A Notch Above Photography Club
Minutes
January 11, 2025

The meeting began at 1:00 with Bob as moderator and Lynn, Bill, Tim, Mary, Clay and Suzie present.
We had general discussion ranging from Tim and Mary’s new cameras, about getting inspired for the
coming year, and dues and so on.

Then Bob gave the Treasurers report of $972.64 with an outstanding check for $192.93 leaving a net
available 0f 779.71. Bob suggested the possibility of not paying dues this March. The consensus was
to continue with the dues, especially given the low cost for we get out of the club.

The photo contest topic was Black and White/Low Key with Lynn winning with her image ‘Sunrise on
Ice Covered Trees.’

We postponed the scheduled 2024 Best monthly winners due to technical issues. Bill will present that
at February’s meeting.

4 or 5 members took the monthly edit challenge of photos of Niagara Falls and a Mountain Pass. Bob
told the story of how similar the Mountain Pass was to a spot in Glacier National Park he visited.

Next on the agenda was a review of some Obscure Camera Settings with a video which was a good
reminder of some helpful and custom camera settings  many of us tend to forget about.  Many
different camera brands were covered.

Bob ran across an article from Photography Life – “100 Most Inspirational Photography Quotes of All
Time” (again with the meeting’s inspiration theme) He shared a Powerpoint of about 20 all-time
favorites.

The main event topic on the agenda was a video, “Indoor Photography Challenge”. An inspiring look
at photographing the same object, in this case an apple, many different ways. Which led to our
February Photo Contest/Challenge:   We’ll call it “Indoor Photography Challenge”
The challenge is to photograph any indoor object in many different ways, submitting your best for the
photo contest and bringing the rest of the photos to the meeting to show.

The rest of the meeting was devoted to ideas for the coming year’s meetings. Many good ideas were
voiced. Tim and Bill had written theirs and distributed them. These appear below.

Bill will be the Moderator for the February 8th meeting.

The meeting ended at about 3:15.

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Photo Project Challenge (Bill)

Sometimes we get into a photo routine where we’re shooting the same subjects with the same gear with the same settings for months at a time (I’m often in landscape mode!)

I propose that we have a project challenge for everyone in the group. The challenge is to do something new for you, or something out of your comfort zone. Learn something new through books or YouTube videos. Then we can have each of us discuss what he/she did in one meeting in the future, or we can have one per meeting and everyone pick a month.

Suggestions:

Shooting a new genre of photography

Not just macro/close up, for instance, but macro of a new and different subject Street photography, not necessarily people

Architecture (new perspective, B&W, low key, high key, etc.)

Portrait

Animals

Modes of Transportation

Night photos

Camera phone photos Something mechanical

Household objects

Shooting with a wide aperture or telephoto or wide angle

The options are endless!

New gear

Describe the new gear and tell what you could do with it that you couldn’t before

New software

Is the new software allowing you to edit differently or better?

I got the idea for this from a website called “52 frames” where there is a weekly challenge every week of the year. You must take the photo within the 7 days of the challenge, and the subject can be very specific, like spoon or door, or very general like chaos or blue hour. Visit the site without signing up to view the challenges and the thousands of photos that are submitted for each challenge.

Obviously, we wouldn’t be shooting a challenge on a weekly basis, but it might just be inspiring!