Welcome to Charlottesville Camera Club

Here’s your opportunity to get friendly feedback on your images from your peers. Want some suggestions on how you might improve an image before entering it in a competition? Having some difficulty getting the “look” you want with lighting, composition, or editing? Want to understand more about why a judge may have scored an image as he or she did? Then you’ll find this casual and supportive meeting helpful. And, if you choose to join in evaluating the work of others and contributing your thoughts, you will likely strengthen your own picture-taking skills. Members of all skill levels are welcome, and of course you’re welcome to just attend the meeting and observe.

If you’d like feedback on your images, bring up to three TIFFs or JPEGs ( sized to 1080 pixels on the longest side) to the meeting on a thumb drive.

We'll be meeting for another of our enjoyable peer review sessions, so please bring up to three photos you'd like to share with your fellow club members. For details about the meeting, please see the home page of the CCC website.

Hope to see you there!

Gerry

Matthew Schmidt will judge the photo competition in July. Matthew is an amateur photographer who spends a good deal of time shooting action sports such as motorsports, lacrosse and soccer, striving to catch that decisive moment that is representative of the sport or event. Matt is a member of the Northern Virginia Photographic Society and serves as webmaster for the Northern Virginia Association of Camera Clubs. In that capacity he manages the images for the annual Joseph Miller Abstract Photography Exhibit. He has been studying the masters in painting and photography and has been applying those compositional and lighting techniques to his photography. In real life, Matthew runs an information technology consulting practice. Some of Matt's images can be viewed on his website at http://loreleistudios.com/

The program is being presented by Dan Ward, a photographer from Northern Virginia who specializes in astrophotography. Dan began photographing stars at age 11 and has pursued that emphasis. But his interests are wide-ranging: "I enjoy nature and landscape photography, but my first love is in capturing candid moments or people in an "other than traditional" portrait." He lived in Charlottesville in 1990-91 and was president of the Charlottesville Astronomical Society. He has been a member of several Northern Virginia photo clubs and is active in the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club. Several astronomy magazines and books have published his comet, deep sky and planet photos including David Levy’s best seller, The Sky: A Users Guide. Dan's photos have received awards in a variety of photography shows including several Natures Visions Photography Expos, three Meadowlark Photo Expos, the 2007 Claude Moore Nature Photo Expo, the Ellipse Gallery 2007 Top Photos of the Past 75 Years and various community art shows. In his “day job,” Dan is the Chief Workforce Economist for the MITRE Corporation. A small sampling of Dan’s astro images can be viewed in his astronomy gallery at http://danlward.imagekind.com/store/gallerylist.aspx
Dan's program is titled “Capturing the Night Sky.” It provides an overview of what can be done using equipment ranging from a basic camera (or smartphone) to more sophisticated combinations of cameras and astro gear, and includes a healthy blend of tools, techniques and examples.