july 2017
Volume 2, Number 7
Jeffry Booher, Editor In Chief
The picture that you took with your camera is the imagination you want to create with reality—Scott Lorenzo
state of the union
So you take up this hobby of photography. You see you are making progress, and your pictures are getting better and better. You produce some photos your friends and relatives rave about. They tell you what amazing photos you take. And your confidence soars. Then you submit your photos to a competition or for a critique. It can be a sobering experience.
Even if you do well in the competitions and, even if you do get good comments from judges, sooner or later, you will have a crushing blow that can tear down your confidence. How do you overcome this? How do you build your confidence back up? How do you maintain confidence and stay inspired in a field where you must be torn down to improve?
Don’t go out with the idea you are going for that super shot. Just consider every photo shoot another practice, where you do the best you can. And practice, practice, practice.
There is no difference between beginner and master. The only thing that spans the space between them is practice
For a failure, try reshooting it. Take one of your older pictures and try reshooting it with your improved skills. Go to the same location and try taking the same picture with your improved knowledge of light, camera settings, and composition. See how much better you can make the photograph on a retry.
Be sure to celebrate your accomplishments. Eventually you will see your photos hanging in galleries.
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program news
it's a small world
The Dog Days of Summer may be a few weeks away but the cat dug up the garden last month and brought in a Darkroomers Weekend Workshop Series Macro Workshop that was anything but small. Every room in the building had a camera, tripod and photographer. Some had lights and reflective surfaces but fun was had by all. If you missed it then you missed out.
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quarterly update
Our June Weekend Workshop Series Macro Workshop came in advance of the Quarterly Competition on July 5th. The theme for the quarter is Macro and you only have a few more days to get that perfect macro shot. Please arrive early if you plan to enter into the competition to give the curators plenty of time to set the competition gallery.
Darkroomers relies on the community at large to vote on our images at our Quarterly Competitions. We advertise and host the open house event through our Social Media outlets and Meetup partners but we are not drawing as much attention as we normally do because of the holiday so we need your help getting the word out.
Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Tell anyone you know to come celebrate the arts, spend the evening with us and vote in our competition
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The Quarterly Competition program will also include a screening of the documentary Everybody Street.
Everybody Street illuminates the lives and work of New York’s iconic street photographers and the incomparable city that has inspired them for decades. The documentary pays tribute to the spirit of street photography through a cinematic exploration of New York City, and captures the visceral rush, singular perseverance and at times immediate danger customary to these artists.
Covering nine decades of street photography, Everybody Street explores the careers and influences of many notable photographers—a number of whom have never been documented, featuring: Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Jill Freedman, Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, Rebecca Lepkoff, Mary Ellen Mark, Jeff Mermelstein, Clayton Patterson, Ricky Powell, Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper, and Boogie, with historians Max Kozloff and Luc Sante.
Explore the lives of New York City's iconic street photographers and the countless scenes of magic, misery and mayhem they have captured over the years in this exclusive screening with Darkroomers.
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Our July overnight trip has been postponed once again but we have a jammed-packed August, including a Weekend Workshop Series Workshop that will have you wishing you brought your checkbook. Look for a popup photo outing in July, though, with a possible weekend trip.
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scacc news
The Southern California Association of Camera Clubs will be displaying an exhibition of winning images from the 2017 San Diego County Fair's Exhibition of Photography. The exhibit will be on display in the Photographic Arts Building's Foyer and Reception Galleries and runs from August 1st through the 31st. If you were the recipient of a ribbon or a mention this year, then SCACC would like to hang your images. SCACC is asking that you bring the Display Tags that were hanging along with your winning photos at the fair so that your work can be correctly attributed. Members, in the past, have brought the ribbons to hang along with their images as well but this is optional as neither the club, the Park or SCACC can be responsible if anything happens to your ribbon. You can always print another image but the ribbons are irreplaceable so hang them at your own risk. More details will be sent directly to those in the club who won ribbons.
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JURISPRUDENCE
Our judge for July is Sally Reis Vogt. Sally is a native San Diegan who picked up her first camera as a college sophomore while living abroad. After a successful interior design career, she now devotes her keen eye for composition, color and design to her first love, photography. She has traveled extensively and had the opportunity to live in Europe on several occasions. Her images are often a glimpse into a moment in time. The frequent inclusion of people in the landscape gives her work an accessibility and emotional connection with the viewer. She is also known for her graphic close-ups of nature and architecture which bring the viewer into contact with the patterns and designs that are all around, but often overlooked. The balance of light, texture and form combine to create evocative, unforgettable imagery.
Her accomplishments include numerous awards in the San Diego County Fair's International Exhibition of Photography as well as a Best of Show in their Student Exhibition. She has been honored by the California Coastal Commission and her work has been featured in Shutterbug Magazine. She has shown in many gallery exhibits throughout San Diego including the La Jolla Village Gallery, The Photographer's Gallery, The Boehm Gallery, The Escondido Municipal Gallery and Spanish Village Gallery 21.
Sally is a member of The PhotoArts Group and can be seen in various shows around the San Diego area throughout the year.
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COMMUNITY news
Big bay boom
It happens once a year and it marks our independence from England--like that relationship was going to last... Anyway, if you are new to San Diego or you just crawled out from under a rock, you may not be familiar with the Boom.
It is one of the largest annual fireworks displays in the United States and one of the most logistically complex displays in the world. Spanning nearly 14 miles this show is best to be watched from high above and with a great view of the city.
Operated by the Port of San Diego--Free; All over San Diego but location matters so scout your location ahead of time to find the best vantage point.
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Brenda Biondo
Brenda Biondo exhibit: Play brings together 25 photographs from two bodies of work. The first series, Playground, is a collection of contemporary photographs of children’s playgrounds from the 1920s to the 1970s. After visiting a modern playground with her children and observing the striking differences from the play equipment of her childhood, Biondo was inspired to capture the nostalgic cultural artifacts that shaped generations of Americans in an effort to preserve their place in history. Today these classic playground structures are considered a safety hazard, and Biondo estimates that at least half of those photographed in this series have now been destroyed.
The second series of works, Paper Skies, includes carefully crafted, abstract images of the sky printed onto aluminum panels. These images are created by printing photographs of blue sky, gray clouds and warm sunsets, and cutting, folding, and re-photographing them against the sky. The results are beautifully complex shapes and angles that appear almost digitally created.
The exhibit runs through January 7, 2018 at the San Diego Museum of Art but the Colorado-based photographer will discuss her work at an upcoming Artist Talk at the museum on July 8th.
SDMART; Saturday, July 8th, 11a.m; Free-after Museum admission
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extra medium
Size Matters is the signature exhibition of the annual Medium Festival, presenting a curated selection of works smaller than 10 inches. The exhibition echoes the belief in small gatherings, small works, and exhibitions that highlight these values. The 2017 Size Matters exhibition will be held at Helmuth Projects in Bankers Hill. The juror is Katherine Ware, Curator of Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe.
Three awards will be given to participating photographers, including a $500 Purchase Award where the selected work of art will be donated to a prominent museum collection. The Director’s Choice Award will include two VIP Passes to the 2018 Medium Festival, and an honorable mention will receive a significant award from one of the foundation's supporters.
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Photos used in this newsletter from Jeff Booher and Michael Fairbanks are used with permission and may be subject to copy restrictions from the copyright holder. All rights reserved.
Darkroomers and the In Focus logo are trademarks of the Darkroomers Photographic Club
The InFocus Newsletter is a Publication of The Darkroomers Photographic Club,
Jeffry Booher, Editor in Chief
Darkroomers Photographic Club
1780 Village Place
Balboa Park
San Diego, California • 92101 • USA
Copyright MMXVII Darkroomers Photographic Club. All rights reserved.
Drema Swader, President • Jeffry Booher, Vice President • Osia Strasner, Treasurer • Nancy Varga, Secretary
Credits:
Jeff Booher, Michael Fairbanks, Josi Ross