Good afternoon, Sweetwater Camera Club members, visitors and friends . . .

First, I would like to thank all those who helped us put on the art opening at the Cultural Arts Center last Thursday. Laura Lieberman, the executive director of the CAC, Marcella Kuykendall, the Pope scholar this year,  Steve Pritchard and Linda Britt (our Sweetwater Camera Club members in residence at the CAC) helped put on the Taiwanese “Douglasville Celebrates Photography” show which runs between now and the end of October. Special recognition goes to our Welcoming Committee chairman, Diane Yancey, who organized the refreshments group. Rob Hainer’s wife, Shala Hainer, who owns Frances Florist at 7020 Broad Street, furnished us a beautiful bouquet of fall flowers along with 8 bud vases filled with yellow and orange roses. I am including a photo of the bouquet and the refreshments. Those of you who need flowers in the future should consider Frances Florist. Their phone number is 770-842-8500.

Along with these individuals, we also appreciate all of the volunteers who helped us. In addition to those listed above, we would like to thank Stella Spyrou, Hubert Yoder, Angelo Muhammad, Gene Spicer, Retz Joseph, and Norma Nichols. We have a lot of refreshments left over to share with those who attend the next couple of meetings.    

Second, the Sweetwater Camera Club/Digital Image Group exhibit at the Douglas County Library has come to an end. We will be bringing all of the pictures to the meeting on Thursday to return to their rightful owners. The exhibit was very well received by the citizens of Douglasville and Douglas County. As we were taking it down, one of the patrons at the library came up to thank us for our excellent show. There were about 60 photos in all, provided by Rob Hainer, Jim Gardner, David Stephens, Kent Owings, Jeannie McKnight, Dominique Chaponot, Norma Nichols and Jerry Frost. Any photos not picked up at the SCC meeting will also be made available at the Digital Image Group meeting next week.

Now . . . On with the show!
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You are invited to join us this Thursday evening, (the day after tomorrow), October 13th at 7 p.m. for a lecture and critique hosted by master photographer Greg Ferguson.

Greg has spoken at the SCC twice in the past 3 years. His grand landscapes and authentic wild animal photographs are second to none. You should spend some time on his website at http://www.gregfergusonphotography.us.com.  His recent work, located at http://www.gregferguson.us.com/3/artist.asp?
ArtistID=19384&Akey=VW568XGM is quite breath-taking.

Greg has studied with many of the best photography instructors on the planet (Neil Chaput de Saintonge, John Shaw, Galen Rowell, George Lepp, Marc Muench, Art Morris, and Moose Peterson , to name a few). In addition, he has traveled all over the world to photograph wild animals in their natural habitats in Africa, Antarctica and the southern ocean. Come spend an evening with Greg. You will come away inspired, motivated, and well-informed!
In his own words, here is what Greg is preparing for us for the evening (this is special, folks. Greg usually keeps all of this a secret):

“Greg Ferguson will present “What Do I Do Next?” at the October 13th meeting of the Sweetwater Camera Club. All of us have opened an image file in Photoshop and know the image can be improved, but have no idea what to do next. His presentation will show that there is a natural order working on improving a digital image capture. He will show the best practices for working on every image, and highlight additional steps that might be required for certain images. He will identify the differences between working on a JPG image, and a RAW image. Greg will demonstrate his computer workflow by taking several images all the way from RAW files through to the finished Photoshop file. By the end of the presentation the audience should understand the general workflow, and will leave with a straightforward way of approaching each image. He will use both Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.0, and Photoshop CS5, but his approach is equally applicable to other programs and other versions of software.”

For those of you who attended our recent Sunday afternoon “image processing” seminar on September 25th, this will be an excellent next step. You may view a past lecture by Greg which has been uploaded to the Sweetwater Camera Club website at http://www.sweetwatercameraclub.org/meetings/speakers/2008 .

This month’s contest: Wildlife Photography: ”An image of any non-domesticated animal. This can be any mammal, bird or insect.”

Also, those who attended either the North Georgia Camera Club Council’s shootout on October 1st and/or attended the dress rehearsal that was held on Sunday, September 18th, are invited to submit two of your field trip pictures. Both of those shootout events qualify as field trips.

2011 Contest Topics: The contest topics for this year are located at http://www.sweetwatercameraclub.org/contests/contest-topics-a-descriptions/contests-2011. You can find out more about the contest rules on the web at http://www.sweetwatercameraclub.org/contests . The rules state that you may enter two photos each in the color, monochrome and field trip categories. Attached you will also find a proof of the next SCC Photo Contest page which will appear in the November issue of the Chapel Hill News & Views magazine.  

Upcoming Field Trips: The Sweetwater Camera Club will hold its October field trip on Saturday, October 22nd at the 11th annual Little 5 Points Halloween Parade & Festival. This event lasts from 12 noon until 6 p.m. or later. The parade is at 4 p.m. If you haven’t been to this event or taken your family to see it, you haven’t “lived.” It is filled with marching and stage bands, floats inhabited by beings in ridiculous clothing, spooks, goblins, witches and warlocks, Star Wars creatures and sights often associated with DragonCon. It is a gigantic costume party in the form of a parade and an outdoor festival. The Facebook page for this event is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Little-5-Points-Halloween-Parade-
Festival/141899029169701 and the website http://www.atlantaonthecheap.com/2011/10/03/little-five-points-halloween-parade-festival-october-22-2011/ which describes two stages of bands starting at 12 noon on Saturday, October 22nd, 2011 at noon.

Because there will be quite a large crowd there, we will not be “meeting up” at a particular place. The festivities start at noon. Please plan on being “on site” no later than 3 p.m. because the parade, which starts at 4 p.m. will draw a very large crowd. You will need to choose the best side of the street on Euclid Avenue in order to keep the sunlight from coming directly into your lens. You can park in the residential neighborhoods in and around Inman Park, so get there early enough to find a decent parking space. A good idea is to turn right on either McLendon Avenue or Euclid Avenue, find a parking spot in front of one of the homes and walk back to Little 5 Points. The parade route will be obvious.  I am attaching a map to the parade area. Needless to say, if you know how to get to Little 5 Points from I-20 by taking the Moreland Ave. exit going north towards Atlanta, you will find parking in and around the area. You don’t have to pay for parking if you will investigate the neighborhoods there.

North Georgia Camera Club Shootout: WE WON!!! Just kidding, we came in last out of 12 photo clubs. The Paulding Photography Club won. However, consider the following. Our 11 shooters made up 1/26th of the total number of shooters we competed against. There were at least 300 photographers competing in the annual NG3C shootout. We had two members who placed in the top 50 pictures: Diane Yancey placed 6th out of 10 in the “Patterns” section of the shootout. Retz Joseph placed 7th out of 10 in the “Circle” section. So, we scored 1/25th of the prizes and were 1/26th of the photographers. We did at least twice as good as last year’s contest with fewer than half the photographers entering from the SCC, so to me, that is a success. Out of the 300 photographers, only 3 of them won more than one of the 50 awards. One person won 3 awards, the other two won 2.

Thank you to all of you who attended our dress rehearsal(s) and the actual shootout itself. More information will be posted about this on the www.NG3C.org website over the next couple of days. The shootout on October 1st was attended by Brittany Howse, Carl Pearson, Diane Yancey, Karen Ferranti, Lana Edwards, Mary Lesh, Nicolette Dunn, Norma Nichols, Retz Joseph, Rob Hainer, and Sandra Belk.

SCC Officers for 2012: In October, according to tradition and the bylaws of the Sweetwater Camera Club, the president receives recommendations from a nominating committee whose job it is to contact those who might be interested in serving as President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer for the following year. Since we have had no one who stepped forward to be on the nominating committee, we will be asking for recommendations from the floor. Thus far, Rob Hainer has expressed willingness to be our vice president. Carrie Layhue has indicated a desire to be secretary, although she is “on call” as a medical assistant and may not make all of the meetings.

If you would like to be an officer, committee chairperson or committee member, the job descriptions of our officers are fairly straight forward— the gist of each title’s duties are listed below:

The President presides over meetings of officers, committees and members. In addition the president is a member of every committee, represents the club to the public and works to ensure the smooth running of the group.
The Vice President presides when the president is absent or cannot continue in office. The vice president is the Program Chairperson, meaning that she or he (along with the Program Committee and the President) finds speakers and critiquers / judges for the monthly meetings.
The Secretary records all meeting minutes and submits them through the website. She or he also takes in all club money, handles new memberships, deposits money in the bank and keeps our records up to date. It is a good idea for the Secretary to also find an assistant who can handle matters when she or he is absent or in need of help.
The Treasurer watches over the club’s money and handles expenses; He or she pays out all fees required in the everyday running of the club, and provides reports to the officers as needed.

Committee chair people are not usually officers—except as described above. They are volunteers who serve the club in a variety of ways. Committees include the Contest, Field Trip, Publicity, Welcoming, Programs and Exhibits committees. Other committees can be formed at any time to handle special projects. If you have questions or would like to serve our group, please contact me at my email address listed above or at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

If you would like to become an officer and donate some of your time (not a lot required during the year), and if you have the ability and desire to do so, please let it be known to one of our current officers. We are also working to get a head start on committee chairpeople and members for 2012. We are always open to new ideas, new leadership and enthusiastic participants. Because Rob Hainer may become vice president, we will need a contest chairperson for next year, rather than placing all of the responsibility on Rob.

Digital Image Group on Thursday, October 20th: For those of you who are interested In attending the Digital Image Group meeting, to show your work or see what others are doing, our next meeting is Thursday, October 20th at 6:30 p.m. or later. It will be held at the Douglasville School of Art at 6774 West Broad Street here in Douglasville. You may view recent images for the past several months and years online for the world to see at http://www.digitalimagegroup.org/photo/index.php?folder=/2011/ . We need for people to bring their own chairs to the DIG meeting. There are a few chairs available for those who don’t or can’t bring one.

2012 meeting place: We will be discussing the possible change in meeting location for the Sweetwater Camera Club for the year 2012. Dr. Robby Pope has offered us the use of his Douglasville School of Art space on Broad Street. This will not cost us rental fees (Currently we pay $480 a year to St. Julian’s Episcopal Church). However, we will need to purchase stackable chairs for our meetings, about 40 well padded chairs will cost about $800. This may seem like a large expenditure but it is a one-time fee, not a yearly one. Any member wishing to make suggestions, offer opposing viewpoints, etc. is welcome to participate in this discussion. We want whatever is most beneficial for our members.

Hope to see you at the Sweetwater Camera Club meeting! No matter what your calling in life, photography and related disciplines are great ways to continue to learn and interact with the world. Image making and image manipulations allow us all to contribute our own creative ideas to society while we also express and improve ourselves. Thank you for your enthusiastic participation!!! If you aren’t a member of the Sweetwater Camera Club already, why not? It’s inexpensive, entertaining, and one of the most valuable visual arts learning experiences in this area. Come for a visit. Stay for a lifetime.

Richard