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. 

March meeting…

Here is the bulletin for our next meeting. Also, the homework information is here in case you missed it:
CPG March Meeting Bulletin

The homework is designed to let us understand how to adjust to light sources. This is one of those aspects of photography which all of us should know.
CPG Homework for March

We’re getting details for The Big Photo Show coming together and will have something posted before long.

Thanks,
-Debbie

Important Things on the Horizon…

Photo courtesy of: Bob Kelterborn

Photo courtesy of: Bob Kelterborn

Hey Everyone,

Our last meeting was a great turnout for current members, new members and guests as well (they don’t know it yet, but they’re already future members – no subliminal messaging will be in the remainder of this post) :-)

Harlan was selfless enough to devote some of his time to come back in and critique the work on our homework assignment. For those of you who missed our January meeting, Harlan Hambright, local and well renowned architectural photographer did a presentation on how to capture texture and beauty in something we see everyday… architecture. Following his presentation, as part of keeping a common thread, our homework assignment was to shoot an architectural piece and submit for a critique from none other than our presenter. It was a wonderful lesson in how to look for the light. How does if fall on the structure? Can you see dimension and texture? Many people after the critique came up to me and said they learned so much about light following the critique. Kudos and Thanks to Harlan for his time to the Guild.

Photo courtesy of: Jim Squires

Photo courtesy of: Jim Squires

Next is a couple of housekeeping items. It’s renewal time for the Coastal Photographer’s Guild and Glynn Art Association. In order to be a member of CPG, you must also be a member of Glynn Art Association. Please download the following documents in order to renew. Deadlines are fast approaching (March 31st) so please get your dues in as soon as you can.

Glynn Art Association Membership Dues / Renewal
CPG Membership Dues / Renewal Application 2010

Also, Vickie M. is doing some strong research in making our next field trip to the Jacksonville Zoo an exciting one. That will be in a separate post with all of the final details, but we did want you to know she is getting together a time to meet, go out on our own and if you so desire… meet up at one of the on-site restaurant establishments so we can all reconvene and talk about our morning. Thank you Vickie for getting that rolling for us.

Photo couresy of: Rick Lutz

Photo couresy of: Rick Lutz

To preface our field trip, CPG’s own Steve K. will be doing a presentation on planning your shot. Basically it’s everything from the night before a shoot to all the preparations he makes during the actual shot. He is an amazing nature photographer, well… more like he’s an amazing photographer period. He manages to get exquisite shots and now we’ll get the opportunity to ask “Hey, how’d you do that”?

Another post to come along shortly is the 2nd Annual Big Photo Show. Remember, you must be a CPG member in order to exhibit (there’s another reason to join right). If you click the link above that says Big Photo Show – 2009 you can see all of the entries – It was such a good turnout.

Keep checking back for more updates,
-Debbie

We have a full agenda for February’s meeting

In case you are looking for the documents for this week’s meeting, here is the bulletin, homework assignment and supplemental handout.

CPG MEETING 2 18 10 HOMEWORK
CPG MEETING 2 18 10 BULLETIN
Color Space supplemental handout

See you tomorrow,

-Debbie

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