whether they live in a big city condo, or have no ability to experience the world below or out in nature. His work is all about drawing attention to the entire environment and watersheds, from the mountaintops all the way down, and into our vast, but fragile oceans.

Coffee service will be available so bring your loonie.

Our speaker to start the year off is former club member Randy Hall.  Randy has developed a style that shows enhanced colours and contrast. When many people think of contrast, they think colours and tones. There can also be contrast in content. An example of this can be seen in some of Randy’s early morning images of Parksville Bay. Towering or threatening clouds can instill the feeling of unrest, while the calm waters of the bay say serenity. “It’s this type of scene, and the incorporation of weather, that interests me the most”.

Fire in the Sky

Randy will be speaking to us about his style of  photography and HDR.  Click on Randy’s photo or the Fire in the Sky image to see more of his images.

Following our business portion of the meeting we will see the results of the Portraits and People assignment and the field trip to Robert Held glass works.

We are going to have an exciting evening.  Wally Chinn and his wife Alison will be offering his photo-travelogue presentation on exploring the polar bear domain in the Churchill, Manitoba region.

As the marquis animal or symbol for Canada’s northern wildlife, the Polar Bear has little rival. As the largest land carnivore in the world, Canada is home to more than 60% of the world’s polar bears, an animal species that has attracted much interest, curiosity and concern.  Wally & Alison have made a few presentations to the OPS in the past, and through another of their narrated photo presentations, they will focus on their recent experiences in northern Manitoba.  As opposed to their previous presentations that were directed at distant lands such as Africa, Antarctica or the Galapagos Islands, this showing will be directed somewhat closer to home, examining wildlife and geography with a particularly Canadian perspective, including the realities of polar bear life and some of the lighter sides of their behaviour.

The club business will get underway first and we will review the Table Top assignment, the field trip to Rathtrevor and our January favourites.

Our speaker for March is Bryn Tassell from Ladysmith. Bryn is planning on sharing and talking about the images he has captured on various trips, some of the challenges along with some tips and tricks he has learned along the way.

Bryn Tassell is a photographer who been pursuing a passion of documenting nature for 10 years. He has combined his passion for out door adventure with capturing the natural beauty of the locations he visits. His passion has taken him to remote areas on Vancouver Island to tropical jungles and desolate landscapes of Iceland. More info about his work can be found on his web site at www.BrynTassell.ca

We will have slideshows for the assignment, the field trip to Milner Gardens and the February favourites.

Be certain to bring a loonie for a coffee, can’t get a better deal than this…

loonie for coffee