News From the Committee

Dear Members,

Thanks to everybody who attended the last competition night online. The first virtual meeting saw the most people enter our monthly competition that we have had for a long time.

As we said earlier, the committee is continuing to meet every month to see how we can improve the way we hold our meetings.

It was decided to keep the number of entries to three images per person. However, it was felt that the colour images went for too long. To counter this, we are limiting the number of images in each category to a maximum of two images. It’s in bold so you’ll notice the change.

This gives us a good opportunity to experiment with black and white images if you haven’t delved into this area before.

We will also schedule a 5 minute break after the colour images to stretch and maybe grab a cup of tea or coffee.

If you feel the need to ask a question during night you can raise your hand by pressing Alt + Y on the keyboard and awe can let you ask at an appropriate time.

Thursday is our last day for the Zoo Around Our House entries. Friday will be the start of Things with Wings. Be creative and upload your images. Remember this is just for fun.

Finally, we have postponed the Photo Rally. This is normally a well-attended event. Rather than cancelling, we want to still try and hold it when some restrictions are eased and health conditions are safe.

Remember to keep checking the website for updates.

Don’t forget to learn, create and share photography.

Tom Carlos (President)

by Tom Carlos, April 29, 2020

April F Stop and VC.20

Thanks for joining us last night if you were able to make it. It was fantastic to see the great images submitted by our members.

Here’s the link to the latest F Stop put out by the Federation of Camera Clubs. https://fccnsw.myphotoclub.com.au/april-f-stop/

The VC20 Camera Clubs United  has been established to provide stimulation, content and activity for photographers while practicing our ‘social isolation’. Members of existing camera clubs are invited to join as an additional activity to their existing  photography pursuits. Membership is free. 

Ray Williams, a professional photographer and photography teacher has put together a web site VC20.photography and Zoom meeting room for a weekly get together for members. HHCC members are invited to go to the web site and view images and access the next scheduled meeting on Monday 27th April at 3pm by pressing the “Join the Meeting Button”.

Prior to each meeting, members are able to upload three images in the current competition. They can then view images just prior to the meeting, choose the ‘best 3 images’ and upload their vote. The competition result, as determined by the members’ votes, is discussed during the meeting and a critique is offered for a selection of images. General photography topics are discussed in an informal setting. Site: VC20.photography

Don’t forget to upload images to our Zoo Around Your Home gallery as this just for fun competition closes on 30th April.

Enjoy the rest of the week and have fun learning, creating, and sharing photography.

Tom

by Tom Carlos, April 22, 2020

Tuesday’s Open Competition Night

G’day all,

Tuesday night is club night. We have Kerry Boytell judging our competiton this month via Zoom. Click on this link to join the meeting: https://zoom.us/j/95238255732?pwd=VGlSekh4Y2VsckFhK0NEL0lzbkFhZz09

Join from 7:35pm as we want to start judging at 7:45 pm. We have 77 images to view on Tuesday night.

Don’t forget your Zoom manners. Find a quiet spot, not a bathroom, think about what could be behind you. Don’t worry about your background, as I’ll be sharing images and people will be seeing those.

Don’t forget to enter our April fun competition, The Zoo Around Your House. This is replacing our April outing.

We look forward to having you join us on Tuesday night.

Tom Carlos, President

by Tom Carlos, April 19, 2020

HHCC Update

Dear Members,

I hope the you are well. I hope that you are coping with the bizarre changes to life that we are going through.

The committee met using an online video conferencing platform called Zoom on Thursday night to discuss how we can keep the club running.

Firstly, we cannot meet together as we normally do. We can’t use the hall and we are all urged to stay at home as much as possible.

However, we can still keep the club active.

To do this we need to make some changes. Some of these changes may also change in future. The committee will be meeting together and assessing our situation on a month by month basis.

Our first change is to change the categories of our entries. There will now be Colour Digital Images, Mono Digital Images, and Digital (Small prints rules apply). We will also be restricted to 3 images in total. This is because a number of judges don’t want to judge a lot of digital images online. There is a new April Digital Only competition created on the club website. It is the second competition on the list. Please use this competition to enter images.

Our second change is to the way that we meet. The committee met using Zoom. Dave created an online meeting and sent us a link. We can have all of our members in the meeting. All you need is the link to the meeting. When you click on the link it will ask you if you want to download software to run it from your computer. To contribute you will need a webcam and a microphone. These are inbuilt with laptops. You can also use a tablet or a smart phone but you will need to download the app first. You can then click on the meeting link below in your email and it should take you to the meeting. You will need to give Zoom access to your camera and microphone. You can mute your microphone as any background noise will be picked up.

We are going to have a practice on Tuesday night at 7:30pm. Click on this link to join the meeting: https://zoom.us/j/4305275217

If you can’t join us it is okay.

I have used Zoom a fair bit in the last week and we may find it a bit chaotic at first but we will soon get the hang of it.

How the meeting will work will be similar to how the digital image section of our club nights runs. One person will be using the club laptop with the images preloaded. They will share their screen to all of your screens so that everybody sees the images. The judge will view them and award the images and the person with the laptop will move the images to the relevant folder – just as we would on any other club night.

Some tips for the meeting.

1. Don’t go to the toilet. There are clips doing the rounds of social media of that happening.
2. Make sure a family member doesn’t walk behind you in their underwear or even less. There are clips of that too.
3. Don’t have an argument with someone in your house. I’ve seen a couple of those in the last week. Mute your microphone before you speak to someone in the room with you.
4. Remember that if you are talking to one person, we all hear it.

Zoom was suggested by one of the FCC hierarchy, so we see how it works out.

Our third change will be our outings. Until further notice, they are cancelled. However, they will be replaced with newer challenges. As the Zoo Outing is cancelled we will replace it with an April photo challenge: “The Zoo In and Around your Home”

It’s not a competition.  No points.  No pressure.  Just for fun.  For sharing with members and keeping you photographically active. Be creative. The zoo could be your pets, garden insects, visiting wildlife, the feral kids… even a still life of your collection of soft animal toys!

So, snap away and upload your favourites to the website in new event we will be setting up from 1 April.

Our fourth change is to our workshops. As we can’t run them, we have some suggestions for some photography websites to look at.

https://www.unscriptedmentoring.com/blog-1/2019/1/14/xxx-tips-for-photographing-indoors

https://www.photographytalk.com/beginner-photography-tips/7194-12-photo-projects-you-can-do-from-home

7 Ideas for Rainy Day Photographic Activities at Home

We’ll post some more later.

Finally, I would like to thank the committee for their positive attitude, contributions and ingenuity to make sure that we can continue to function in different ways during this time of social distance and self-isolation.

As everybody says, stay safe,

Tom Carlos – HHCC President

by Tom Carlos, March 28, 2020

Meeting 17th March

Dear friends,

At the moment the committee is still planning on holding tomorrow night’s meeting. We have spoken to the judge who is still keen to come along.

Just because the meeting is going ahead does not mean members are obligated to attend. If you feel that it is better for you to stay at home, we wholeheartedly welcome and respect your decision to do so, and we look forward to seeing you once this global crisis is over.

We will not be serving supper tomorrow night, but tea and coffee will be available. It would be appreciated that, for the time being, members bring their own cup to drink from.

The committee will continue to make decisions as needs arise and discuss up coming events with organisers.

Regards,

Tom Carlos (HHCC President)

by Tom Carlos, March 16, 2020