Link to the club's Flickr pages

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Here is a wonderful photograph to enjoy over Christmas. 
It is from Sarah   titled BRRR...the Burrs Are Cold.


Enjoy the holiday.  Keep your camera warm.  Share your photos with the rest of us.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

December News

First of all I must apologize for the lack of a club photo walk in October and November.  I did not anticipate some of the difficulties of planning a venue for the ‘dark’ months.  I think that a solution is now in place (more about that later) and we are ready to move forward.

Photo Club Christmas Party
Please set aside the evening of Thursday December 16 for the club Christmas Party.  I will sending out an evite shortly that will ask for a RSVP.  I hope you will be able to attend.  Besides enjoying some Christmas cheer, it will be an opportunity to talk about the successes and challenges of the clubs first year and to discuss plans for 2011.  Appetizers and ‘dry’ punch will be served.  If anyone would like to share their Christmas baking it would be gladly consumed.

Photo Club Structure
At our organizing meeting in the Spring, club members indicated that they did not want to have a rigid structure with President, Secretary, Treasurer etc.  I agree with this whole heartedly, however I think it would be good to look at some additional structure or committees.  It has been very helpful to have Petra, Josh, Megan, Peta, Erin and others helping organize Photo Walks.  What I would like to suggest is that we form a committee to organize photo walks and then take turns.  If there were 4 people on the committee then each would organize a photo walk every 3 months.  The Squamish CAN group uses a Main Coordinator and Subcommittee Coordinators as their structure and it seems to work well.  We should discuss whether that model could work for our group as well.

Indoors for the DARK months
We have been holding our Photo Walks on a Thursday evening starting at 7 pm.  Between November and March it is dark out at this time and we need to find an indoor location to meet.  Two options have presented themselves:
A.      The Education Room at the West Coast Railway Park   ($25.00 per use)
B.      The Squamish Arts Council Building    ($75.00 membership per year)
The cost is roughly the same as we only need to be indoors for 3 or 4 meetings a year.  The Railway Park room is perhaps a little better for setting up data projector, chairs etc.  But the Arts Council membership would link us with the Arts Community in Squamish and provide many benefits as well.   In December I will be sending an email survey to each member to get some feedback on this and other questions, but please give it some thought ahead of the survey.

Regular meeting night.
We have been using Thursday nights, once a month for our photo walk.  I suggest we formalize it as the 2nd Thursday of every month so we can all add the date to our calendars ahead of time.  Again, this will be on the survey but I would appreciate you giving it some thought ahead of time.  Also, if there is a different date or timeframe, let me know and it will be on the survey as well.

That is it.  I hope you will set aside Dec. 16 for the Christmas Party.  The invitation will be emailed by the end of the weekend at the latest.  Also watch for the year-end survey and please give us your feedback.

Remember, if you are out shooting in this very cold weather, keep your camera batteries in your pocket while transporting the camera.  They will last much longer that way.
Doug

Friday, September 10, 2010

Goodbye Petra, see you next year.

September Photo Walk

The September Photo Walk was alot of fun.  Thanks to the West Coast Railway Park and Double-Shutter Images for helping out.  Also thanks to the Squamish Chamber of Commerce for supporting us in their newsletter.
Petra,one of our founding members and the organizer of the two photowalks during the summer, is heading to Germany to take a university course.  We sent her off with a list of photo assignments and we will see her when she returns in the spring.  I copied her email below:


What a great turnout last night and I think everyone had a lot of fun. It was fantastic to be able to pick Cindy's and Michael's brains. Hopefully we can work with them more often.

And also a big thank you to all of you for the nice card and the photo assignments :) I'm touched and I will do my best to document the German lifestyle.


Keep taking lots of pictures so I can see what you're all up to!

See you next year,
Petra


Saturday, September 4, 2010

September Photo Walk

I am very excited about our September Photo Walk.  Please read the details below and plan on attending on Thursday September 9.
Squamish Valley Photo Club
September Photo Walk
at the West Coast Railway Park
Thursday September 9, 2010 from 6pm until 7pm

First of all we will have the park to ourselves because the West Coast Railway Park has very kindly offered to open their gates to the club after the regular hours.  You will be able to take photos of the trains, the equipment, the flowers ,... and the only people you will trip over are other photographers.  Much appreciation to the park for this opportunity and particularly to Dave Thompson (the new GM) who has to stay late to lock up after us.  Because the park is officially closed and their staff must lock up after our visit - our photo walk will start a little early at 6pm.

Secondly, because our requested theme is portrait photography, Cindy and Michael from Double-Shutter Images have generously agreed to be on hand and offer advice, tips and help  to those club member wanting to improve their portrait photos.

This should be a fun evening so mark it on your calendar, bring a friend  and we will see you on September 9th.
We usually go for coffee after a photo walk, please join us.  
If you are in need of a ride or would like additional information, email me at svpc@shaw.ca
Doug