I received an email from a self-described photographer/tech geek who has put together a comprehensive guide to solving memory card problems. A quick glance through the table of contents and the reviews would indicate this guy knows what he's talking about. 
Here's the URL: https://www.softwarehow.com/sd-memory-card-error-fix/
​With luck you will never need it. Worth looking at to see what you can do to avoid problems in the first place.
​Maryann

A digital slide show is a great way to share your images with family, friends and your camera club. If you are already familiar with Lightroom, creating a slide show with background music using the Slideshow module is not difficult. It's so convenient to have this capability within Lightroom right beside your organizing and processing workflow and not have to export images to  other software. 
I've created a tutorial to guide you through the process.
Have fun!
Maryann Flick

Mike Frechette is our guest blogger this month with a View from the Board. Normally these appear in our newsletter. The newsletter is indefinitely on hiatus. Email announcements and more blogs will temporarily take the place of the newsletter. Maryann

​A View From the Board
                  At a recent board meeting, one of the members asked an interesting question: “I look at the pictures I took recently, and when I compare them to pictures I took many years ago, I don’t see how I have improved that much over time.  How do I learn to take better pictures? “
                  There ensued amongst the group present an excited and sometimes contentious discussion of how to become a better photographer.
                  I am torn between two different views.   One view is that we should enter our photographs into competitions and exhibits or whatever venue we can find so that we can get constructive feedback on how we can improve the picture.  This does two things- it makes us more aware of what it takes to make a good photograph, and two, it pushes us to the boundaries of our skills and forces us to try new things.    There are many, many techniques that we can use in photography, and as we learn the techniques, we can make decisions as to whether the picture is better if we employ those techniques.  Exhibiting and getting critiques about our work teaches us to recognize the potential of an individual photograph, and that will help us create better pictures.  Through critiques you will learn composition theories, and you will learn how basic art principles also apply to photographs.    I encourage you to take courses, attend seminars, or view webcasts about how to improve your skills.    
                  But what if you have a lot of skills and do know a lot of techniques?  Then I would ascribe to the second view which is take lots of pictures and play with light.   I learned this summer that you sometimes need to be at the right place at the right time to get spectacular photographs.  As you go about your day, take notice of places or things that you think might be worth shooting. Go back to a site when the lighting is optimal, usually early morning or around sunset.  This will encourage you to plan ahead and have a good idea of what you are trying to accomplish when you take your pictures. Do not be content to take just one picture.  I think that the tendency to take the “one and done” photograph stems from the old film days-every picture you took cost money.  Today, with digital cameras, you should take lots pf pictures, and sort them out later   If you look at the work of the well known photographers (Art Wolfe comes to mind right away) and you listen to what they say, they take hundreds or thousands of photographs trying to get just the right picture.    
                  We have an advantage today with digital photography that we did not have twenty years ago.  We can take thousands of photographs at very little cost.  Take a horizontal shot, take a vertical shot, take a weird angle shot, take shots of the same scene but with different lenses. You can sort through them and pick the best ones for printing and exhibiting.    You can improve them using software that exceeds the old darkroom techniques.    If you have a prejudice against “modifying” the pictures that come out of your camera, remember that if you shoot JPEG pictures, all cameras have programs that have already modified the picture
                  The bottom line is look around, and take lots of pictures, every day if you can.  Of course, if you DO take that many pictures, new problems arise as to storage, retrieval, organization and selection of all those photographs!  But that is a topic for another time.
 
Mike Frechette

Group f.64: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists who Revolutionized American Photography
by Mary Street Alinder
2014
Bloomsbury
 
The first paragraph of the Prologue is an apt introduction to the contents of this biographical/historical work.
“In 1932 an energetic alliance of dedicated San Francisco Bay Area photographers burst upon the art world, demanding local attention and looking beyond to the East Coast. These westerners believed they were redefining photography, finding a new way of seeing. Before them loomed two roadblocks; Alfred Stieglitz in New York and Pictorialism, the popular photographic style that was the antithesis of their philosophy.”
 
The book is a well written, fascinating, in-depth history of the emergence of fine art photography from the perspective of this group of photographers on the west coast. There are brief biographies of each of the original seven members and also bits and pieces of biographical info on later members and guest members such as Dorthea Lange. Also covered are their varied approaches to photography over the time period and their interactions with the other members of the group as well as the art world and the public. Being the era of the Great Depression, it was interesting to read how these photographers played a role in the perception of photography as an art form and how their lives were affected. For the period, it was unusual that there were several women in the group who for the most part were treated as equals to their male colleagues. The rivalry with the Pictorialists is amusingly reminiscent of modern controversies. Also interesting were the interactions with the East Coast group led by Alfred Stieglitz.
 
The author is an independent scholar specializing in 20th century photography. As a student in 1967, she attended a workshop where the instructors included several of the Group f.64 photographers. She became the chief assistant to Ansel Adams from 1979 until his death and worked closely with him on his autobiography, completing it after his death. Much of this book came from the research material collected then.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Maryann
I will loan my copy to trustworthy members on request.

http://www.psri.us/2016/06/learning-the-light/
And these 2 have loads of articles:
www.picturecorrect.com
digital-photography-school.com

A proposal to have a portrait photo shoot of residents at Gladeview Health Care Center has been raised. Before we get too involved with planning the details, I'd like to know if you are interested. We would set up one or more sessions where club members would shoot portraits and/or just resident's hands in artistic poses, perhaps with props. The best images would be printed and displayed in the hall at a special exhibit. Please leave a comment if you might be interested in doing this sometime in the coming year. [go to the club web site blog to leave your comment]
​Thanks!

Here are the award winners of the recent joint competition with Southeast CT Camera Club. Congratulations! 

From mid-February into March I spent 4 weeks in San Francisco. I hauled a bunch of camera gear not knowing what I would need since we had no definite plans or itinerary. I had my very old MacBook laptop. It’s so old it cannot run any version of Lightroom beyond 4. This seemed to be sufficient just to review images and do minor edits while I was there rather than save it all for when I returned. I had both cameras and did in fact occasionally carry both so I could have a wide-angle zoom lens and a long zoom lens at the ready. After the first couple days it was time to see what was captured. I opened Lightroom and used my USB SD card reader for upload. Imagine my surprise when Lightroom told me it couldn’t read the files! Sony ARW (their version of RAW) should be the same no matter what camera was used right? Wrong. Version 4 of Lightroom did not have the upgrade for the 77M2 so it would not read the RAW files from that camera. Yikes! What to do? My husband and I put our heads together and came up with the solution. His MacBook is newer and runs Lightroom 5 which does have the 77M2 camera update. We uploaded the files to his computer converting them to Adobe DNG files in the process. Then via WiFi I pulled them onto my laptop; time consuming but effective. Lightroom 4 was perfectly happy with the DNG files now. Fortunately, there was no problem with files from the A57, the older camera. Relieved of the problem, I continued to use the 77M2 as my primary since it’s a better camera.
 
If you are not familiar with Adobe’s DNG file format DNG stands for Digital Negative. It is supposed to be lossless and I’ve seen no reason not to believe this as far as processing is concerned. Adobe says this about creating the universal format: “By addressing the lack of an open standard for the raw files created by individual camera models, DNG helps ensure that photographers will be able to access their files in the future.” More about DNG is found at Adobe’s help site:
 https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/digital-negative.html
And a review is here: https://photographylife.com/dng-vs-raw
Google “Adobe DNG” for much more than you ever want to know.
 
Anyway, DNG saved a troublesome situation for me.

Congratulations to our winners in the first competition of the year!

last name             first name     title                                                                           points    award
B&W Salon Prints                                                                                                    
Borkowski           Jacek            Horse & Duomo                                                      25          1st
Janke                   Mark             Back Streets--Bayeux                                            24          2nd
Janke                   Mark             Mirror, Mirror on the Wall                                      23          3rd
                                                                                                                               
Color Salon Prints                                                                                                    
Janke                   Mark             Mated Pair of Diademed Sifakas                         27          1st
Broderick             Deanna       Macias Seal Island Puffin                                     27          1st
Flick                     Maryann      Ste. Chapelle Interior                                             25          2nd
Janke                   Mark             Morning Snack-Parson's Chameleon                25           2nd
Borkowski           Jacek            On the Roof                                                             25          2nd
Flick                     Maryann      Meadow Poppies                                                    24          3rd
Janke                   Mark             Sub-Desert Mesite                                                 24          3rd
Flick                     Maryann      Clinton Harbor                                                         24          3rd
                                                                                                                               
Creative Projected                                                                                                  
Anderson            Pat                Phoenix Rising                                                      24          1st
Maltese               Allison          Dance of the Fifes                                                 24          1st
Roberts                Dianne        Flowering Waterdrop                                           24          1st
Roberts                Dianne        Floating Flower                                                     23          2nd
Frechette             Mike             Hiding from the world                                          22          3rd
Anderson            Pat                Rock Pool with Clouds                                        22          3rd
                                                                                                                               
Black&White Projected                                                                                          
Roberts                Dianne         The Point                                                               28          1st
Roberts                Dianne         Gerbera                                                                 25          2nd
Secki                    Lou                Formation                                                             25          2nd
Roberts                Dianne         Deer                                                                      25          2nd
Anderson            Pat                 December Coastal Afternoon                           23          3rd
Flick                     Maryann       Painted Skimmer                                                 23          3rd
Gauggel               Robert          Chatfield Boardwalk                                          23          3rd
Maltese               Allison           The Lake Pavilion                                               23          3rd
Flick                     Maryann       Easy Rider                                                            23          3rd
                                                                                                                               
Open Projected                                                                                                       
Borkowski           Jacek            Ancient World                                                     26          1st
Rathbun              Dave             Eastern Bluebird                                                26          1st
Secki                    Lou               Heritage Flight                                                    26          1st
Broderick             Deanna       Beautiful Sky                                                       25          2nd
Roberts                Dianne         Peruvian Woman                                               25          2nd
Hearn                   Kathy            Morning Kayak in Kenai Peninsula, AK        25          2nd
Secki                    Lou               Dominic                                                               24          3rd
Maltese               Allison          Boothbay Harbor                                               24          3rd
Anderson            Pat                August Sunflowers                                            24          3rd
Broderick             Deanna       Snail on Mushroom                                          24          3rd
Broderick             Deanna       Green                                                                  24          3rd

If you are not on the winners' list and would like your results, contact me. If you are interested in how the final score was broken down by judge, I have the separate scores as well. 
Winners are invited to send files of their winning images for a web gallery. Please send to Rob.
Our next competition is joint with SECCC! 
Maryann

This Wednesday will be our first of two competitions for the year. Over the years I’ve been in the club, I’ve made my peace with the process. I used to get rather anxious about choosing images to submit and then waiting to hear the esteemed judges pronounce a score. The low numbers really stung. But I persisted in hopes not so much of doing better than my colleagues but simply of upping my scores; more like competing with myself. Little by little my scores got better. But then I had to ask myself, was my photography getting better or was I just learning what judges like? I don’t know. What I know now is that it doesn’t matter. I like my work enough to enter it. What the judges think is just AN OPINION. Presumably an educated opinion but still it’s simply a subjective pronouncement. We don’t have to agree with the judges. We do have to be happy with our own work. So why bother with competitions? Curiosity. I want to know what others think of my work. Have I communicated the emotion I feel when I look at my image? Have I made a technical error that weakens the image?  Low scores make me reassess images; I may like it but what could I have done to make others see what I saw and liked when I made the image? Sometimes there is no answer. Sometimes it is just a difference of opinion. Love your work, be proud to show it off, be open to other opinions.
See you at competition night.
Maryann