March 20, 2017 Meeting Minutes

Submitted by Jennifer Tigges

We had special guests for our March 20th meeting.

About 20 club members were in attendance along with a few new or potential members. Because of the new members, club president Ron Tigges went over what the N4C is and a bit about the submissions and judging. Also, the perks of being in the club:  patches, ability to be in shows, two parties per year and more.

Scott and Kris Kelly of S. Kelly Photography were in attendance. They have 13 years of experience in portrait photography  and are very involved in PPI (Professional Photography of Iowa), which meets twice a year. The next PPI meeting is in November  2017 with national speakers.

Steve Kelly from ACI (American Color Imaging) was our guest speaker of the evening. He brought many samples along. He described various types of prints using different materials and textures. White base and natural base is available for metal prints. We will be doing metal prints for the upcoming Dubuque Museum of Art exhibit in August.

ACI has a commitment to quality and getting your prints correct. They offer color correction, proofing, calibration prints and more. They even have an event pics area on their website where you can upload and people can purchase from,  and then they drop ship if you want to sell through ACI. Email Steve at steve.kelly@acilab.com or phone 1-800-728-2722 ext 2104.

We may be setting up a tour of the facilities in the future. ACI is located in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

April Submissions – all information on the new submission guidelines are at the bottom of our website competition page.

April 3, 2017 – Returns/submissions. No Pictorial submissions. Double Travel submissions.
April 17, 2017 – Judging Pictorial category.

Club members – remember to join our Facebook Group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/dbqcameraclub/

March 6, 2017 Meeting Minutes

18 people were in attendance.

Competition
Digital Creative and Digital Travel each had one more spot to fill. After last night’s meeting these are probably already filled. Please vote using your club member in the comments for up to 5 votes in each category.

Reminder that submission guidelines, link for voting and more information can be found at our website competition page here.

Special Events

The Dubuque Camera Club gave a presentation about nature photography at the Mines of Spain on March 5, 2017.

Mines of Spain Nature Photography — Dubuque Camera Club
March 5, 2017, 1:00 p.m. | E.B. Lyons Interpretive Center at the Mines of Spain
This was a success with almost 50 in attendance. Thanks goes out to Kevin McTague for teaching us about backyard birding, Ken Kiss for sharing about the Owls in the Mines of Spain including some owl pellets, and Ron Tigges for the overview of the N4C, nature photography and macro photography.

Dubuque Museum of Art Summer Exhibit
August-October — We have chosen a name/theme of the exhibit “Dimensions of Photography”
We would have various photos from different categories or types of photos along with a description of that type of photography. We will go with metal prints again. Gary Fagan brought a sample of a metal print from ACI. They currently have a special running if you have other printing needs.

N4C Spring Seminar
Because of a schedule changes with the IDNR, the Springbrook seminar has changed the location and the date to May 5-7, 2017. It will be called the Iowa Camp-In – Mini-Convention and held at Saint Thomas More Center, between Guthrie Center and Panora, Iowa. More information is available on the N4C website

Bird Banding at EB Lyons Center
Sunday, March 19th at 1:00 p.m. is another photo op while birds are being caught outside in mist nets, brought inside to be weighed, banded and finally released.

Future Meetings

Club meeting, March 20, 6:30 p.m. Special guest Steve Kelly from ACI labs will teach us about various printing techniques and samples of papers. Think all printing is alike? Come check this out and see the large array of papers and products available today. Thank you to Gary Fagan for help with getting Steve to drop by.

April 3 Regular Club Meeting- reminder that submissions are now due March 26th and we do not submit in Digital Pictorial category this month. 

April 17 – Judging Digital Pictorial

February Competition Results

Digital Black and White — some tough competition!

  • “Braving the Storm” by Gary Fagan, Honorable Mention
  • “Picking Flowers” by Jose Garcia, Honorable Mention
  • “National Archives at Night: Bob Felderman, Honorable Mention
  • “Nap Time” by David Smethers, Honorable Mention (with a perfect score)

Digital Journalism

  • “Flipping Around” Jose Garcia, Honorable Mention

Digital Nature

  • “Protect Me” Gary Fagan, Honorable Mention

There were many merit awards received as well. Great job, everyone.

Technique Review

Ron Tigges spent the rest of the night showing some examples of various techniques that could be utilized for the Dubuque Museum of Art exhibit.

February 6, 2017 Meeting Minutes

Great turnout for this meeting. 

Discussion about submission updates and changes:

Dubuque Camera Club president Ron Tigges went over how to comment/vote on submitted photos on our Smugmug website.
Please note, once you vote in the comments, your comment cannot be changed.
To vote, please put your club number in the comment box. You may choose up to 5 selections in each category.

Submission changes:

Ken Kiss will be taking over Digital Nature and Digital Black & White submissions. Please send photos submitted in those categories directly to him. All other submissions will continue to go to Cara Pusateri. [Members, see your email for specifics].

The submission deadline has been changed to Sunday night, one week in advance of our first monthly meeting. This change allows Cara to post images to the website for voting.

Remember, when there is still room in any category for submissions, it’s first come, first served. 

Find the full submission guidelines here.

Special Events:

Mines of Spain Nature Photography — Dubuque Camera Club
March 5, 2017, 1:00 p.m. | E.B. Lyons Interpretive Center at the Mines of Spain
Club members are invited to be part of the presentation by presenting and talking about their photos, display prints on a table and offer tips and tricks to capturing great nature photos.
Anyone who wants to submit photos and speak about their photos should email Ron or Jennifer We currently have 3 speakers. A Facebook event will be created when we know who all will be presenting. Invite your friends!

Dubuque Museum of Art Summer Exhibit
Ron is suggesting an eclectic show featuring various photography genres. Ron will discuss the idea with the museum. We would have various photos from different categories or types of photo,s along with a description of that type of photography. Some ideas would be: refractometry, aerial,  high speed shutter, portrait, altered reality, gigaprint and more. Instead of the art museum jurying the exhibit, our group will choose. Discussion was held about doing metal prints again for this.

DMA Juried show- May 27, 2017
Dubuque Museum of Art will have their biennial exhibit
Submissions are due March 5, 2017
Guidelines and more information is available here.

Other news

Bob Felderman attended the Professional Photographers of America conference in San Antonio, Texas.  He brought back many brochures and pamphlets to share. Next year’s PPA conference will be held in Nashville, TN.

The club went over submissions, and members talked a little about their images, sharing how the image was made and any stories behind the images. Many images have great back stories, and locations were shared as well.

Returns from January 2017

Digital Creative Category:
Honorable Mention went to Jose Garcia for two images, “Friends” and “In the Woods” 

Northshore Camera Club judged Digital Journalism
They gave all of our images 9 points each.

Digital Nature Category:
“Golden Creek Flowing Fast” by Robert Felderman received an Honorable Mention.
Gary Fagan “Lunch Time” received 45 points for a perfect score and 2nd Place!

Digital Pictorial Category:
Honorable Mention went to  Shannon  Woulfe for the image “Lighthouse Through the Pier” Michigan City, IN.

View all winners galleries on the N4C Website

Next meeting will be a work night. We will work on our Mines of Spain Nature Photo presentation. Bring your images or any prints you would like to display on a table that day.

Submitted by Jennifer Tigges

January 23, 2017 Meeting Minutes

The Dubuque Camera Club meeting on January 23, 2017 was rescheduled from the previous Monday due to weather. The club judged the Digital Black and White category in the N4C competition.

To start off the evening, club president Ron Tigges talked about future club and photography related events.

The Dubuque Camera Club will give a presentation about Nature Photography on Sunday, March 5, at 1:00 p.m. at the E.B. Lyons Interpretive Center as part of the Friends of the Mines of Spain winter program series. Members are welcome to bring prints to put on a table that day, submit some photos for the presentation, or speak in front of the group. If you are a club member interested in presenting, please contact Ron or Jennifer.

Nearby events
Kevin McTague let us know about an event sponsored by the Quad City photography Club on February 4-5, 2017. More information here

Another upcoming seminar is the Peoria Seminar is March 18. More information here.

More news
Bald Eagle Watch update. Thanks to all who volunteered by staffing our table during the 2017 Dubuque Bald Eagle Watch!

Congratulations to club member Gary Fagan who was recognized at the recent Professional Photographers of Iowa convention!


Judging black and white images
121 images were judged by Lois Pancratz, Ron Tigges and José García. Documenting the numbers and comments were Eleanor Schueller, Ken Kiss and DeWayne Beecher. Ten additional members were in the audience.  Thank you to all. Hopefully, the new members in attendance enjoyed and learned more about the process.

January results

The following club members earned recognition in the January N4C competition:

  • Gary Fagan, “Lunchtime,” 2nd Place, Digital Nature
  • José García, “In the Woods,” Honorable Mention, Digital Creative
  • José García, “Friends,” Honorable Mention, Digital Creative
  • Shannon Woulfe, “Michigan City IN Lighthouse through the Pier,” Honorable Mention, Digital Pictorial

Congratulations to our terrific photographers! You can view all the winners in the Winners Galleries.

Upcoming meetings

  • February 6, 2017  at 6:30 p.m.

We can submit double Black and White submissions. Submissions are due as soon as possible to Cara. If you cannot access the Smugmug galleries to make comments to vote (via a Facebook account, Google+ account or Smugmug account), please email Ron or Jennifer, and we will help you to create a guest account.

  • February 20, 2017 at 6:30 p.m.

The February 20th meeting will be a work session in preparation for the Nature Photography presentation on March 5. Bring your images and stories, and we will organize the presentation.

January 2, 2017 meeting minutes

Sean and his wife welcomed the first baby of the year.

The Dubuque Camera Club held the first meeting of the New Year on January 2, 2017. The meeting was attended by 17 people and led by club president, Ronald Tigges.

The news was shared that Sean MacDonald, owner of Everything Photography Store, just became a new Dad. Since it was Dubuque’s first baby of the year, he and his wife were featured in a story in the Dubuque Telegraph Herald on Jan. 2nd.

Preliminary announcements were made about upcoming photography events [see the Events Listing on this website],

Bald Eagle Watch

The Dubuque Camera Club will staff an informational table at the Bald Eagle Watch at the Grand River Center in the Port of Dubuque on Saturday, January 21 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Member volunteers are needed. Please contact Jennifer if you are interested.

This is our chance to promote the club to other people in the tri-state area who are interested in photography. Nature photographers are likely to attend. 

One of the talented nature photographers to be present at the Eagle Watch will be club member Gary Fagan, who will have his own table to show his work.

A slide show of photos by Dubuque Camera Club members will be playing on the club’s new display monitor.  In addition, we have an updated brochure to give out.  [Click here to see the new brochure].

At the Bald Eagle Watch, the Illinois Raptor Center will do three programs on raptors at 9:30 a.m., at 12:15 p.m. and at 3:00 p.m. Hoo’s Woods Raptor Center will also do programs at 11:00 a.m. and 1:45 p.m. Both presenters specialize in rehabilitation and education about birds of prey. It’s definitely worthwhile to attend this free, day-long event, which is sponsored by the Dubuque Audubon Society.

N4C Competition

The new system of narrowing down N4C submissions did not go as smoothly as hoped, due to unforeseen problems with logging in. So the club selected from submitted entries using the group discussion/show of hands method. Some photos were moved to other categories.

Ron will work on fine-tuning the system. Even if we can’t get online voting to work, the club’s new SmugMug account provides a wonderful archive. “I find it extremely valuable to go back and see what photos were submitted,” said Ron.

It’s also nice to see submissions ahead of the meeting, said Ellie, so we have more time to think about our favorites. This makes the process more fair by removing the pressure to make quick decisions during meetings.

The club decided to keep the submission deadline pushed up. The new deadline will be the 20th of the month preceding the submission month. For instance, if members want to submit photos to the February 2017 N4C competition, they will need to send them to Cara by January 20, 2017.

No matter how big our club grows, we can send in only 8 entries for each category (16 when we judge). Our current membership is 30 individuals. Only paid members can submit to N4C competition or participate in group exhibits. Given the high caliber of winning photos, we are all learning!

Next Meeting
The next meeting will be on Monday, January 23, 2017 at 6:30 p.m. The club will judge the Digital Black and White category. Member volunteers are needed to serve as judges or to help with the judging process.

“You learn a lot,” said General Bob Felderman. The three members who judge will get to view the images on the new monitor. Audience members will get to see all the photos on the projection screen. There are typically many awesome photos to judge. So please add the date to your calendar and join us!