South Carolina Photography Guild

Went out for the monthly shoot yesterday. Was a lot of fun, but I was a bit late to the party as the sunset colors reached their peak while I was en route. Temptation got the better part of me and I swung off the highway at Cosgrove to take a few snaps. Here’s a sample from that brief stop…

We’ve also got a poll set up in the sidebar now so people can contribute their thoughts on various subjects.  Since December there will not be a scheduled shoot due to the holidays, the poll now set up is for possible shoot locations in January.  Vote in the poll or share your thoughts in the comments!  Until next post…happy shooting!

Yesterday’s post for the 4th had a little add-on as an afterthought, and in retrospect that it probably should have been given its’ own post, as it is adding a new feature to the SCPG website.

The SCPG forums have always had a Monthly Assignment section, where a subject is assigned every month for people to shoot creatively as they enjoy, practice, and learn more about photography.  Well, June’s subject - Windows -, got such a great response (22 shots were shared!), that I decided to make a public gallery of all the different shots so people could share them with their family, friends, and others who may not necessarily be members of the SCPG community.  So, go check them out, and see if you know where all these windows are!   (Fair warning - some are not in the immediate Charleston area, as we have members reaching as far out as Huntington beach area, and as far north as Anderson).  The direct link to the Monthly Assignments is here:  Monthly Assignments

The SCPG website now has a permanent link set up for Monthly Assignment galleries in it’s header menu, so if you can get to the site, you can get to the Monthly Assignments.    Any and all are welcome to come see the latest talents on display.   Also, mark your calendars as the Monthly Assignment for July is already underway with a subject of “Fire”.  See where this is going?  Look for a gallery to become available in early August of the contributions made.

For those interested in finding out who took which photos, well, come join the fun in the SCPG forums, linked on the right sidebar, but also conveniently located here:  SCPG Forums.  As always, the forums are free but do require a registration to participate (prevents spam).

Brookgreen Garden Sampling:

Jon

James

Thomas

:

Steve:

Susan:

Harvey:

Jason:

As Spring hits, so too does the urge to capture the beauty of birds and blooms…Magnolia Gardens is a popular SCPG hangout on the weekends.  Here’s some great samples from recent trips in there, courtesy of Marti, Susan, and Thomas: 

Marti and Manoj both brought b/w beauties back from Bull Island…and a bug.  What can I say, I love alliteration.  In any case, offering more fun “fame and glory” for photogs (there I go again) is the order for the morning, so without further delay, here’s the recent black and whites (and a bug) that were shared in the forums:

Manoj:   Marti:  and a bug (Manoj):  

Some really nice shots are coming in from the group that went on the Bull Island trip.  Rather than “fill” with words, here’s a photo montage from Sarah, Deb and Susan respectively…

Last weekend we had our most recent outing and it was another great success with several of the regulars showing up as well as a few new faces (hi Renee!).  Shots are on display over in the forums at www.scphotogs.com/forums. 

After the shoot, yours truly headed over to the SEWE displays for a little solo shooting time, and watched the Birds of Prey presentation.  I did press the shutter a few times naturally and thought the blogging world may enjoy a few of these:

Our last scheduling meeting went quite well with the usual suspects, and a few new faces. We brainstormed a while and have not only our February location, but our March location picked out as well. In February we will be meeting up at the concrete pond on the west side of downtown in battery park near the Naval Observatory. We’ll proceed around Hampton Park area, seeing what we can see and focusing the theme of our shoot on basic compositional approaches to as many different subjects as we can find. Come join the fun as we embark on our second themed shoot. The date for February is also set at Saturday, the 17th. Time for arrival is 9am with the shoot commencing around 9:30ish.

The shoot will be followed up with a workshop at the Summerville library the next Saturday from 9:30-12:30. Post processing for enhancing composition and more in-depth discussions as well as the usual fun chats and coffee sipping that is becoming a tradition with every SCPG activity. For directions to the library, or additional details on any of the February activities, log into the forums to see all the banter and shots everyone is posting.

We also have a new Black and White section that is already seeing some great shots from our members, so that’s even more reason to stop in today and see what’s going on with the Guild. Here’s a sample shot to whet your appetite from Harvey Moore, a resident guru on b/w processing!

March will involve a little more of an adventure as we rally the troops and travel up to Brook Green Gardens at Huntington State Park (car pooling logistics will be announced later). This will also be on the 3rd Saturday of the month, so another 17th date makes both easy to remember. I suspect the meetup time there will also be in the 9am neighborhood, but it will require a little bit of an early start (not sunrise early, but still requires coffee sipping en route)! The theme for this shoot is still TBA, but will likely advance on the compositional subjects from February. As a reminder, we did visit Huntington beach last year and got some great shots in the area. Here’s a sampling from that trip:

As always, newcomers are welcome if you bring yourself and/or a camera and/or a friend! Come one come all and join the group as we continue our exciting activities for 2007.

Adobe, the mother-ship of photo-editing software, who has set the standard for ages with Photoshop 7.0, CS, CS2, as well as the forthcoming CS3, has released it’s Lightroom software in version 1.0, for sale now at $199.   This is clearly intended to be a companion package for those that use Photoshop or other image-editing software, but can be used on a standalone basis.  our own Harvey Moore has been following this with interest and samples of his use can be seen here.  Check out the tutorials over at Photoshopuser as well as the software from Adobe directly.

In the interests of full disclosure, DxO Optics has also released software upgrades, and those are talked about in-depth at The Digital Photography Show, which has regular podcasts to listen and glean tons of info.

Not to fear Mac users, for your answers are also here in Apple’s Aperture, now in version 1.5.  Still available as a trial download for 30 days, it can be purchased for Apple faithful for a measly $299.  While it has not gotten the same amount of press, it makes for great image library management as well as some cool editing capabilities.  From friends that have test-driven it - not the same functionality as Photoshop, but remember, Photoshop is the benchmark upon which all others are measured, so that’s a tough standard to meet!

In the interests of putting more photos out there for people to enjoy, here’s a sunset shot from some mystery place.  Anyone care to venture where?  The winner….wins!

Our recent foray into downtown Summerville for some night-time shooting yielded some really cool artistic efforts from the gang. In honor of those that posted their Christmas views to share, here’s a sampling of what is available in the forums.  (Keep in mind, the blog compresses these, so they really are better viewed in the forums):

From Susan:

From Thomas:

From Jason: