Waverley Camera Club

Don’t forget Tuesday August 18th is another in our excellent workshop series.

Tomorrow we are holding a “Portrait Night“. We will be transforming the downstairs rooms at Wadham House into a studio setup, with studio lighting and backdrops, suitable for a professional portrait shoot!

Bring your cameras. You probably will not need a tripod or a monopod.
Also bring some props: hats, glasses, masks, chairs etc…

With any luck we will have new backdrop system to unveil but if you want to bring your own please do so. We will use the lights we have stored in the darkroom but if you want to try some different lighting, something more moody and mysterious then bring along torches, lamps, candles and whatnot.

Same old story: the more you put in the more you will get out of the evening.

As always all members, guests and people interested in joining the club, are welcome. Refreshments, good company and good humour will be provided free of charge as usual.

See you there at 7.30pm sharp!

Don’t forget…tonight (Tuesday Aug 11th) we have our second meeting of the A/V group…all welcome.

The meeting starts at 7.30pm at Wadham House, and tonight Ross is going to demonstrate how to start the process of creating an A/V from scratch…

See you there.

The workshop scheduled for the 15th of September will no longer be a Photoshop night. Instead we have the distinct pleasure of a presentation from profressional photographer David Williams.

David Williams M.Photog. FRPS ALPE is a very well respected wedding photographer who is going to present a talk entitled “Cycles and Echoes”. This presentation formed the keynote speech to about 400 international members of the Digital Wedding Forum at their annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona, USA in January 2009.

It is about the importance of our family portrait collection – the visual history that we all possess.

What are the gaps in it, and why do they exist?

Using a collection of images from various Art Collections, David picks out the essential communications and lesson to us as photographers.

He then blends this into a short AV presentation of his own family’s photographic collection followed by a discussion of how we relate to images and their true value – the ‘minds eye view’.

David will discuss, illustrate and demonstrate:

• The truth of front-lighting, and the minimalization of retouching
• The art and acquisition of story-telling detail miniatures
• Discovering and appreciating Style over Trends
• Broadening your horizons through Art, Design and Graphics
• The age of Superb pigment ink printing – a return to the true artisan.

Amongst working Wedding/Portrait professionals, David is one of the most respected and beloved lecturers of his time, and spends more than half of every year training already practicing professional photographers in the UK, USA, Canada and Asia. As such we are extremely lucky to have David come to WCC.

The meeting will be held in the craft room at Mt Waverley Community Centre on the 15th September 2009 which is where we held the 4 Club competition earlier in the year. The evening will commence at 7:30pm and I ask that you please bring a plate as we are expecting guests from the Royal Photographic Society.

Pete Davies, WCC President

I saw this and thought you may be interested…

Yarra Valley Photo Competition…

I am sure Waverley Camera Club members can enter some great images…

Whilst on the outing on Sunday, it was discovered that one of the members had been sold a camera with twin lens kit by a well known electrical and furniture store and had been informed by an in store so called “camera expert” that they needed to purchase a polarising filter for each of the lenses. These had been sold using the ‘you must protect your lens’ trick to make you buy more things.

Now the more experienced of us know that these so called protective filters should have been UV filters and not polarisers but the person concerned, being a novice did not. They also didn’t know about what quality filters they were getting. This person has been taking shots with the polarisers on wondering why the viewfinder looked so dark when taking indoor and low light images. This isn’t their fault, it is poor sales tactics and bad advice and possibly a hint of the fact that they don’t care a hoot about the customer, only their money.

To help avoid this happening in future and just to give general advice as well. I’m sure that anyone who needs help with choosing their new investment can approach any of the committee for advice before they purchase the gear. We can’t tell you what to buy but can help with making your own decision and if we can’t help then I’m sure we’ll know someone who can.

If you do intend to buy some equipment from a high street store that doesn’t specialise in photography, I would take their advice with reservation. Their goal seems to get you to buy as much as possible instead of what you might actually need. I would recommend visiting a reputable camera store that comes recommended by someone you know. My favourites are Kirk’s Cameras in Ringwood (ask for Jason) and The Camera Exchange in Lonsdale Street(behind Michaels). There is also a camera store in Oakleigh which is owned and operated by a professional photographer, I’ve only been in once but he seemed very fair and gave honest advice. I’m sure that most of these will be at least as competitive if not better and will provide advice after you have spent your money.

It has also been suggested that the EBay store – Digital Rev is very reputable and can also be contacted by telephone if required.

I hope this has been of help to someone and it saves you some concerns in the future.