The 30th Annual Frederick Camera Clique Juried Exhibition is now accepting entries. The juror for this year’s show is Tony Sweet, a Nikon Legend Behind the Lens. The Exhibition is open to all photographers in the region and offers $800 in prizes. Entries are made electronically with a deadline for entry of April 30, 2016. Accepted work will be exhibited July 9 to September 7, 2016 at the Mary Condon Hodgson Gallery at Frederick Community College. Full details for the exhibit and the link for submitting work can be found at this link.

http://www.frederickcameraclique.org/annual-juried-exhibit

Greetings from the National Cathedral!

The Cathedral is adding more opportunities to photograph the Cathedral before public hours. The goal, for now, is to offer one or two early morning opportunities a month. Tickets are currently available for 12 March and 9 April:http://www.cathedral.org/visit/SpecialPhotographyAccess.shtml

Some sessions will include special access in a particular area of the Cathedral. For example, our first two dates will provide access to the west balcony for about the first 30 minutes of the session, before returning to the nave floor. Unlike our special week of “Seeing Deeper,” chairs will be in place during these sessions.

Doors will open at 8:15am, with your ticketed access beginning at 8:30am. Doors will open to the public at 10am, and you’re welcomed to stay for the rest of the day. Tripods are permitted, however aisles must remain clear once the building opens to the public at 10am.

Please keep an eye on this webpage for details and ticket sales for upcoming dates. We appreciate your partnership through previous photo opportunities and hope you’ll return again, camera in hand, very soon!

Our speaker for Education Night on March 22 is our own NIHCC member Lew Lorton who will talk to us about “Street Photography”.

Here’s how Lew describes himself:

“Lewis Lorton is an amateur photographer of fairly long experience, starting in film with a Nikkormat, Nikon F, various twin lens reflexes, and Rolleiflex SL66. He took a seventeen year break from photography when the pressures of family, work and increasing sensitivity to darkroom fluids took their toll. He began shooting again in the early 2000’s and progressed from point-and-shoot film and digital through all levels of Nikon up to the D700, then reversed course to an Olympus Micro 4/3 and a Sony A7 II. Lew has been in one show, vows never to do another and doesn’t send photographs to exhibitions or contests, nor does he attempt to sell pictures. He loves to travel and been to Iceland, France, Italy, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos (these last five multiple times in the last 15 years). Lew believes that art doesn’t stop when the shutter button is pressed, and technical issues are significant only when they don’t support the content. Technical perfection in the absence of impact is a waste of time. Lew considers himself a street photographer no matter what subject matter he is shooting, and he has long since stopped photographing ‘pretty’ subjects. His photos can be seen at LewLortonPhoto.comalong with a series of blog posts about photography and travel.”

Longwood Gardens Orchid Extravaganza, Monday March 7, 2016

Our next joint NIHCC/SSCC midweek meet-up will be on Monday March 7, 2016, to Longwood Gardens for their annual Orchid Extravaganza (http://longwoodgardens.org/). The orchids are on display indoors in the Conservatory.

“Longwood’s Orchid Display is a living showcase of 300 to 500 plants at peak bloom, filling the room with their vibrant colors and delicate fragrances.”

Longwood is a 2 hour drive away so we will be leaving here before 7:00am in order to arrive there by 9:00am. You can buy admission tickets on line – they are time stamped so a 9:00am ticket allows you entry at 9:00am, a 9:30am ticket at 9:30am, etc. Tripods are allowed in the conservatory from 9:00-12:00 noon so ideally we want to be in the 9:00am group.

There are lots of plants other than orchids in the conservatory. Once you are inside the gardens you can stay as long as you wish. Depending on the weather there may also be some outside interest.

Watch for an email from Jim about car pooling and organization by March 1.

Just a reminder – The deadline for submission of images for our Critique Night next week is 8:00 pm on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016. Details on how to submit images (via the Website) can be found here.

The theme for the critique is “Open” so anything goes.

Our second joint NIH Camera Club/Silver Spring Camera Club weekday meet-up will be on the morning of Monday Feb. 8 at Union Station. Tripods are not allowed in the building so this will be primarily a handheld outing (you can shoot with a tripod outside). But there should be lots of opportunities for indoor street photography, crowd and motion shots, and some architecture.  Light levels in the station are low so come prepared with a steady hand. Several people have asked about the photography policy in the station so I have attached the official Rules and Regulations – see item 17 “Photography is welcome in the public areas of Union Station”. USDCRulesandRegulations

You can arrive when you wish (I suggest taking the Metro) but we’ll meet at 10 am to exchange information on photo possibilities, then again at noon for people planning to stay for lunch. The main doors to the station face Columbus Circle on Massachusetts Ave. As you walk into the station through these doors there is a Starbucks on your left. We’ll meet inside the station by this Starbucks. Please let me know if you plan to attend so I know how many people to expect (Jim_Turner_1945@yahoo.com). Also if you come to the meet-up and I don’t see you please let me know you were there, we want to be able to gauge the level of interest in these events.

If you are looking for another indoor street photography opportunity there will be a number of activities to celebrate the Lunar New Year at Lake Forest Mall on the weekends of Feb. 6-7 and 13-14.

http://www.shoplakeforest.com/event/lunar-new-year-celebration/2145467723/