January = Mountain Majesties
Uplifting of Rocks creates mountains. Uplifting of the human spirit can come from photos of these geologic wonders. Uplifting of the urge to take photographs comes from SCTX Photo club viewing of pictures taken by our members. For this meeting, mountains should emphasize the steep uprising of the land from the surrounding level. Only molehills and larger will qualify. (Photo by Spencer Swanger).
February = Children At Play
While NASA spent billions to build a space ship to take men to the moon, a child can build a space ship out of an old cardboard box. Children’s’ creativity is boundless. On the trip though school and college, we all lose a lot of our creative spirit that we now can regain through our photo artwork. One way to renew our creativity is to photograph the creativity of children at play.
March = A Nice Reflection On Your Photography
There really is NOT an upside mountain down in the bottom of the lake. That upside down mountain is a reflection, a trick that light plays on lakes, windows, mirrors, etc. Reflections allow us to photograph things that are not really there. In a real sense, they are a type of abstraction. The March topic invites you to submit your photos featuring reflections.
April = Things Are Looking Up for SCTX Photo Club
Photos that are taken from below the subject, give a feeling of power to the subject. Photographing a gorilla from above looking down screams “zoo shot” to your fellow photographers. Take the gorilla from below and they just scream as they run for the exit. So let us have your photos looking up to the subject.
May = Welcome Back Insects
When that April with his sweet showers comes back to Texas, along with the showers comes the spring hatch of bugs. Let’s welcome the bugs back to Sun City with some portraits of these little guys. Some of our members take incredible pictures of bugs, butterflies, caterpillars, ants, and other creepy crawly critters. Give it a try. Take a bug to lunch and take his portrait. (Photo by Linda Green.)
June = Longhorns, Bluebonnets and Oil Wells
What makes Texas GREAT? Texans make it great. Texans have more pride in their state than residents of any other state. Symbols of that pride abound and are far too many to list. With only a couple of hundred photographers, we could not picture them all in only one year, so let’s restrict it to just Longhorns, Bluebonnets, and Oil Wells. Oil wells brought great wealth to Texas and again are becoming an active part of our live. Roughnecks, derricks, pumping units, sucker rods and tubing are all symbolic of the state we love.
July = That Old Devil Moon
That Old Devil Moon appears in song and story; so let’s let it appear in our photographs for July. The moon can be a devil to photograph. It is in full sun and should be exposed by the rule of 16, but your auto exposure may not see it that way. You may need to go to manual exposure settings. Years ago, we used double exposures to insert the moon into our photos. In the digital era, double exposures are difficult to do except in programs like Photoshop. So let’s give it our best shot!
August = Shadows
Taking shadow pictures is a shady process. Shadows let the viewer fill in the details of objects from their shadows. So how do you tell a good and great shadow picture apart? You can’t. The viewer’s emotional state determines how good the picture is. So share pictures that give you a strong emotional feeling.
September = Canyons, draws, gulches, gullies,
Canyons, viewed as a hole, can be challenging photo subjects. With dark shadows and bright sun on opposite sides of the canyon, getting the best exposure can be a real sun-of-a-ditch. However, here is a good chance for you to use your Santa Elena and Boquillas canyon shots from the Big Bend trip.
October = The Last Rays of the Evening
The morning sun who scatters into flight the stars before him from the field of night now retreats to his deserved nightly rest and the timid stars creep back out one by one. This golden time of day beckons you to take your camera and tripod out to capture these last rays of the evening. As clouds bathe in golden light and night creeps in between them, photo opportunities abound.
November = Photos taken in Sun City, Texas.
Breathes there the man with
soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Sir Walter Scott must have been to Sun City, Texas. We live in a beautiful spot for photography. From the carefully landscaped areas to the wild areas, we have ample opportunity to take great shots without travel on planes, trains or buses.
December = Precipitation –Snow, Sleet, or Ice
Brrr. Winter has settled in on the rest of America while Sun City reaps the benefits of the Sun part of our name. (Texas heat? I have NEVER had to shovel 10 inches of heat off my driveway before I could get the car out.) So let’s celebrate our good fortune with some cold photos taken when we visited the frozen tundra that makes up much of the rest of America.
