Celebrations coast to coast

Seattle Icons, by Nancy Thoma

Seattle Icons, by Nancy Thoma

Pemaquid Point Light and Reflection, by Burt Williams

Pemaquid Point Light and Reflection, by Burt Williams

It’s the Fourth of July holiday! We have miles of midwestern farmland to oceans of coastline to rocky mountains and grand canyons offering some of the most spectacular landscapes a photographer could imagine. This Independence Day, we celebrate another year our nation claimed its freedom. I ask all photographers alike, from smartphones to medium format cameras, to document the joy this holiday offers. Capture friends and family at a backyard bar-b-que or the splendor of the fireworks high above your town/city. Most of all, enjoy this fabulous time of year with family and friends alike!

News regarding photographer’s editing software and plug-ins: The Nik Software collection acquired by Google in 2012 will no longer be supported with updates or new features for the desktop services. The free collection is compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 through 10.10; Windows Vista, 7, 8 and Adobe Photoshop through CC 2015. For those of you who would like to see this software continue, there is a petition that you can sign at www.change.org/p/google-inc-save-the-nik-collection. Alternative options can be found in Topaz, Phase One, MacPhun, Corel and ON1, to name a few.

Featured Images: Seattle Icons by Nancy Thoma manages to capture two icons in one image. The iconic Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, presents a perfect background while strolling the Chihuly Garden and Glass enhancing the now infamous glass sculptures. Nancy used her Lumix F270 with settings of 1/1320 sec, f/4, 13 mm, ISO 100. Capturing the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, located on the Pemaquid Peninsula in Bristol, Maine, Burt Williams used camera settings at f/8, 1/1320 sec, ISO 160 @ 34 mm. Pemaquid Point Light and Reflection was entered into our Arizona Camera Club Council’s Spring Round Up 2017 receiving an honorable mention. A classic monument still standing from the early 1800s that alerts seafarers of the rocky coastline. Beautiful!

Meeting: Our July monthly meeting will not be held due to the Fourth of July holiday. Enjoy! We will meet next in August on Thursday, August 3, in the Ceramics Room, at 6:30 p.m. Remember to bring a couple of your best, unedited images from the Picketpost Mountain and/or downtown Chandler night shoots to be experimented with for post-processing techniques and enhancements.

The Sun Lakes Camera Club (SLCC) meets the first and third Thursdays from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in the Navajo Room of the Sun Lakes Country Club from October through April. During the summer, the club meets the first Thursday of each month in the Ceramics Room of the Cottonwood Country Club.

For more information about the SLCC and its activities, call SLCC President Burt Williams at 602-354-0266, Vice President Jan Ballard at 602-621-3344 or past President John Livoti at 480-895-6880 or visit our website at sunlakescameraclub.com.