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Vol. 47 No. 4 December 2007

Image of the Month “Waterbug” © Bob Hawkins

Competition Results: NATURE

Congratulations to all the winners! – All winning images can be viewed on the ECC web site

Intermediate: Entries: 110 Accepted: 108 Average: 21.6

GOLD Bob Hawkins Waterbug

SILVER Bob Hawkins Cedar Waxwing

HM Kent Wilson Heron and Anhinga

HM Kent Wilson Loon

HM Kent Wilson Let Me Tell You

HM Kent Wilson Thirsty

HM Sandra Hawkins Sanderling with Minnow

HM Kas Stone Life on the Labrador Coastal Barrens

HM Susan Campisi Gull on Pier 19

HM Terry Ross Poulton Great Egret 3

HM Judy Pucher Balloon Fish in Coral

Superset: Entries: 44 Accepted: 44 Average: 22.6

GOLD Joe Vitale Goldfinch

SILVER Maggie Sale Survivor

HM Carm Griffin Tower of Silence

HM Darcy Rector Sally Lightfoot Crab

HM Judy Griffin Crane Feeding

HM Julian Sale Rocky Mountain Wildflower

HM Nikola Bilic Bee

HM Maggie Sale Rock and Reeds

Judges: Tony Florio Wayne Johnson Carolyn King

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MEMBER’S SHOWThe Best of Costa RicaBy Dawna Brown

Review by Judy Griffin

Our member show, “The Best of Costa Rica”, waspresented by Dawna Brown, a former long-timemember of the Islington Camera Club. Dawnaembraces film as her medium and her show was two-projector with narration. She enjoys travelling andloves cats as seen in her many feline shots; whetherreal or wall art, cushion covers, or woodcarving!

Dawna began with a synopsis of the country,acquainting us with its independence, its government,demographics, agriculture and exports, then took uson a journey through the many wonders of CostaRica. Her maps were helpful, and her itinerarynarration gave us good information about placesvisited, natural phenomena, the culture and people.Her images documented her trip with hotel and travelshots, interesting sights enroute, of course cats (!),and beautiful landscapes.

The audience was taken on a visit to two activevolcanoes in the Los Angeles Cloud Forest andwatched members of the group enjoy gliding throughthe forest top by ropes and pulleys. We cruised alongrivers and canals enjoying the animal and bird life.Monkeys, sloth, toucan, caiman and crocs were inevidence. Banana and coffee plantations were ofinterest with their workings and bounty of harvest.We visited the beautiful beach at Punta Leona, thecity of San Jose and its National Theatre dating from1890. It is a marvellous sight with an opulent and.magnificent interior. Dawna’s show also includedshots of the countryside, quaint village churches, the

famous painted oxcarts, symbols of Costa Ricanfolklore, samples of typical art and handicrafts of thecountry, and the people of Costa Rica.

Dawna’s humour and wealth of information, alongwith her interesting images captured the beauty of thecountry on her visit. Judy Griffin opened the floor forquestions to Dawna and thanked her for sharing herexperience in this intriguing and beautiful country.

TIP – By Julian SaleIf you want to have fun adding some cool effects,borders, text, etc to your images, there is a newwebsite at www.picnik.com which provides a webbased photo editor with a difference. Many of theeffects are free. Enjoy.

JUDGING – PRINTS #1

Intermediate Gold

“Sunset on the Empire State” By Hairuo Dai

Superset Gold

“Courtyard Doorway” by Carm Griffin

PRESENTATIONArctic SagaBy Robert Shechter

With 30 years experienceworking as a photographer,combined with 25 years as alecturer in the OntarioCommunity College system,ROBERT SHECHTER producesa range of corporate literature andpostcards as well as travelphotography through his

company, Robert Photo Enterprises.

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Robert and his travel writer wife Myriam Shechter,who is doing the research, have been travelling withtheir cameras and notebooks from Greenland toSpain, from Iceland to Russia, and most places inbetween, sharing their impressions and experiencesthrough slide shows and lectures.

Robert is teaching Travel Photography classes atToronto Image Works, the Royal Ontario Museum,and other venues.

Robert has produced shows - no mere travelogues,but rich in local history, architecture and culture - onbehalf of Tourist Boards, Camera Clubs, and SocialClubs, such as the Granite Club, Donalda, TorontoCricket Skating and Curling Club.

His work has appeared in The Toronto Star, TheGlobe and Mail, Toronto Life Magazine, TheChicago Tribune, and other publications.

Robert Sheckter

Review by Diane Sawatzky

Robert’spresentation tookus on anenchantingjourney throughthe incredible,pristine world ofthe Arctic, aremote paradiserarely visited by anyone but the Inuit. Thepresentation included a rich detailing of the various19th century explorers of the Northwest Passage,taking us from Russia to Iceland, Greenland,Newfoundland and finally to Nunavut.

Robert’s images truly captured the beauty andmajesty that is the Arctic landscape–tundra coveredin lichens, cliffs covered with millions of birds,belugas, polar bears munching on lunch, theincredible variety of light conditions like fog, greyskies, 24 hours of sunshinein summer, beautifulsunrises and sunsets,enormous glaciers andicebergs some of whichwere used as landing stripsfor birds, water withcolours that rival theCaribbean. We were alsointroduced to people whohave made the Arctic theirhome.

It was a thoroughly entertaining evening rich inhistory, shown with beautiful photography andaccompanied with a delightful sense of humour.

Review by Brian Miller

This detailed travel photography presentationcombined Robert's photos, additional historicalphotos, exploration history, current tour maps,drawings, and extensive narrative by Robert, whichwas written by Robert's wife. On their travels, hecarries cameras loaded with slide film, and shecarries a notebook. The main region being presentedwas the Arctic (any place north of the Arctic Circle).Arctic geography, history, and society werepresented. Areas included Norway, Greenland,and Nunavut, during various periods, from the timeof the Vikings, through the 19th century, and up tothe present.

Hispresentationstarted withNorway,followed byGreenlandand Nunavut.He gave anexplanation,using maps, of the first Viking explorations ofGreenland. His presentation moved up to the presentwith his photos of the cities of western Greenland,and the land of eastern Greenland. For Nunavut,where the tragic Franklin expedition occurred in the19th century, descriptions of this expedition weregiven, using maps, historical photos, and Robert'sslides. The most interesting slides, to me, were theones of the Inuit residents. Robert described howtalking with your subject makes for a better portrait.One of his portraits, of an Inuit lady with her child ina sling on her back, reminded me of a photopublished in National Geographic magazine.

Review by George Iantorno

It was a good show. Very informative and wellpresented. He is a very knowledgeable Arcticphotographer.

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NEW MEMBERS

We have 33 new members so far this season – a newrecord for our club. A special welcome to all!

Anne McArthur Sandra HawkinsBev Donaldson Sema ToprakBob Hawkins Susan AmbroseCarol B. Jones Tatiana KoubrakChristine Leclair Wilfred LeeCorinne Sellars Yolanda PighinDan Caldarone Barbara SimpsonDave Perry Dolores SullivanGeorge Iantorno Stephanie StewartHairuo Dai Helga DiSanteIan Donaldson Mark KannegiesserJean W. Walker Michael CormierJim Kurck Oleg KoubrakJoan Perry Paul AmbroseJosh McSweeney Paulette MelanconKenneth J. Harry Sait ToprakLarry Llewellyn

OUTING – CDN ABORIGINALFESTIVALReport by Kas Stone

Miserable weather (the first winter storm of theseason) kept all but three brave ECC members fromattending the Canadian Aboriginal Festival at theRogers Centre on Sunday December 2nd. But thethree who did attend (four, actually, but the fourtharrived so late that we never did find each other!)were treated to a spectacular display of Nativedrumming and dancing. The dancers’ dress providedus with a bonanza of photographic opportunities –some dancers in “contemporary” regalia in vibrantshades of all the primary, secondary and tertiarycolours imaginable, and others in “traditional”clothing trimmed with fur and beads that gave asubtler effect – and many wonderful faces, frominfants-in-arms to ageing elders.

The subdued lighting in the Rogers Centre and thedancers’ constant movement posed seriousphotographic challenges which kept us busyadjusting F-stops, shutter speeds and ISO settings tocapture our subjects without undue noise or motion-blur! A buffalo-burger, Indian tacos and a glass ofcider helped to wash away any frustrations, and atour of the Native craft market brought us home withsome unique souvenirs and Christmas gifts. Forthose who missed this fantastic outing, be sure tomark next year’s Pow-Wow on your calendar now –it’s always the last weekend in November.

Review by Judy Pucher

I just wanted to let you know what a great time I hadat the Canadian Aboriginal Festival with Kas andRick on Sunday, December 2! Unfortunately, we hadquite the winter storm the night before that continuedinto the next day, otherwise I’m sure it would havebeen much better attended.

First we strolled through 'The Market' which featureda wide variety of arts and crafts as well as music andvarious information booths. For lunch we enjoyedsome of the traditional food that was offered, whichincluded buffalo burgers and native style tacos andapple cider.

But the biggest highlight, of course, was the PowWow. What a spectacular display of colour as thehundreds of dancers from all over North America infull regalia paraded into the Dance Circle during theGrand Entry! After that, the dance competitions withlive drum singing groups began.

Kas and Rick, my experienced guides, motioned thatit was now OK to enter inside the roped off area andwe actually ended up with front row seats! (albeitkneeling on the floor). I would never have thoughtthat I would be able to get this close and have such anunobstructed view! Nevertheless, the shootingconditions were somewhat difficult because the lightwas low and the movement was fast (I was using1600 ISO most of the time). So, I for one, ended upwith quite afew blurry(and grainy)shots but Ithought I’dsend you acouple ofthe betterones, just togive youtaste ofwhat it wasall about. Editor: See collage of images at the end tothe Viewfinder for additional images from all.

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MEMBER’S SHOWBy Nikola Bilic

Review by Kas Stone

Sandwiched between the salon of winning imagesfrom last week’s Nature competition and the imagecritique for the upcoming Architecture and Specialcompetitions, December 3rd’s installment of the ECCMember’s Show was presented by Nikola Bilic. Andwhat a show it was!

Nikola offered us four ProShow Gold presentationsof his recent work. Two of the shows weretravelogues – one from Havana, Cuba in 2006, andthe other from Quebec City during the SAQ NewFrance Festival in 2007. Blending street scenes,closeups of more intimate subjects, fascinatingvehicles of all sorts, and people (candid shots ofpeople in local settings, and portraits of performers incostume), Nikola gave us an exciting taste of life inthe two cities.

His other two shows were more thematic in nature.Flowers showed us a collection of common flora(like tulips, roses and daisies) in a decidedlyuncommon way – some of the images captured fromthe worm’s-eye perspective of the ground, othersmirrored by stunning reflections, and othersrepresented frozen in windblown motion. Nikola’suse of depth of field to accentuate his floral subjectswhile throwing the background into pleasingobscurity was masterful, and his eye for detail andsimplicity of composition was remarkable.

But perhaps (and undoubtedly Nikola would agree)his finest show was his last – Still Images, acollection of his commercially successful stockphotos, brilliantly set to the music Money by PinkFloyd. With subjects as unlikely and disconnected asstrawberries, golf balls, milk drops, stethoscopes,eggs, pencils, blueberries, wrenches, drinking strawsand wine bottles, Nikola gave us a glimpse of bothhis artistry and his practicality in the photographicrealm. Following the show, he answered members’questions about his techniques, equipment andinvolvement in the stock photo business. He alsopromised to treat us to a how-to session during one ofthe upcoming digital demonstration evenings –something which (despite Nikola’s concern about hislanguage capability) I’m sure we are all lookingforward to tremendously!

CAPA – FIRST ROUND RESULTSReport by Carm Griffin

Nature: ECC - 4-way tie for 8th place out of 19clubs. No awards!

Pictorial: ECC - 3-way tie for 8th place out of 21clubs.

Judy Griffin won an Honour Award for her imagetitled CUBAN MAN.

Editor’s note: Congratulations to Judy.

IMPROVING SKIES IN PHOTOSHOP,part 1

By Don Poulton

For years, those of us who entered color slidecompetitions always heard the comment “The sky isbald.” Digital photography has changed this, and wecan now render our images in a manner much morelike what we see with our eyes. A few years ago, Ipresented several methods for improving skies to theclub, and since then, I have been working more onthis subject and would like to offer the followingprocedures. These work in either Photoshop orPhotoshop Elements, and can likely be adapted toother image editing programs.

Before

After

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First, you should be aware when you’re at the scenethat the sky is much brighter than the other areas ofyour image. Take meter readings if you’re unsure.Then, perform either or both of the following:

1. Set your camera to use the RAW format.This captures a larger range of tonalvariations than using JPEG.

2. Take two exposures, one metered for theforeground and the other for the sky. Besure you use a tripod; this will assist youconsiderably in putting the images togetherlater.

Back at the computer, use the following steps tocreate an image with a pleasing sky:

1. If you have used RAW, open the image inAdobe Camera Raw or another convertersupplied by the camera manufacturer.Adjust the settings to obtain a good rangeof tonalities in the foreground, and save theresults. Then decrease the exposuresettings by 1 to 2 stops so that the sky is areasonable brightness without blown-outhighlights, and save the results with adifferent file name.

2. In Photoshop, open both RAW conversionsor both JPEG exposures if you took twoexposures at the site.

3. From the lighter image, press Ctrl+A andthen Ctrl+C to select and copy this image.Go to the darker image and press Ctrl+V topaste it on top of this image. You nowhave two layers in the same file, with thelighter one on top.

4. If you took two exposures at the scene, youneed to ensure that they are exactlyregistered over each other. Enlarge aportion of the scene and view both imagesby clicking the eye icon for the top layer inthe Layers palette on and off. If necessary,use the arrow keys to nudge to top imageexactly over the bottom one. This step isnot necessary if you’ve done twoconversions from a single RAW image.

5. You should be working on the top (lighter)image. Use the magic wand tool to selectthe pale sky, and use other selection toolssuch as the lasso to add or remove areas asneeded so that the sky is completelyselected but nothing else is selected.

6. To soften the selection edges, click Select> Modify > Expand, enter a value of 1

pixel, and click OK. Then click Select >Feather, enter a value of 1 or 2 pixels, andclick OK. Then click Select > Inverse sothat everything but the sky is selected.

7. In the Layers palette, select the “Add layermask” icon (the third one from the left,with a white circle on a dark graybackground). This masks the pale sky outso that the darker sky from the lowerimage becomes visible. You will see alayer mask in the Layers palette with whiteon the foreground and black in the sky.Remember that white reveals and blackconceals; therefore, the white (foreground)areas in the top layer remain visible whilethe black (sky) areas in this layer arehidden so that the darker sky beneathshows through.

8. This is almost your final image, but if youzoom in on the horizon, you will likelynotice banding or other irregularities,especially where details such as treebranches and leaves break the horizon. Toimprove the appearance of these areas, usethe Gaussian Blur tool on the layer mask(ensure that the mask shows a selectionborder around it in the layers palette beforeselecting Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur).Blur the entire mask with a small radius (2or 3 pixels) to improve hard lines such asroofs of buildings. Then use the lasso toselect areas such as tree branches andrepeat the Gaussian blur with a largerradius. You can observe the effect byzooming in on a small part of your image.If you use too great a blur, you will see a“halo” around the affected parts of theimage. Toggle the blur on and off with thePreview check box in the Gaussian Blurdialog box (or afterwards in the Historypalette) to observe the effect.

9. You might need to partially hideforeground areas (such as water thatreflects the bright sky) that are too brightin the light image. You can do so bypainting black on the layer mask with anopacity of 25 to 50 percent. Observe theeffect on the entire image of a zoomed-inportion, or on the layer mask by holdingdown Alt and clicking on the mask in theLayers palette. This procedure renderssuch areas to a brightness darker than thatof the original light (foreground) image butdarker than that of the dark (sky) image.

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10. When finished, perform any other desiredimage manipulations and save the file as aPSD file. Flatten the image, sharpen it, andsave the final result as a JPG file.Retaining the PSD enables you to workfurther with the layers later if you wish.

In a future Viewfinder, I’ll show you how you canenhance sky details such as clouds in an overcast sky.

By Don Poulton

CHRISTMAS SOCIAL

Report by Judy Griffin

The Christmas Social evening was good fun, goodfellowship, and good food. Once again the tables atthe back were bountiful with all sorts of goodies.Members brought a great variety of savoury andsweet delights to tempt us. Special thanks to Marta,Brian Miller, and Ellen & Kent Wilson who made upthe kitchen crew, and all those who volunteered theirhelp.

Thanks to Elaine Murdoch for running a special drawwhich raised $183.00 and was split three ways. Oneportion went to the winner, Rita Tracey, anotherportion to the Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund, and thethird to the club.

We had an excellent group of Trios entries whichwere judged by Dave Perry, Don Dawson, and JoeVitale. Thanks to Diane for organizing the slides anddigital entries. As we have had some problems withthe digital scoring system, Diane had numbered cardsfor the judges to hold up, but the glitch was now lackof lighting to read them, so it was back to each judgecalling out their score. It was all in good fun and weenjoyed the entries. Diane handed out chocolateprizes to the winners, Dario di Sante, Elio Pighin,Kas Stone got HMs, Sandra Hawkins got Runner-up,and Bob Hawkins took the Top.

As well thanks to Mike Fanjoy, Brian Quan, Nikolaand Joe Vitale for their work on the technical side ofthings.

Kas & Rick were clicking away, as well as BrianQuan, and Darcy was sporting his newest camera,letting members try it out. So photos of all of usenjoying the evening will no doubt appear - probablyone with me inhaling a delicious chocolate brownieand not looking the least bit guilty!

By the time the party wound down, we had madegreat inroads on the food and beverages, so all in allit was a great evening of fun and socializing.

Congratulations to Bob Hawkins for his winningTrios.

OTHER NEWS / TIPS

1. Judy Griffin. I have spoken to the manager atCurry's Art Supply store at Cawthra and theQueensway, and ECC members will receive a10% discount on regular priced goods if theyshow their ECC membership card. Sale itemsare exempt.

2. Our next meeting is Mon Jan 7th 2008 featuring:

Presentation: Alberta Highlands - Bob

Walling, Birds Around Us - Tarik Erbas,

Trillium PC

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