Coastal Photographer's Guild bio picture

Coastal Photographer's Guild

The Coastal Photographer Guild’s mission is to be an effective, vibrant advocate for all photographers of any skill level in our community and to provide an opportunity for area members to cultivate photographic expertise in a supportive, enjoyable atmosphere. Membership includes beginners, serious amateurs and working professionals; providing great opportunities for networking, questions, and informal education.

Our meetings are held on the third Thursday of each month from 7p.m. until around 9p.m. The location is at the end of the St. Simons airport at the Glynn County Police Station. (1927 Demere St., SSI, GA) They have graciously opened their doors for our meetings and here we have a comfortable setup complete with a projector for our homework display.

During our meetings, we have a presentation of the previous month's homework assignment with a critique, a presentation from either a guild member or guest speaker that will relate to the upcoming homework. We also try to include workshops and field trips to further drive home the topic for the month. As always, we continue to tweak our format and are always hoping for fresh eyes to help us fine tune our two hours together. Please come visit as a guest and see how you like us.   

Image to the left is our Big Photo Show winner - Photographer: Jim Squires. 

Program Commitee Needs Your Input

Hey everyone, just wanted to do a really quick post and see if we can’t get a little input from you all. Our Program Committee is meeting next Wednesday (Feb. 10th) to finalize our calendar. If there are any photography topics you’d like to hear discussed or taught, please comment on this post before the 10th.

Also, if you have any ideas for workshops or field trips, we’d love to get your input — we are but a small group that wants to represent the entire club — help us make this a good one for all by submitting your ideas in the comment section below.

Thanks a bunch,
-Debbie

First Meeting of the Year was a Great Turnout

I would first like to thank all of the new guests who came to last night’s meeting. It was a real treat to have some new faces in the crowd and hope that you found last night’s meeting a great way to spend your third Thursday of the month. And of course, thanks to all the members who braved the weather to witness a dynamic meeting.

Our guest speaker was Harlan Hambright and the main topic being his career in photographing architecture. From D.C. to Knoxville to Sea Island (and MANY more places), we saw some extraordinary shots. Leading lines and the way light captures a building were demonstrated through his art. Some of us may have thought flat light (such as in many portraits so as not to cast a shadow) would be good, but quite the opposite – if you want to see edges, curves and textures of an architectural piece, light and shadow plays a huge role in how the building is carved onto a photo. The club was thrilled with the speaker as so many of you came to me afterwards and said “By far the best presentation yet!” Yay!

As we said in the meeting, if Harlan’s schedule allows, he would like to come back next month and critique the work our members send in as their homework selection — this month is ‘Architecture’. And one other thing we mentioned in the meeting – Get out there and Shoot! Use this lesson from architecture to pick up your camera and put those new skills to work. Please try not to pull out from an arsenal of old photographs, we want you out there challenging yourselves and learning your camera. You have a month so let’s go!

Once I get the meeting notes back from Dana and Richard, I’ll put another post up that recaps the night. I just wanted to put another quick post up to say “Thank You” to all who came out. For those who couldn’t make it, you were certainly missed, but hopefully in the meeting recap you’ll get a little bit of an idea of how the evening went.

Thanks again,
-Debbie

Next meeting: Thursday, February 18th
Homework to submit: Architectural
February meeting topic: Color space

January Meeting

Next meeting is scheduled for January 21, 2010 from 7 – 9 p.m.

Location is Glynn County Police Meeting Room (end of airport stretch), 1927 DEMERE RD, St. Simons Isl.

December Meeting and Holiday Social

**Based on meeting minutes provided by Vicki Monti, Secretary

REGULAR MEETING: DECEMBER 17, 2009
GLYNN COUNTY POLICE MEETING ROOM, 1927 DEMERE RD

This gathering was an informal get together that consisted of a quick homework photo presentation. Members sent one image to the photo coordinator for presentation and impromptu comments from fellow members were welcomed upon display.

In October/November, a survey for the members was generated and greater than half of our members responded to the survey. This in turn was used by our Program Committee (a committee that develops monthly topics for the guild members) to put new ideas into action. We thank each one of you who took time to answer those questions, they really do help us carve out our calendar.

One of the ideas that came out of our Program Committee during our last meeting is each member will be encouraged to teach a 5 minute lesson per meeting.  This will help us all learn a term or technique then teach it to the membership. Topics will be elementary and will be taught by normal people – i.e. “Us”!

We’ve also come up with a new way of submitting photos to the coordinator. Here is the new email address: CPGPICTURES@GMAIL.COM There are four CPG members who have the login information to the account. This is a ‘just in case’ type of backup. We just don’t want to get into a fix where only one person has the images and then all of a sudden the photo coordinator can’t make it to the meeting. This way all homework images will be sent to one place. That’s a step forward :)

A new committee needs to be formed for THE BIG PICTURE SHOW. We’ll be asking for members to help out with this event. Most everything has been hammered through thanks to our committee from last year. They were instrumental in getting this underway and it’s basically cookie-cutter from here on out. Be ready to volunteer or perhaps be persuaded to participate.

Also, a NOMINATING COMMITTEE has been formed for 2010 elections will need to be formed to fill the positions of Pres, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary. If you are interested in any of these positions, please send your interest to me for the position you’d like to assume. I know you all want to be more involved – here’s your chance.

Renew membership with GAA separately from CPG. Dues will remain the same for CPG

SERVICE AWARDS:  Thank you cards and gift certificates were given to four very dedicated members of our guild. All responsible for tutorials and critiques, our website, branding and logo creation and finally our President for his leadership over the past two years.

PRESENTATION:  Our first of what we hope will be many more “The Armchair Traveler” presentation. One of our members conducted a photos storytelling session of his recent trip to South Africa. This was well received by all of our members and made our informal/social meeting a huge hit.

And finally a big huge THANK YOU for our Christmas Social Committee who put together a great party.

January’s Homework Theme:  Humor…Make us Laugh
Next regular meeting:  January 21, 2010