Fontenelle Forest Photo Club Meeting minutes

Location:	Fontenelle Forest
Date:	6/16/2022
Time:	7:00 PM (At Bellevue Univ Humanities Bldg)

1. Welcome by President Phil Mininni. He thought there was greater improvement and confidence in the photos displayed this year than in years past.
2. If you still have any photos of the eclipse, send to the webmaster and he will post them.
3. Attendees: 32

New members: None

Judy and Frank: If you did not bring photos of fountains, you can contact Judy and/or Frank to set up a time to get the photos to them. First and Second place winners of photo contest will be on display at the library first and then fountains. Over the summer take pictures to submit when we return in September of Old Everything, Monument’s and Clouds.

Kathleen: Treasurer’s report: amount in Treasury is: $987.75

Brent: Talked again about organizing a trip with Ken Smith (Astrophotography). Upcoming “New Moon” dates are Thursday June 23rd, or Friday June 24th.  He will let us know the exact date. There needs to be no moon or below the horizon. It will be out about 10 miles from Beatrice in a town called Filley at the Filley Stone Barn. There is a windmill there as well as one or two tractors to compliment your photo. We will need to arrive before sunset to get set up and get organized.  Dark conditions will be around 10:30 or 11:00pm until 4:00 or 4:30am.  Ken thinks most people would be ready to leave by 12:30 or 1:00am. We will try for another shoot in July maybe somewhere else.

Sue: None

Terry and Donna Turner: Photo Contest: Jay Davis was our judge and picked our winners and gave a good critique on all photos. Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you to everyone that submitted photos.

Kathy Holm: None

4. No treats tonight.
5. Elections: No volunteers for President. Think about it over the summer if you might be interested. Vice President will still be Kathy Holm, Treasurer will still be Kathleen Crawford-Rose, Secretary will be Mary Headley and Phil Mininni will still be the webmaster. Photo Contest Organizer will go back to Donna Gray with the Turners helping out if needed. Photo displays will still be handled by Judy and Frank Dye.
6. See you on September 15^th for the next meeting. Have a great summer.

Submitted by Club Secretary: Sue Mininni

Any changes please comment below.

Phil

Brent and I have processed about 80 photos and put them on the home page slide show. If you see a problem or we missed something, let us know. Email webmaster .

Congratulations to our ribbon winners. 1st, 2nd place, member’s choice, peoples choice and “best of” photos will be hung at the library.

We should all thank Donna and Terry Turner for all their hard work making our contest a success. And a special thank you to Donna Gray giving assistance and guidance to the Turner’s.

Thanks to Jay Davis for being our judge this year. It is no easy task judging these photos. I again am reminded to learn to crop, crop, and crop some more.

Bellevue Library

Here are some subjects for you all to work on for future display subjects.

1. monuments
2. old everything
3. clouds

President’s position needs to be filled!!!

Keith White is not able to fill the president’s spot. We need someone to step up. And provide some new blood to our leadership team. Fresh eyes so to speak. The board provided me plenty of assistance while I was president. You would not need to do everything by your lonesome. I will also work closely with the new president and provide assistance when and where I can. Covid affected how we held meetings and I hope we will get closer to the “normal”.

Thank you Chaplain Kyle

Kyle Sorys is the young gentlemen who helped us with the Zoom calls for our meetings this past year. Thank you very much! I hope he will continue to be a member of our photo club.

Webmaster

Phil Mininni and Brent Headley will continue to be the webmasters. Thanks to Brent for helping with the home page contest photos.

Milky Way

Brent says Tues evening, June 28, into Wednesday morning is looking promising for our milky way shoot. We had to cancel last week due to weather. Brent is also planning a shoot in July. More info is forthcoming for July.

Closing

Once again if you notice anything about your photo that is not quite right, let me know. Comment below or email me.

Phil

The Gallery 1516 is having a fee based photo contest. I am not real familiar with this gallery. Below is a PDF document with instructions. At the bottom is a link to their website for more details.

Jean Lindfors and Jane Pullum (president of the Bellevue Artist Association) provided this info. Thanks Ladies.

Check out this link for details

May 19, 2022

Location:	Camp Brewster
Date:	5/19/2022
Time:	6:30 PM (At Camp Brewster for Raptor Shoot)

1. Welcome by President Phil Mininni.
2. At our June meeting we will need to elect new officers. Sue and I will not continue on as President and Secretary. I will continue as the webmaster. Maybe have a couple or two individuals be Co-Presidents. Just a thought.
3. If you have any photos of the eclipse send to the webmaster and I will post them.
4. Attendees: 25
5. New members: Jason Bower

Judy and Frank: Bring photos of fountains to next meeting to display at the library.

Kathleen:

Treasurer’s Report for May, 2022

Beginning Balance:   $1362.75

Donation to FF              300.00

Ending balance         $1062.75

Brent: Talked about organizing a trip with Ken Smith (Astrophotography). Upcoming “New Moon” dates are Tuesday June 28th, and Thursday July 28th.  Ken has calculated 2 viable date ranges: June 26 to July 3rd (not Saturday July 2nd); and July 24th to August 1st (not Saturday July 30th).  There needs to be no moon or below the horizon. Ken has church commitments on Sundays, which is why we don’t want to have an excursion late on Saturday night into early Sunday morning. We will be somewhere, far from civilization, late at night, in the dark, with no bathroom facilities. Something to think about. We will need to arrive before sunset to get set up and organized.  Dark conditions will be around 10:30 or 11:00pm until 4:00 or 4:30am.  Ken thinks most people would be ready leave by 12:30 or 1:00am.

Sue: None

Terry and Donna Turner: Photo Contest: Setup is Saturday May 28^th from 10-12. Awards will be Thursday June 16^th for our regular meeting held at Bellevue University. Take down of photos and pickup will be Saturday June 25^th from 10-12. Watermarks or names are not allowed on the front of the photos. Jay Davis has agreed to be our Judge this year. Labels were available to pick up to put on your photos. Winning contest pictures will be displayed at the Bellevue Library.

Kathy Holm: None

6. No treats tonight.
7. Cathy from the Forest was presented with our $300 donation. She was very appreciative.
8. Next month, June 16, 2022 the meeting will be at Bellevue University for our Photo Contest critique and awards.

Submitted by Club Secretary: Sue Mininni

If there are any corrections or additions please comment below.

I want to thank Donna and Terry Turner and Kathleen Crawford-Rose for their hard work with the photo contest photo entries. A special shout out to Donna Gray for being a great source of support for Donna. We received 79 photos for the contest. Those who stuck around and hung the photos are Brent and Mary Headley, Terry Turner, Kathleen Crawford-Rose, Andrea Kuhn, Phil and Sue Mininni, Jean Lindfors, and not the least, Tom Boggs. Donna made sure Terry kept the signs plum. Thanks to these volunteers.

Once again we had way more advanced entries than novice. This proves that one of our goals as a club is to make you a better photographer. The photos turned in showed a lot of talent and thought was utilized.

Jay Davis is our judge and he will be judging the photos this Tuesday. I welcome you to come to the Humanities Building at Bellevue University after Tuesday and view the photos and vote for your “Member’s” favorite photo. There are also ballot forms for the general public to choose their favorite. See map of the campus below.

Critique and Awards Presentation – Thursday, June 16, 2022, 7:00 to 9:00 PM
Take Down – Saturday, June 25, 2022, 10:00 AM

Don’t forget our next meeting is on Thursday, May 19, 2022. It will start at 6:30 PM to take advantage of the daylight. We will meet at Camp Brewster. See the post about the upcoming meeting May 19… for a Map. If we have bad weather we will set up the birds inside.

Raptors, Raptors, and More you ask? It’s me your humble president.

Fontenelle Forest Photo Display

Speaking of raptors, we changed out the photos displayed at the forest with the raptor photos. We did not have enough space for all. So we will put those photos on display after the ones on the racks have been on display for a month or so. Thanks to Jim and Andre Kuhn and Kathleen Crawford-Rose for their help in swapping out the pictures.

Milky Way

Hello FFPC members,

Phil has asked me to organize the astro-photography event with Ken Smith. Ken and I have discussed a few things in very general terms.

I will have a signup sheet at our May meeting this Thursday.
Please give some thought to the following:

– Possible event date(s) will be centered around the “New Moon” – nights with no moon.
IMPORTANT!  Participants must expect to be flexible on dates, as the weather will dictate if we will be able to shoot on a specific night.  Ken is a meteorologist, and will keep an eye on things for us.

Upcoming “New Moon” dates are Tuesday June 28th, and Thursday July 28th.  Ken has calculated 2 viable date ranges: June 26 to July 3rd (not Saturday July 2nd); and July 24th to August 1st (not Saturday July 30th).  Ken has church commitments on Sundays, which is why we don’t want to have an excursion late on Saturday night into early Sunday morning.

– We will be somewhere , far from civilization, late at night, in the dark, with no bathroom facilities.  Something to think about. 

We will need to arrive before sunset to get set up and organized.  Dark conditions will be around 10:30 or 11:00pm until 4:00 or 4:30am.  Ken thinks most people would be ready leave by 12:30 or 1:00am.

 – Ken does not have a set site where we can assemble a group.  
If YOU have friends or family in very rural NE or IA, within 2 hours or so of Bellevue, please consider contacting them.  Ken is willing to visit potential sites and scout them for suitability.  We will not go on private land without permission.  I will bring a Dark Sky map to the Thursday meeting if you want to take a look.

Here are links to Kens amazing photos and astro-photography presentation:

https://kensmithphotography.smugmug.com/Astrophotography/i-FC8tX4j
https://kensmithphotography.smugmug.com/Astrophotography-/


Thanks,
Brent Headley

Photo Contest

PHOTO CONTEST UPATE: Members  can send their digital copies for the competition anytime now.  Send them to ddturner2@cox.net.  Questions: 402-680-1186.

{the information sheet said that the copies should be sent starting May 25.  But anytime is okay.}

See you Thursday.

Donna T

There will be the “novice”, “advance”, and “anything goes” forms available.

It will have been two years since we have had actual photos turned in for the contest. Your photos should be FRAMED . This is different from the photos turned in to be displayed at the forest or the library. Please reference the contest rules .

Featured Image

Can you identify the bird, shown as the featured image for this post? Leave your guess in the comments below. The feature image is the picture shown at the bottom of the home page under “FROM BLOG“.

Lunar Eclipse

Did you get out to photograph the eclipse the other night? Send me some of your pictures and I will post them on the website. Send to webmaster

Fontenelle Forest Photo Club Meeting minutes

Location:	Fontenelle Forest
Date:	4/21/2022
Time:	7PM

1. Welcome by President Phil Mininni.
2. Attendees: 27. No Zoom meeting was held.
3. New members: None

Judy and Frank: Out of town. Kathleen took Raptor photos for Forest display. Kathleen will ask Judy for some photo topics for the next club year so we can take them over the summer. Fountains will be the next topic for photos to display so please bring to the May meeting.

Kathleen: Treasurer’s report: amount in Treasury is: $1476.67. She asked the club to donate $300 to the Raptor Program to help provide food for the Raptors. Unanimously approved.

Brent: No news.

Sue: No news.

Donna Gray: Due to personal reasons she has resigned as our photo club contest organizer. We wish her the best and hope to see her at future meetings.

Terry and Donna Turner: Have volunteered to take over Photo contest duties.

Kathy Holm: No news.

4. Our presenter was member Donna Turner and she showed us some of her post processing skills. It was an excellent presentation.
5. Thanks to Linda Shuett and Linnea Baney for the treats tonight.
6. ***Treats for the May meeting: Will be provided by Jean Lindfors but we also need at least one more person to volunteer to bring them. Email me at s.mininni@yahoo.com if able. Thank you.
7. Next month, May 19, 2022 the meeting will be at Camp Brewster for our Annual Raptor Shoot. It will be at 6:30 (note time change) with the Raptor Shoot first then afterwards will be the meeting.
8. Forest partnership with the photo club– Phil, Kathy, and Brent had a Zoom meeting with Dana Meyers and Emily Prauner. They are working on a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with us. It was suggested by us that if we can’t provide enough photos of the Forest could they just be photos focused on Nature. There were no hard decisions made on photo selection. Emily was a guest at this meeting and spoke about opportunities to display some of our photos in the Forest newsletter. The Baright Gallery is being revamped. They spoke about having a student discount for joining the Forest as well as we could have one for joining our club.
9. Photo Contest: Setup is Saturday May 28^th from 10-12. Awards will be Thursday June 16^th for our regular meeting held at Bellevue University. Take down of photos will be Saturday June 25^th from 10-12. Watermarks or names are not allowed on the front of the photos. Jay Davis has agreed to be our Judge this year. Labels were available to pick up to put on your photos. Winning contest pictures will be displayed at the Bellevue Library.
10. Ken Smith (Astrophotography) is still willing to take people out May 30^th from 12 midnight to 4am or July 28^th 11pm to 4am or maybe sometime in June. This will be in southeast locations in Iowa. Should be two groups of 9 people max. 18 showed hands that they were interested in doing it.
11. A suggestion was made to maybe come up with a card to display at various places to promote our club.

Submitted by Club Secretary: Sue Mininni

6:30 PM at Camp Brewster to take advantage of day light! Bring your own drinks.

Business meeting will be after you are done taking pictures. I hope to see you all there.

Raptor Shoot

The Forest Raptor group will be showing their raptors for us to photograph them. Don’t forget your cameras. If you are not a member of the club, you are invited to come to our meeting(s) anytime to check us out. I welcome you to come and take some pictures of raptors up close and not through a fence.

Camp Brewster

Located just north of Fontenelle Forest.

1313 Bellevue Blvd. North
Bellevue, NE 68005

From I-80, take Hwy 75 (Kennedy Freeway) South to Chandler Road. Turn left onto Chandler. Stay on Chandler approx. 1 mile until the road ends at the stop sign at Bellevue Blvd. Turn right onto Bellevue Blvd. Continue approximately .3 of a mile to Camp Brewster (on the left)

Camp Brewster, Sarpy County, Nebraska, 68147

Fountains for Bellevue Library Photo Display

Judy is collecting your photos of “Fountains” for the Bellevue Library photo displays. Bring them to the May meeting.

Don’t forget to put on the back of your photo your name, contact information…etc. Photos should be boarder-less 8X10 or 11X14 sized pictures.

May Photo Contest

Check out contest info here

Short Videos about Raptor photo taking

That is about all!

Please comment below. If you have any questions comment or email your webmaster here . Thanks for letting me be your president and webmaster. Phil

Donna Turner has sent me the Harold Davis series of videos. I went ahead and got the links for the subjects she notes in her email to me and posted them here. Then there is a section on 3D Flowers. And another section on Photographing flowers on a lightbox. You don’t have to search for them. The links are below. Take your time with the videos. Watch them at your convenience. I know this post is lengthy. Leave comments below.

If you have any questions, Donna’ s contact info is;

Donna Turner Ddturner2@cox.net

402-680-1186

HAROLD DAVIS FLOWER PHOTOGRAPHY ON A LIGHTBOX

On U Tube look under Harold Davis Photography on a lightbox. There are several similar Webinars so watch for the titles recommended. Matching the length of time of each webinar helps.

PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS FOR TRANSPARENCY WEBINAR PART 1 INTRODUCTION 1:12:45

PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS FOR TRANSPARENCY PART 2 ARRANGING & EXPOSING 1:23:16

PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS FOR TRANSPARENCY PART 3 PROCESSING A HIGH-KEY LAYER STACK 1:20:56

PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS FOR TRANSPARENCY PART 4 ADVANCED TECHNIQUES 1:23:17

PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS FOR TRANSPARENCY PART 5 OVER TO YOU 1:20:38 ( AN CONTINUATION OF PART 4)

( There are several similar programs but the above are a series)

If you want to go further with the LAB process:

Creative LAB Color Part 1: Getting Started 1:26:54

Creative LAB Color Part 2: Advanced Techniques 1:04:45

Photo cards I recommended are Strathmore Photo Mount Cards Available at Dick Blick or Amazon

3D Flowers

3 D FLOWERS

1. Select flower and move to Photoshop. Crop it to a square. (Crop—ratio 1:1 click.
2. Make 4 copies of it. Shortcut is Control J on a PC or Command J on a MAC.
3. Go to Image —canvas size. Change to a percent and change both percents to 150. Click OK. This puts a white border around the picture.
4. Highlight the top copy in the layers panel on the right.
5. Get the move tool (first tool) and holding down the shift key put the cursor on the big main picture and move a copy to the right until just touching the main picture. (The copy will magically appear.)
6. Go to Edit —transform and flip horizontally.
7. Go to Edit — free transform, click and handles will appear. If some are off the page and not visible do control/command zero or control/command – and the picture will shrink and the handles appear.
8. Holding shift grab the middle far right handle and squish the side picture until it is within the white boundary. Click (check mark)
9. Edit –transform—perspective. With shift and move tool, Grab top outside handle and pull up until you are at 45 degree angle (see upper bar) click.
10. Highlight the next layer. Using shift, move the picture left until just touching main picture.
11. Edit –transform and flip horizontally.
12. Edit – Free transform. Grab middle handle and with shift squish to inside white boundary. click
13. Edit—transform—perspective. With shift use handle to move to 45 degrees. click
14. Highlight the third layer.
15. As before, with shift move the layer this time up.
16. Edit—transform and flip vertically
17. Repeat steps 12 and 13. Squish to the white boundary. click
18. Highlight fourth layer, move layer down and Edit—transform and flip vertically.
19. Repeat steps 12 and 13.

OPTIONAL LIGHTING:

20. Lighting: click on layer in stack that shows the left side.
21. To darken, click Image—adjustment–Brightness and contrast. Decrease -100
22. To lighten, go to opposite side layer in stack, click Image –adjustment–Brightness and contrast. Increase +100.
23. On top image, darken -50% with Image—Adjustment—Brightness and contrast.

QUESTIONS: Donna Turner Ddturner2@cox.net

402-680-1186

Photographing Flowers on a Lightbox

Donna Turner ddturner2@cox.net

1. Lay lightbox flat on the floor of a normally lit room.
2. Put camera on tripod and place it over lightbox as high as you can and still see the camera screen

Set camera on:

1. low ISO –100
2. Manual exposure
3. Manual focus capable of at least 5 times magnification
4. F stop of F11 to F16 depending on distance from lens to flowers. Choose one and don’t change
5. Long exposure noise reduction ON

3. Artfully arrange flowers on box. (This is the hard part.)

1. Scissors, tweezers, paper clips, tape, museum gel and little pebbles are all helpful in holding flowers in place
2. Easiest to cut heads of flowers and leaves from stems.
3. Take practice shots at shutter speed of ½ or 2 seconds after turning light box on.
4. Remember you don’t see depth in lightbox photography.

4 . Then take a series of 6-8 shots.

1. Start with shutter speed of 1/30 then 1/15, 1/8,1/4 and continue with one stop

difference until you get to 4 or 8 seconds where it becomes too light.

b. Change only the shutter speed.

Transfer to lightroom.

DO NOT CROP PICTURES UNTIL THE END

ce ca cc cv

ce–(control e on a PC, command e on a MAC)

Move picture from Lightroom LR to Photoshop PS

Ca (control a on a PC, command c on a MAC)–Select picture in Photoshop

ca– (control a on a PC, command a on a MAC) Copy picture in Photoshop

cv – control v on a PC, command v on a MAC) Put picture on top of another layer in Photoshop

1. In Lightroom highlight the longest exposure (4 or 8 seconds) and take it into Photoshop.

(Photo –edit in Photoshop or use shortcut ce)

*( If there is something extraneous in this first shot (like a scissors or the edge of the light box, it is easy to remove. With the eye dropper tool, sample an area near where you want to make a change. Then with the brush tool set on white, remove it. It won’t show up on subsequent pictures.)

2. Back to Lightroom (LR) highlight the next longest exposure and take it into Photoshop ( PS) (ce)

A. With that picture highlighted Select All (ca)

B. Then copy (cc))

C. Go to first image in PS. It will be on the black bar on the left. Paste. (cv)

3. In PS go to Layer – layer mask – Hide all. Very important. That takes you back to lighter image.

4. Now you are going to use the paintbrush to lightly paint back in from the darker image.

Lower opacity (ex. 50%) and flow (ex. 50%) on top bar. Your layer mask will be black so you are painting with white.

Then with pencil set to fairly soft , start painting in color. This is where the creative part comes in.

If you make a mistake hit Control z to undo.

5. Back to Lightroom, get next picture, ce, then ca, then Ccc. Back to first image and cv.

Layer – Layer mask—Hide all and paint as before.

6. Keep going back to Lightroom for another picture. You won’t necessarily use them all.

Lower opacity as you go.

7. Now you can crop!
8. To clean up any bad spots on your flowers, Do control and the plus sign to magnify image. Maneuver around using the space bar and the mouse and use the spot healing brush in PS.
9. When finished Save All with layers intact. You can save with all layers by holding down Control, Shift, Alt and e all at the same time
10. Then flatten Image and make further adjustments in Lightroom – if desired.
11. Save

( This whole process if much easier if you tether your camera to your computer with a cord.) In Lightroom go to file,Tethered capture, Start tethered capture, ,Fill in session name , Ok. Enter your numbers and then you can just sit at your computer to take all the pictures)