Don’t forget to bring your Forest Photos to the meeting on September 16.

Masks are optional

We will be accepting dues at the meeting

A sign-up sheet will be passed around for treats.

Treasurer report for Sept. Balance is $1,331.16

Another sign-up sheet will be passed around to get member’s latest and correct email address. There will be room to add optional info such as telephone #, addresses…etc.

Time will be set aside to discuss where does the club go from here.

I will go over our website

Slideshow for September 16 meeting

You still have time to send in your favorite “Summer” photos to the Webmaster . Send me 3-4 photos. If the files are too large to email all at once, then send one photo at a time. If still too large then go into your photo editor to reduce the size. If you are not familiar on how to do this, I recommend using WeTransfer . It is very simple to use. This is a free FTP service and allows you to upload up to 2 Gb files. If you have a problem using this site, let me know.

Photo Contest

Time is up for submitting contest photos. Last day was Sunday, September 12. Good luck to all of our members who have submitted entries. Donna reports final count is 96 photos submitted. Thanks to Donna for her hard work and organization.

Melissa Groo Bird Photography course

Kathleen sent us a notification about this course. Discount offer expires September 19

Click on Melissa

Cell Phone Photography

Here is a short video about using your cell phone to take pictures.

Our next meeting is on Thursday September 16. I tried to get a couple of interested speakers to present something for this night. Unfortunately their schedules were full up that evening. They want to present something to the club. I will schedule with them for something in the new year. Sooooo, let’s do a summer slideshow presentation. Send 3-4 photos of your best summer pictures. Send to webmaster your summer pictures. Short notice yes, but because of your President’s procrastination, I do what I can in spite of his poor habits. I will put your photos on a thumb drive and when put on the big screen, we ask that you tell us something about the picture.

Dues will be due at the meeting. Kathleen will take your money and give you a receipt if needed. $12 dollars for membership. $20 dollars for the family.

The Fontenelle Forest display photos will be collected at the meeting.

The September meeting will not have a Zoom call due to previous discussions on technical difficulties. The board had a rambunctious meeting about “to be or not to be Zoomed ” I would like to get our members involved with helping out by educating themselves about how to Zoom and perhaps be willing to take on the responsibilities of being cameraman, audio and video technician and getting us the ability to hold Zoom meetings at the same time as our in-person meetings are being held. Another option could be to record the meeting and put it on YouTube for later viewing.

We will open the floor for discussion on where do we go from here as far as a club goes.

Large files

Some of you have had difficulty sending large .jpg files on their email programs. As cameras are more advanced the file size of photos are much larger. You can go to settings in your camera and change the resolution sizes of pictures taken. This may not be what you want to do if you want to maximize the photo for post processing. If you do post process then you can do a “save as” and adjust the size of the photo for sending via email.

Sending photos one at a time might be the easiest way to send them via email. Still if the file is too large your email program will let you know. If this happens, process the photo to make smaller or select a function that your program will adjust photo for the web.

Another way is to save your photo to the cloud, using FTP protocols such as google drive and link that file in your email allowing the recipient to download the photo. A member did that for some of her Forest display photos. Another way is using WeTransfer.com site to upload your photos and send an email with link via their site to recipient. FileZilla is another site for transferring files. There will be a learning curve on using these avenues. There are a lot of Youtube videos showing how to use FTP programs. You may have to watch more than once to get the feel of it.

Our member’s technical skills run the whole spectrum. Mine seem to be going in reverse the older I get. I will help with your file transfers if I can.

Speaking of Forest and Pink photos

I have received photos for our Pink and Forest displays. I have posted them on the website’s homepage. I could use some more Pink photos. Judy Dye’s team have already put up Pink photos at the Bellevue Library. There are 16 or 17 photos on display. I have only received 8 photos for Pink to be put on the website. Please send your Pink photos to the webmaster@fontenelleforestphotoclub.org.

We are collecting your forest photos at the September 16 meeting. Please bring them. If you have photos and plan not to attend the September 16 meeting let us know and Judy and her team will try to accommodate you.

Photo Contest

Have you sent your photos into Donna? Donna says;

Please send her your photos in full size files after processing.  I will resize them to the judge’s specifics.

I am getting some small-ish files.  Depending on the size of the files, and whatever email servers require, the photos may have to be sent one or two at a time.

Thank you.

Donna

You have till the 12th of September to get your photos in to her. Pat Mingarelli is our judge and he will critique our photos and announce the winners at our October 21 meeting. I will get, from Donna, the photo files after winners are announced and post them on the website.

Winning photo contests, a judge’s perspective

The video below is only 20 minutes long and may not be pertinent with our present contest. But there is some insight on what the judges look at for determining a winning photo.

COMMENT BELOW

Please comment below your thoughts below about anything presented in this posting. Hope to see all of you at the September meeting. I am sure I forgot something and will be reminded of it. I will post more next week prior to the meeting with updates, corrections, and good info!

Phil

Correction to initial post for Displays.

You are receiving this information now so that you have plenty of time to take and decide which photos you want to enter in this year’s digital contest.  The contest date for submission of photos will be September 1 – 12, 2021.  Please do not submit anything before that date.  The critique and awards will follow during the regular October meeting date.

Thanks Donna for correcting me!

I hope everyone’s summer has been fun. With the heat I am ready for fall. I want to remind everyone to get their photos ready for the photo contest. We plan to have our photos critiqued by our judge at the October 21 meeting. Information and rules for the contest can be found at the link Contest . No Zoom call at this time.

Bellevue Library

The Bellevue Library is now showing our photos. Judy’s team put them up on July 21. “Pink” is the theme. I hope you all can go take a look at these photos. Very nice!

I would like to change the slideshow on our homepage. Those of you who have submitted photos for the “Pink” theme, would you also email me the files for your photos. Email to webmaster .

Fontenelle Forest

We are assigning a summer project (Forest theme) to our members. We want you to come to the forest and take photos anywhere in the forest. Anything goes! Take flora, fauna or landscapes. Go abstract if you like. You can submit older photos you may have already of the forest. We will collect your pictures at the September 16, 2021 club meeting. I would like our members who submit forest photos for our display at the forest to email me your photo files. Send them to webmaster . I will add them to the homepage slideshow along with the “Pink” photos.

Woodland Photography

Here is a video with 5 tips for taking picture in the forest!

FONTENELLE FOREST PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB MINUTES

JUNE 17, 2021 7pm

Meeting called to order by President Phil Mininni.

No new members.

Phil asked what we as members would like to see on our webpage or things we don’t want on there. Email him at Webmaster@fontenelleforestphotoclub.org for any suggestions.

Our Vice President, Kathy Holm lost her husband, Larry “Mike” Holm, on June 10^th and Kathleen sent her a sympathy card on behalf of the Club Members.

This was an in-person meeting at Camp Brewster. Doing Zoom for this meeting was not possible as there is no internet connection. Phil attempted to record this meeting on his laptop but was not successful. He will try to figure it out before we meet again in September. Part of the problem was the equipment that the forest had or didn’t have.

Our Secretary Eric Scholar was absent, so Sue Mininni filled in to take minutes. There were no additions or corrections to the last meetings minutes.

Per our Treasurer Kathleen there is $1295 in the Treasure. A $300 donation was made last month to the Raptor Program for them to buy frozen rats to feed the raptors.

Photos for our display at the Forest will continue to be Water as we had a lot to put up. The next display will be pictures with pink in them that had been previously collected. It was also suggested that the members get out and explore the murals all over town and then we have a display of those in the future.

Donna Gray was not there to speak on the upcoming Photo Contest. The contest date for submission of photos will be September 1 – 12, 2021. Please do not submit anything before that date. The critique and awards will follow during the regular October meeting date. We do not have a judge yet.

We had our annual election of club board members. The new officers are as follows:

President: Phil Mininni

Vice president: Kathy Holm

Treasurer: Kathleen Crawford-Rose

Secretary: Sue Mininni

Photo display (Judy and Frank Dye), photo contest (Donna Gray), and webmasters (Phil Mininni and Brent Headley) are voluntary positions.

We can also accept “members at large” that basically volunteer to help out the officers/club with various tasks throughout the year. We would appreciate more of you getting involved when you can.

As members we ask that you pick a month to provide treats for one of our meetings. We have 8 months for treats to be brought as the first month is provided by the club and then we have our Christmas dinner (hopefully this year) so no sign up for that month other than bringing something for the dinner. We like to have two members per meeting bring something and there will be a signup sheet at the September meeting and Sue will send out reminders per email to you when it is your time. Because we don’t know where we will still be at with Covid rules it is best the treats are individually wrapped items (cookies, etc.) or store-bought wrapped candy items or made-up snack bags. Be creative. We will let you know if things change. Soda and water are provided by the club.

Pat Mingarelli was our guest speaker. He is a past member of our club. His talk was on the national parks. He did a wonderful job even though we had no overhead projector. Phil will post on the website a link to his Power Point Presentation.

Submitted by: Sue Mininni

As a reminder about submissions of photos for the contest, we also don’t want any photos after the 12th of September. Contest rules link .

Steve Carson says hi!

Steve recently left the club after he retired. He moved to Montrose, CO. He says he still takes pictures. This picture he took after a short drive from his home. Nice. That picture was taken from a road between Montrose and Naturita, CO.

We miss you Steve.

Phone Photography

We we elected club officers at the June 17th meeting;

President – Phil Mininni

Vice-President – Kathy Holm

Treasurer – Kathleen Crawford-Rose

Secretary – Sue Mininni

I want to thank Eric Scholar for being the Secretary for the last 5 years. I asked for the members who would be willing to take on the job of secretary, to step forward. Everyone except Sue stepped back. Congratulations to all of those elected and re-elected. Thank you for your continued support to the club.

Pat Mingarelli

I was disappointed and disillusioned when the digital projector would not work for Pat Mingarelli’s presentation. The lighting was terrible for recording video. My attempt to record the meeting failed miserably. No WiFi to even try the Zoom meeting. The main problem was the projector’s incapability to see any video coming from Pat’s computer. It seems the digital projector is not new enough for the new and improved computer’s HDMI outputs. Even with adapters that Pat had that should have worked, didn’t. Pat said his equipment was working fine the last time he gave a presentation. The club has its own projector and I didn’t even think of bringing it as a backup. For that I am sorry.

For those of you who attend the meeting I have Pat’s Power Point file below that can be downloaded and viewed. No audio accompanies this. Those of you who were there will remember what he was talking about when you view the slides. He also has more slides at the end of his presentation then he got to due to time constraints. For those who did not attend missed a great discussion even if we had to get in real close to look at Pat’s laptop. The file is safe. If you get a warning from your computer, go ahead and download the file.

Thoughts

Like I mentioned before due to technical problems, our meeting was not 100% successful. It is extremely difficult to be in charge of the meeting and to perform technical “kind of things” at the same time. I have to consider my options for next year. For my part trying to record the meeting, the back light coming through the windows was too much for my camera. At home the camera and window’s app worked great. We messed around till past 7 PM trying to get the projector to work. I don’t necessarily blame the forest. I will communicate with our liaison about the inherent problems with Camp Brewster. I take full responsibility and beg for your indulgence.

Our Next Meeting

Our next meeting will be September 16, 2021. Dues will be collected. A speaker has yet to be determined. Our October 21st meeting will be centered around the photo contest where we will get critiques of our photo entries by our judge. Award ribbons will be given out also. You can link to the contest rules here, Rules . They can also be accessed from the website home page at the top next to Home. Just remember the submittal dates are September 1-12th.

Please comment below or email webmaster@fontenelleforestphotoclub.org with comments or suggestions on anything pertaining to the club. I will try to address all of your concerns. I will even try to rationalize my methods of madness.

HDR vid-6 minutes

The Fontenelle Forest Photo Club is having its monthly meeting at Camp Brewster on June 17, 2021 at 7:00 PM. The forest has another event that conflicts with our schedule. Thus, Camp Brewster. There is a link to a map and directions to Camp Brewster under “Upcoming Events” at the bottom of the home page of the website. Don’t forget to mark this on your calendar. Map Link

We are going to have our annual election of club board members. Pat Mingarelli is our guest speaker. His talk will be on the national parks. See below for his bio info. I forgot to mention on a previous post, that the photo contest chair person is Donna Gray, and it is a volunteer position. The same goes for the photo displays at the forest and Bellevue Library. Judy Dye is the driving force for this. It is a also voluntary position.

There is no WiFi at the camp. We are unable to do a concurrent Zoom meeting. The Zoom client requires access to the internet. I have been experimenting with video recording. I plan to record the meeting and upload the video to YouTube and then post the link onto a posting on our website. Wish me luck.

Another loss.

Kathy Holms husband, Larry has passed away. We offer our prayers and condolences to her and her family during this sad and stressful time. Kathy is the club’s vice-president.

Forest photo display

We had too many photos submitted initially to display at the forest. Judy Dye and her crew swapped out 10 photos recently. Be sure to check out the display the next time you are at the forest. Thank you Judy and crew.

Pat Mingarelli

“Pat Mingarelli worked for a newspaper in Ohio before joining the staff of an organizational magazine called Worldwide Challenge. The organization was international, so Pat traveled the world and traveled the country photographing their events, staff and projects. After the 12 years with Worldwide Challenge magazine Pat became a freelance photographer and did work for many other magazines including NebraskaLand and Nebraska Life. His work has also appeared in wildlife magazines and calendars.

Today, Pat primarily works as a real estate/architectural photographer, sports photographer and nature photographer. He resides in Bellevue Nebraska with his wife Patti and their two children, Talitha and Pasquale and their dog Montana”.

2021 Photo Contest

Submit photos September 1-12

There is a page on the website that has the instructions and rules for the contest. Page link .

2 Camera Modes

You should use for 98% of your photos.

I put out the wrong memo for the contest rules. Sorry about that! Below is the correct info with rules and date.

Date: June 14, 2021

To: The Members of the Fontenelle Forest Photography Club

Re: 2021 “DIGITAL” Photo Contest

From: Donna Gray, Contest Coordinator

Bellevue University has enacted numerous new rules for events held at the University due to Covid 19. The Fontenelle Forest Photography Club’s board has decided to have a digital contest again this year because many of these rules make having an in-person event, the set up or the take down process extremely difficult.

***Only Fontenelle Forest Photography Club members who are up to date regarding Club dues are eligible to enter photographs. If you are unsure of your status, check with Club Treasurer Kathleen Crawford Rose.***

You are receiving this information now so that you have plenty of time to take and decide which photos you want to enter in this year’s digital contest. The contest date for submission of photos will be September 1 – 12, 2021. Please do not submit anything before that date. The critique and awards will follow during the regular October meeting date.

We will be using the same rules for categories that were in effect in past years.

“Novice Class”:  This is open to club members who have NOT won a first, second or third place in any individual category, or Overall Show award in prior years’ photography club shows.

“Advanced Class”:  This is open to club members who have won a first, second or third place in any individual category, or an overall show award in the prior years’ photography club shows.

No exceptions for class designation.  If any member new or old feels they belong in the advanced class, they are welcome to enter their photos into this class.

Categories:

• Scenic/Landscape: Continental US, outside continental US, any nature themed image where the focus or subject IS NOT manmade objects, including urban, city, pets, and Humans.  Must be a nature-based photo taken by a club member.

• Animals: Any living creature, wild or domesticated, including pets. Not humans.

• Flora: A photo where the following are the main subject of the photo.  Any flower, plant, fungi or tree.

• Anything Goes: (Combined category – Novice & Advanced) 

Any photograph not meeting the requirements of the 3 categories listed above.   Also, any photo that is over enhanced or un-naturally manipulated will be entered into this category.

Photos may be moved to another class up to the point of judging for awards if the Contest Judge, Photo Contest coordinator or club president feel an entry was categorized incorrectly at check-in.  These contest rules are their guide, and any corrections to classification are final. Members may review the regular Club Contest Rules (print photos) on the Club website.

Members may enter a total of four photos in the contest. The photos may be split up between categories or all in one category.

Please forward your photos to me in jpg (jpeg) format. Don’t worry about file size. I will take care of any resizing that needs to be done. If you don’t know how to convert to a jpg (jpeg) file, just email what you have, and I will convert as needed. If your files are large, you may need to email them one or two at a time due to email restrictions on file sizes.

Please have your photos to me between September 1 through September 12, 2021 . No earlier, no later. Email them to me at djg618@yahoo.com .

There are two ways to let me know the information needed for the contest – depending on the level of your computer skills. If you are not familiar with how to rename a jpg file, simply type the category name, whether you are entering as a Novice or Advanced, the title of the photo and if it was taken at Fontenelle Forest as part of the email. Make sure your name is also included in case it is not part of the email address.

For those who are comfortable renaming files, I have a code that will shorten everything and hopefully, make it easier for you……. and me 🙂 ! After each letter group, put a comma to separate them. And again, please make sure your name is included in the email. If after reading the code, you feel it is too cumbersome, just follow the instructions in the preceding paragraph.

Number – the individual number assigned to each photo entered in the contest

A – Advanced

N – Novice

FL – Flora

SC – Scenic

AN – Animals

ANY – Anything Goes

FF – Taken at Fontenelle Forest

If you are entering a photo of a bird, taken in Fontenelle Forest, and you are a novice photographer…..

Original file name: img_1234.jpg

Contest file name: 53,N,AN,FF,Happy Robin.jpg

Number – the individual number assigned to each contest entry (I will do this.)

First letter – Advanced or Novice Photographer

Second Group – Category – Flora, Scenic, Animals, Anything Goes

Third Group – Taken in Fontenelle Forest (Used only when photo is taken in Fontenelle Forest)

Fourth Group – Title of photo

Awards: 

In each Class and category:   First, Second, and Third Place (18 Ribbons)

Anything Goes Category:  First, Second, and Third Place (Combined Classes) (3 Ribbons)

Overall Show Awards:  Best of Show – all classes, all categories

Club Members Choice – – all classes, all categories

Best Black and White – all classes, all categories

Best Photo Taken at Fontenelle Forest 

Total of 25 Ribbons to be awarded at this Year’s Show

I will be responsible for everything to do with getting your photos to the judge and getting the results. Phil will eventually be putting the photos on the website so everyone can see them. At this point, I do not know how the critique will take place. It will either be via Zoom meeting or possibly in person at Fontenelle Forest, or a combination of these two. It will be decided well before the contest.

Ask questions if you have them and be patient with those of us who are attempting to get it done right!

There is another event at the forest that has bumped, us once again, for our June 17, 2021 meeting. The WiFi signal at Camp Brewster is not very good. I will attempt a Zoom call as well as the in-person meeting. WiFi must be strong enough with adequate bandwidth.The forest may not be able to fix the signal strength in time. We will see!

I have posted the June 17 meeting in the Events/Calendar on the website. There are directions to Camp Brewster as well as a map. I will send out a reminder the closer we get to the 17th.

May Meeting

We had good participation at our May 20th meeting. 24 members attended to take pictures of three raptors shown by the forest’s raptor group. The meeting went very well. It was wonderful to see members again in person. After the the photos were taken the photo club presented, to the forest, a check for $300.00 to be used for food for the raptors. Check out the meeting minutes below.

Pat Mingarelli is our speaker

Pat will be discussing National Parks. For the talk, he will give some background information about the parks and spend probably the majority of his time speaking about how to make the most of one’s photographic excursion to the national parks.

Minutes from May 2021 meeting

Minutes of the Fontenelle Forest Photo Club May 21, 2021.

The meeting started at 6:30 P.M.,24 people attended at Camp Brewster (Note: This is our first in person meeting since the corona virus pandemic started.)

President Phil Mininni, Presiding

Phil: Phil mentioned that the next meeting will also be at Camp Brewster on June 17. At that meeting will be an election of officers

Donna:The photo contest will be held in the fall. It will be a digital contest due to covid restrictions at the usual venue of Bellevue Univ. Updated details for submitting photos will be posted soon on our website.

The program for tonight will be a presentation of 3 raptors by the raptor team at Fontenelle Forest. Members are encouraged to photograph them.The raptors present were a barred owl, a turkey vulture and a peregrine falcon.

The meeting was adjourned at around 7:30

Submitted by Eric Scholar, Secretary.

Election for club officers

We will take nominations and hold elections for the club officers at the June meeting. They are the president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer. The other board members are voluntary positions; photo contest, webmasters, photo displays at the forest and Bellevue library and member-at-large.

Lightroom Photo Editing

This video is about 18 minutes long. The presenter is very informative about photo editing. Enjoy!

May 20 Meeting

Reminder;

Greetings Photo Club Members and welcome back to in person meetings.  Our May 20^th meeting will be a raptor shoot in the natural setting of Camp Brewster.  We will plan to start at 6:30 to take advantage of good light.  Phil has included directions on our club website along with more info on the shoot. 

The Fontenelle Forest Raptor Team will bring 3 or 4 of their raptors for us to photograph.

Fontenelle Forest Staff would like a head count of attendees in order to properly set up.  Please RSVP to this message if you plan to attend.  It will be great to see you all in person again.   We will work inside the building if the weather should not cooperate. See previous post “Camp Brewster”

Birders

Kathleen submitted for the Nebraska Bird Review

NEBirders,

It’s time for the 14th annual color issue of the Nebraska Bird Review,
the quarterly journal of the Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union.  We are
requesting good quality bird photos for publication in an upcoming
issue.

This is not a photo contest, but there are rules:

1. Images must be of wild, free-flying birds and must have been taken in
Nebraska, but you may submit photos taken in prior years.

2. Images must be of good quality: sharp focus and high enough
resolution
to look good when printed.  Please do not send low-resolution,
“thumbnail” size images.

3. The subjects don’t need to be rare birds, but images that document
something interesting about a species (behavior, date, nesting, etc.)
are more likely to be selected.

Our special challenge this year is for photos of species with the word
“red” in their common names. Redhead, Red-shouldered Hawk, and
Common Redpoll are all acceptable, as are many other species found in
Nebraska.

The name must contain “red”, used to mean the color red. So Reddish
Egret is acceptable, but Eared Grebe is not.  Conversely, a bird
doesn’t need to LOOK red to qualify. A juvenile Red-headed Woodpecker
has no red on it, but is fine and dandy for the Red Challenge.

And then there are birds like the male Northern Cardinal and Scarlet
Tanager, which are undeniably red, but don’t have “red” in their
names. We’d be happy to have your cardinal and tanager images, but
they won’t work for the Red Challenge.

4. A maximum of 5 images per photographer may be submitted.  Please do
not expect us to look through dozens of photos you have posted on a
website.

5. The following information must be provided with each image:

     SPECIES
     DATE PHOTO WAS TAKEN
     SPECIFIC LOCATION
     COUNTY

6. The final selection of images to be published is solely the decision
of
the NBR editors (see #3).

Please email your images to me at

paseka76@gmail.com

or send me a URL for images posted on a website. If you have a number of
photos posted, please direct me to the specific 5 images you are
submitting
for publication.

Contributors will be credited in the photo captions.

DEADLINE: JULY 31, 2021.

Thanks, and have fun!

Janis Paseka
Ames  NE
Editor, The Nebraska Bird Review

Lightroom Basics