Camera Club 15th Anniversary Celebration

The St.Mary's County Camera Club celebrated their 15th Anniversary last week at their annual holiday party.  Founded on November 2, 1998 at the Trinity Church Parish Hall in St. Mary's City, there were 40 attendees when the new club began.  A few of the original members,  a number of alumni and many current camera club members enjoyed a pizza party and viewed "Islands" slide show, created by Joanna Macaulay and presented at the first meeting.  "Islands" included favorite photos of locations around the world including islands as large as Manhattan and Hong Kong and as small as Spirit Island in Moraine Lake Alberta Canada.  Many lovely photos from the Caribbean Islands and Hawaii were included in the short presentation as well.  Here are a few of my favorite slides from "Islands".

Spirit Island Alberta, Canada

South shore Bermuda

Three cats Avalon, New Jersey

Pelican, Caribbean

Four Captive Owls

I had a chance to photograph some captive injured owls up close.  It was sort of difficult taking photos in midday light without over exposing the white feathers, but I tried my best.  They had four owls to share with the group of photographers.

The Bard Owl was the largest bird I photographed and very sleepy.  This is the best shot I could get.  In most of my photos, he/she had his eyes half closed.  I did get a chance to see it's additional protective eye lids.

 



I really liked the Barn Owl (without the barn!) What a face!  Barn owls are one of the most common type of owls and are found all over the world. 

 

 

 

 

 
This little owl is an Eastern Screech owl.  They are very small and fairly common in the eastern United States.  I've photographed several of them before including one in my September 6, 2013 and April 23, 2012 blogs if you want to see more.

 



The long eared owl has asymmetrical ear tufts.  The ears don't line up perfectly, which helps them locate their prey.  The left ear is higher than the right.

A good online source of information about owls is All About Birds.

Hollywood craft show

I am one of the vendors at the craft show at the Hollywood Volunteer Fire Dept this Sunday November 17th from 10am-3pm. The firehouse is on route 235 in Hollywood, MD. Admission is free and lunch is available. Come see my new photo coasters or buy some Holiday gifts. I also have St. Mary's County photo mugs, unique cards, prints and more.
For more information, go to http://www.hvfd7.com/index.cfm?fs=events.eventView&Event_ID=386

My friend, Theresa Ford will be there too with her fractals, her books and more.

Shenandoah in autumn

We managed to find a hotel room at the last minute in Luray, VA for a weekend, before all the colored leaves disappeared. The peak colors are about 2 weeks earlier than in Southern MD. I searched google maps for a spot just off a back road along the Shenadoah River with mountains in view. We drove there for the sunrise and found swirling mist on the water. Lovely.

The next morning we drove to the lower entrance of Whiteoak Canyon trail. Along the way we passed an old red barn in nice warm light.

We met some photography friends and hiked to the lower falls. After hiking 1.5 miles, we learned that you need to hop over rocks to get to the falls. I managed to get over the rocks with assistance. It was worth it.

Lighthouse Water Tour

Lighthouse Water Tour, a set on Flickr.

We took a tour of several lighthouses on the Chesapeake Bay on Phil Langley's Lisa S in late September. There were several camera clubs invited. The day was quite windy, so I didn't get an award winning photo of Point No Point with a lovely reflection, but we had lots of fun and had lunch together afterwards.

National Parks are open again

In honor of the "return" of our National Parks, I want to share the winning photos of their Summer Scrapbook. Notice that many of the photos are all about the light, often taken near sunrise or sunset. The color of light is often more saturated and beautiful toward dawn and dusk. At noon, the light if flatter, with short shadows. Get out there and take some pictures of those fall colors in good light!
http://www.nationalparks.org/summer-scrapbook

I'm sharing an August 2013 panorama from Shenandoah National Park's Black rock summit trail taken with an iphone app called Photosynth. A rock slide is at the summit.

Winning photo for the Photowalk!

Hot off the press!

The winners of the local Kelby Worldwide Photowalk in Leonardtown were:

Third place to Pat French for her Sailboat photo.

Second place to Steve Bruza for his coffee cup picture.

And

First place to Joanna Macaulay (hey, that's me!) for a reflection photo of the Café des Artistes window.

The photo was a little busy, but colorful, picking up the reflection of the flowers in the square by standing at just the right angle and waiting for the cars to disappear.  I think about half of the photographers took a photo of the "happy chef".

The photo will be entered in another contest, and I win something, but I don't know what.  My husband, Jim won the first prize last year, an e-book copy of The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby.  His photo was a panorama photo of a pond at Flag Ponds Nature Park in Calvert County.  See my blog from October 31, 2012.

 

To see the other photos in the contest, click Leonardtown Photowalk Contest.