February 15, 2016 Meeting Minutes

Contributed by Pamela Brandt

At the February 15 meeting, Dewayne Beecher showed off the new informative booklet that is available to all Dubuque Camera Club members. It contains club member contact info, photography terminology, and N4C info. It also walks you step-by-step through the monthly contest submission process, from choosing a category to resizing and naming your photo.

“If you like the shot, enter it,” said Dewayne.  “We need more entries.” Even though we have over 40 paying club members, sometimes we do not submit the maximum number of entries per category. The club can submit 8 photos in every category (16 when we have judged a category).

Photo by Mike Burley

Photo by Mike Burley. (c) 2016. All rights reserved.

Guest speaker Mike Burley

We enjoyed an excellent and informative presentation from professional photojournalist Mike Burley from the Dubuque Telegraph Herald.

He earned a B.A. in Visual Journalism and has  worked as a professional photographer since 2003. Before coming to Dubuque, he served as an assistant to a Sports Illustrated photographer, and also worked for news media in Topeka, Honolulu, and Chicago.

Burley shared a slide show of his photos, talking about technique and story behind each image. He also talked about the job of being a photojournalist, how he gets his photos, and his workflow. “My forte is probably portraiture,” he said. Because altering photos is unethical in the news world, he does very limited post-processing. This includes using levels, dodging and burning, and cropping. Photoshop “actions” speed up his photo editing.

He said that patience is one of the necessary qualities for a photojournalist, since most shots are “found moments,” not posed. His goal is “trying to spend the most time at the assignment that you think will yield the best pictures.”  

Thank you, Mike Burley, for a compelling presentation!

Upcoming events:

We’ve been invited back to exhibit at the Dubuque Museum of Art this summer. Jennifer will have an update at the March meetings.

During the May 16 meeting, we will be judging the Travel category. This means that in April the club will be able to submit double, or 16 photos in Travel. Remember, Black and White can be entered every month. See the N4C competition rules for details.