South Florida Camera Club

The big monthly winner for February is a brand new South Florida Camera Club member straight from New York City! Coming in First place is Florence Forman with her photograph entitled “Tango Argentino”. Florence created her image in Buenos Aries, Argentina of Jason Perline dancing tango with a tango dancer on the street.

Coming in second place was Daniel  Korzeniewski with his photograph entitled “Intimate Moment”. Daniel created his photo in his home studio using snoot lighting from the top of his subjects.

Coming in third place was Linda  Bernhard with her image entitled “Pigeon Passion”. Linda captured her image at a park in Paris, France of a man feeding pigeons so comfortable with him that they are sitting on his, lap, hands and shoulders.

Florence is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300s or Canon 7D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. Her photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of March. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, March 12th, 2010 to see Florence’s print is all its glory.

Coming in first place for the month of January is no stranger to the winner’s circle! Keith LeBlanc has done it again with his photograph entitled “Gold Rush Fever”. Keith’s photograph was captured out in Utah which is an area of the country that Keith is very found of photographing.

Coming in second place was Inge van Rosmalen with her photograph entitled “Holocaust”. Inge’s haunting photograph was captured at the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial. Coming in third place was Marty Fuchs with his photograph entitled “White Bloom”.

Keith is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300s or Canon 7D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. His photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of February. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, February 12th 2010 to see Keith’s print is all its glory.

Coming in first place for the month of December was Raul Dominguez with his photograph entitled “Humpty Dumpty”. Raul’s print was from a series of photographs he did photographing eggs in different ways. Raul said this image was his favorite one from the series.

Coming in second place was Keith LeBlanc with his photograph entitled “Desert Storm”. Keith said the annual rain fall in this area is almost zero, so the fact that there were rain clouds in the sky was quite an unexpected treat.  Coming in third place was Jeff Zwickel with his image entitled “18”. Jeff took this photograph while on a European vacation cruise aboard the Carnival Freedom.

Raul is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300s or Canon 7D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. His photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of January. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, January 8th 2010 to see Raul’s print is all its glory.

Results of November’s Photographic Competition.
Coming in first place for the month of November was VIONETTE with her photograph entitled “La Belle Abbesse” which she made on her photographic vacation to Paris last year. After finding out she won, Vionette told me she almost didn’t compete this month because she didn’t know what to compete with, and at the last minute grabbed this winning photograph, got dressed and came out to the camera club meeting.

Coming in second place for the second month in a row was BOB MULLIGAN with his photograph entitled ”Roll and Rock”. Bob made his image at a recording studio in Boca Raton of the owner’s daughter modeling on the floor with a guitar. Coming in third place was CARL LEON PRIME with his photograph entitled “Nika’s Melody” of a nude model he photographed as she played the piano.

Vionette is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300s or Canon 7D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. Her photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of December. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, December 11th 2009 to see Vionette’s print is all its glory.

Results of October’s Photographic Competition.
We have a friendly little competition going on in South Florida Camera Club between two of our members for the most first place wins. Both of these members (JOE MCBROOM and JESSICA SAVIDGE) have been with the club since the beginning, and both are now tied again with five wins apiece. I think Joe and Jessica need to start looking out for JAMES MCCALLUM JR. sneaking up behind them. This year will mark the first year for SFCC that we will also be celebrating “Best Photographer of the Year” along with “Best Photograph of the Year”. The prize for that prestigious title will be announced at the big party!

As you may have figured out by now, October’s first place winner was JESSICA SAVIDGE with her photograph entitled “Daylight”. Jessica made her photograph on an engagement shoot in the early morning on a boat a quarter mile off the coast of Boynton Beach.

Coming in second place was new member BOB MULLIGAN with his photograph entitled “Loxahatchee Sunset”. Bob made his photograph using a composite of two photographs of the sun setting on the Everglades at Loxahatchee. One of the photographs used was of the sun just before it set, and the other was of the boat going by just after the sun set. Coming in third place was Lola Gets! With her photograph entitled “And then there was light”. Lola’s photograph was a self portrait she made using a lamp to light her body.

Jessica is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300s or Canon 7D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. Her photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of November. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, November 13th 2009 to see Jessica’s print is all its glory.

Results of September’s Photographic Competition.
My personal favorite theme of the year “Street Photography” took place this month and the photos entered were awesome! Our winner for the month of September is no stranger to the winners circle with three first place wins just this year. Second place was tie and in the run off the winner of second place took it by just one vote, these competitions can get pretty tight!

Coming in first place was James D. McCallum Jr. with his photo entitled “Street Fantasy”. James’s photograph was captured at the Lake Worth Street Painting Festival that takes place annually in February. James says he took many photographs of this scene at different angles until he was satisfied with the look he wanted.

Coming in second place was Lana Dotsenko with her photograph entitled “Dreamer”. Lana took her photograph at an event that took place at Markham Park near Weston. Coming in third place was Joe McBroom with his photograph entitled “Jesus Christ Loves You”. Joe captured his photograph at a protest that took place in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

James is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300s or Canon 7D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. His photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of October. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, October 9th 2009 to see James’s print is all its glory.

Results of August’s Photographic Competition.
Anything goes for an open themed photographic competition, and that’s just the way things turned out for our August competition with the photographs ranging the spectrum.  Our winner took the runaway lead with fourteen votes! Second place had nine votes, and third place was a tie breaker between two eight vote competitors. So who were our lucky winners for August 2009?

Coming in first place was Sam Robles with his photograph entitled “Eye of the Tiger”. Sam’s photograph is from a series of sports related images he’s been working on. Sam says he shot a ton of photographs before he had accomplished the look he was going for, he then went to work in Photoshop to complete this amazing image!

Coming in second place was brand new SFCC member Bob Mulligan with his photograph entitled “thrilled”. Bob captured his photograph at Butterfly World where he asked a little girl to pose with a butterfly. Coming in third place was Neil Schaffel with his photograph entitled “July 4th North Carolina Style”. Neil captured his photo at an Independence Day party at Westglo Spa in Blowing Rock, North Carolina.

Sam is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300s or Canon 7D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. His photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of September. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, September 11th 2009 to see Sam’s print is all its glory.

South Florida Camera Club moves to ArtServe!
Because of the rapid growth of South Florida Camera Club we were forced to look for a new location that would be able to hold more people at our meetings. Thanks to the suggestion of SFCC member Lewis Hootin, we will now be holding our meetings at ArtServe in Fort Lauderdale. The meetings will now take place in a large auditorium that can seat over 150 people! In addition to a sound system so we’ll be able to hear our guest speakers clearly, we also have a great system for hanging competition prints on the wall for viewing before voting takes place. Our first meeting at our new location will take place on September 3rd 2009!

ArtServe
1350 East Sunrise Blvd.
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304
Click here for map

New rules for non-members.
In the past we allowed non-members of South Florida Camera Club to attend meetings where we had guest speakers or held workshops for free if it was their first time attending our club. Because of how large our club has become, it is now impossible for me to know anymore if this is the first time or not for non-members, and there are many people taking advantage of this past policy by coming to many meetings for free without joining.

From here on out, all meetings in which we have a guest speaker or are holding a workshop, there will be a $40.00 fee for non-members. Non-members will then have the option to use that $40.00 fee towards a full membership within 30 days. Photographic competitions will remain free for non-members to attend to meet our awesome group of photographers and see what were all about.

Travel Logs
Our travel log presenters for August were Ben Baron and Rick McCawley. Ben’s travel log was from his trip to Germany and Rick presented a travel log from his trip to Costa Rica. If you’re interested in presenting a slide show of one of your travels, please contact Elaine Fitzgerald prior to the second meeting of the month. Elaine can be reached at 954-956-8999.

The theme for July was “The Seven Deadly Sins” and many people were asking what the origin of the seven deadly sins was. Most of us have seen the movie but otherwise had no idea, so to Wikipedia I went where I found the answer.

The Seven Deadly Sins, also known as the Capital Vices or Cardinal Sins, is a classification of the most objectionable vices which has been used since early Christian times to educate and instruct followers concerning (immoral) fallen man’s tendency to sin. It consists of “Lust”, “Gluttony”, “Greed”, “Sloth”, “Wrath”, “Envy”, and “Pride”.

The Catholic Church divided sin into two principal categories: “Venial sins”, which are relatively minor, and could be forgiven through any Sacramentals or Sacraments of the church, and the more severe “Capital” or Mortal sins. Mortal sins destroyed the life of grace, and created the threat of eternal damnation unless either absolved through the sacrament of Confession, or forgiven through perfect contrition on the part of the penitent.

Beginning in the early 14th century, the popularity of the seven deadly sins as a theme among European artists of the time eventually helped to ingrain them in many areas of Christian culture and Christian consciousness in general throughout the world. One means of such ingraining was the creation of the mnemonic “SALIGIA” based on the first letters in Latin of the seven deadly sins: superbia, avaritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira, acedia.

Now that we know the answer to this question it’s time to get to our winners for this exciting competition! Coming in first place was Lola Gets! With her photograph entitled “The Sin”. Lola didn’t create this self-portrait for this competition, but it sure was perfect for the theme and one of the many reasons it came in first place.

Coming in second was Kenneth Alvarez with his photograph entitled “Wrath”. Kenneth created this image with a model that was looking for a distinctive look for a project she was working on. Coming in third place was Same Robles with his photograph entitled “Sloth”. Sam created this image specifically for this competition using a friend as a model. If you look at the image closely you can even see a rat in the background!

Lola Gets! is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300s or Canon 7D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. Her photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of August. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, August 14th to see Lola’s print is all its glory.

I really hate missing any of the meetings but my vacation in Oregon was so awesome! All throughout the meeting I kept in contact with a few of the members using text messaging to see how things were going. I guess it can be compared with leaving your child with the baby sitter. Although I was happy everything was running so well, I’m not too sure how I felt about the text messages I was getting stating that Jessica should run the meeting every meeting and that she was sooooo much better than me. I guess my baby likes the baby sitter better than me!

The theme for June was “Children” and it’s actually the only theme I have come up with myself for the list. I know we have many children photographers and thought they would like this one.

Coming in first place was James D. McCallum Jr. with his photograph entitled “Cassandra”. It is becoming very apparent that James in the man to beat! This is the second competition James has won this year and he will now have at least two chances to will the big prize at the end of the year! Coming in second place was Jack Levy with his photo entitled “Splash”, and in third place was Lana Dotsenko with her photograph entitled “In Denial”.

James is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300s or Canon 50D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. His photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of July. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, July 10th to see James’s print is all its glory.

Results of May’s Photographic Competition.
The photographic competition for May was the first we’ve had that was predominately made up of images heavily manipulated in Photoshop.  Being that the theme for May was “Abstract” it makes perfect sense.  The competition was extremely close with two first place winners and two second place winners. Even after doing the run off by counting first place votes, the votes were still extremely tight.

Coming in First place was Keith LeBlanc with his image entitled “Fire and Ice”. Keith has placed many times in South Florida Camera Club competitions but this is the first time Keith has taken first place! Keith’s winning image was taken at Arches National Park in Eastern Utah. The original photo was processed using the Adobe Photoshop Polar Distortion Filter.

Coming in second place was Leonardo Glusman with his image entitled “Smokey Illusions”. Leonardo’s image is made up of five different photographs that he took of smoke swills rising. Coming in third place was Jeff Zwickel with his image entitled “Ascension”. Jeff’s image is of an elevator shaft he photographed aboard the Carnival Splendor while on a cruise in Europe.

Keith LeBlanc is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300s or Canon 50D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. His photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of June. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, June 12th to see Keith’s print is all its glory.

Florida Renaissance Festival photo contest winner.
I’d like to congratulate one of South Florida Camera Club’s members for placing in the 2009 Florida Renaissance Festival’s photographic competition.  Coming in FIRST PLACE is Jeff Zwickel with his photograph entitled “Knight on Horseback”. For coming in First Place Jeff won $100 and four tickets to the 2010 Florida Renaissance Festival. This is the second year in a row that the winner of the Florida Renaissance Festival’s photographic competition was a South Florida Camera Club member!

Travel Logs.
The SFCC travel log presenters for May were Keith LeBlanc and Jennifer Reber. Keith’s travel log was from a trip he took to a ghost town in California called Bodie State Historic Park, and Jennifer’s travel log was from a trip she took through Morocco. If you’re interested in presenting a slide show of one of your travels, please contact Elaine Fitzgerald prior to the second meeting of the month. Elaine can be reached at 954-956-8999.

SFCC Podcast
I’ve created a new section on the South Florida Camera Club website for the podcast I’ve been posting entitled “Getting to know a SFCC member”. This new section is entitled “Podcast” and is listed on the left side on the website and posted under “Section”. Right now I have two podcast listed that were done this month. The first podcast was an interview I did with Vionette that most of you have already listened too, and the second is a podcast I just did with Lew Lautin that I hope you’ll listen to soon. Lew Lautin chose Joe McBroom as the next member to be interviewed, so stay tuned in for that one.

Results of April’s Photographic Competition.
April’s photographic competition was the first of three open themes for the year and South Florida Camera Club members came with some absolutely stunning prints. Throughout the evening I heard several conversations about how the caliber of work from our members is escalating, and how certain members are becoming phenomenal photographers. This competition was also very close with one vote being the gap between first, second and third place.

Placing first was Joe McBroom with his photograph entitled “The Good Knight”. Joe captured his photo at the Florida Renaissance Festival in Deerfield Beach. During the comment and critique of Joe’s photograph, Joe spoke about the twenty step action he developed called Draganizer. If you’re interested in downloading this action, Please click here to download it. You can also see more of Joe’s work on his website here.

Coming in second place was Jennifer Reber with her photograph entitled “Blue Door”. Jennifer captured her image during a trip to Morocco several years ago in a seaside town called Essaouira. The town of Essaouira is famous for its white washed buildings and blue accents. Coming in third place was Keith LeBlanc with his photograph entitled “Summer Clouds”. Keith captured his image at Mono Lake in California.

Joe McBroom is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300 or Canon 50D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. His photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of May. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, May 8th to see Joe’s print is all its glory.

Travel Logs.
The SFCC travel log presenter for April was Linda St. Hilaire. Linda’s travel log was from her trip to Washington DC during the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama. If you’re interested in presenting a slide show of one of your travels, please contact Elaine Fitzgerald prior to the second meeting of the month. Elaine can be reached at 954-956-8999.

Results of March’s Photographic Competition.
Just as I thought it would be, March’s theme of “Animal Kingdom” was very popular with the members of South Florida Camera Club. In a very tight competition Jill Kossin came in first place with her photograph entitled “Food Fight”. Jill captured this image of two eagles fighting for food during an Alaskan photographic vacation. Coming in second place was Robert Carney with his photograph entitled “Dog Fight”.  Robert captured this image while dog sledding on a Colorado vacation, and during one of their breaks the dogs got frisky.  Coming in third place was Nancy Schaffel with her photograph entitled “Leap of Faith”. Nancy’s photo was taken at the Minnesota Wildlife Connection in Sandstone, Minnesota.  It was taken with a Canon 20D and the Canon 100-400mm lens.

Jill Kossin is now eligible to win a brand new Nikon D300 or Canon 50D at the end of the year competition for “Best Photograph of the Year”. Her photograph is being framed by Frame Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, and will hang in UNCOMMON Gallery throughout the month of April. Make sure to attend the Gallery Night Party on Friday, April 10th to see Jill’s print is all its glory.

Travel Logs.
The SFCC travel log presenter for March was Jessica Siegel. Jessica’s travel log was from a trip she made to Boston Massachusetts. If you’re interested in presenting a slide show of one of your travels, please contact Elaine Fitzgerald prior to the second meeting of the month. Elaine can be reached at 954-956-8999.