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!