The first Dubuque Camera Club meeting of the 2019/2020 season was attended by 21 people. The meeting was held on a Tuesday due to the Labor Day holiday.

Two brave guests who were not intimidated last season, Debbie and Lorna, came back to see us again, and even, rumor has it, paid their dues. I predict that the next step on their life journey will be figuring out how to resize images to 1920 pixels and 750KB. Sam, another fearless individual, came all the way from Texas to attend our meeting. That is quite a commute!

Ellie, one of our most seasoned club members, regaled us with the tale of how she was issued her member number (#11) during horse-and-buggy days. In those pioneering days, the club used slides for competition. Even harder to fathom, the PSA had not yet become too high-brow for ordinary mortals. Today in the N4C, some competition photos that make the Best of the Best at the end of the year are sent onward to PSA competition.

At tonight’s meeting, club president Ron Tigges gave a refresher tutorial on the intricacies of club business. We meet twice a month (typically on Monday evenings) in a season that runs from September to May. Annual dues of only $20 qualify you to participate in club activities and exhibits, as well as submit to N4C competition. Club treasurer John Leicht is in charge of collecting dues. If you have not yet paid your current dues, bring them to the next meeting!

REFLECTIONS. The club’s Reflections exhibit will open on Sept. 21 at the Dubuque Museum of Art. This is our 7th consecutive annual photography exhibition at DuMA. This year the club was able to offer a financial subsidy for prints, thanks to proceeds from the 2018 Blufftops & Visions convention.

Twenty club members have a photo in the show, which will be located upstairs in the balcony gallery. An opening reception for Reflections will be held on Friday, September 27 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. (Admission charged; exhibiting artists get in free). The exhibit will be on display through Nov. 10, 2019.

N4C COMPETITION. A few fearless club members sent in N4C competition submissions before the meeting, so we looked at those. A few minor changes in rules and category descriptions are now in effect. [Click here for the latest N4C contest rules].

Remember, competition submissions are always due before the first meeting of each month. They are posted to the club’s online gallery. The club has a voting process for winnowing down entries (vote for five per category, using your member number in the comments).

When a category is not yet full (i.e. less than 8 images have been submitted by the meeting — or 16 when we get double submissions because we judged), it’s first-come-first-served. N4C reps Cara Pusateri and Ken Kiss make the final call about which submissions go in. Details about submitting to N4C competition are in the club emails to that go out to members.

MORE N4C STUFF. Finding Your Light is the theme for this year’s N4C convention in Des Moines on Sept. 19-22, 2019. Our club is sending a couple of delegates, to rock the digital boat and keep the fogies alert. Odds are, we will probably hear a report about all the juicy N4C news and convention presenters from Ron and Jennifer as part of our October 7 club meeting.

MISC CLUB GOSSIP. General Bob was in attendance, betwixt his world travels and renaissance man art experiments. He led the distracting topic of the evening, which revolved around feeding alka-seltzer to seagulls (supposedly, they explode). We plan to fact-check this urban myth on the local stray cats [only partially joking]. Check back here for gory updates.

Speaking of myths and memories, our adventuresome friends, Henry Matthiessen and Dean Wellman, are on the cusp of their photo-journey to the American southwest. Thoughts from the Road will happen from Sept. 16 through Oct. 1, 2019. See their GoFundMe page for details or find Thoughts from the Road on Facebook. They may not realize it yet, but they have taken a blood oath to present their work at an upcoming Dubuque Camera Club meeting. Details TBA.

Another dream too good to be true was the oft-repeated news story that we Iowans would be able to see and photograph the northern lights (aka the Aurora Borealis) on Labor Day. Club member Andreas Exner drove in search of this fantasy, making it all the way to Pilot Knob, Iowa. However, it still wasn’t far enough from the light pollution to get a good picture of the northern lights. He took this one instead.

Finally, the promised night photo shoot is tentatively re-scheduled for an upcoming meeting (Oct. 21?). The current iteration of this idea is to shoot the MOS chapel. Yes, you read that right. We are going to walk through a dark forest with our tripods a few days before Halloween. Hopefully nobody meets a haunted seagull on the trail. Stay tuned…