by this time of year. Shame on those members who didn’t take full advantage of this extraordinary spring (unless they had a good excuse).

It is said that good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment. Perhaps the same can be said of good photos. I find that I have a great collection of photos that provide “experience: and not very many that rise above that level. Switching from film to digital a couple of years ago has enabled the collection of “experience” type photos at an astounding rate. The overwhelming problem of managing such a fast growing volume of images has finally forced yours truly to go back to basics and think a lot more about the fundamentals of taking better photos instead of just setting the camera to provide three or four images per second, holding the shutter down for too long and hoping that one might be good. There is no guarantee that there still won’t be a lot of throwaways but keeping the basics in mind sure ups the odds of having a few more good ones after investing the time and effort to collect them.

We are very pleased to announce that Steve Hike is our new competitions chairperson replacing Darlene Duvall who did such a great job for the club for a number of years. Next month we’ll give you the details of getting your images to Steve for the September competition on the 4th.

Our 75th anniversary display at the downtown Wells Fargo Bank was an eye catcher. There is a wealth of photographic talent in our club. We also found that placing photos in that kind of environment may require some adjustments in the way our photos are matted. We’ll be hearing more about that at the next meeting.

Speaking of meetings, at our July meeting on the 15th at Gere Library (7 pm), Rick Stetina will present a program about the trip that he and Sue made to Alaska. Be prepared for some stunning images!

Here’s a source of tips for those who are thinking of entering the photo contest at the zoo this summer or just taking photos there. Zoo PhotoTips
And here’s one for aquarium photographers:Aquarium PhotoTips

Finally, a reminder: our August meeting (8/19) will be at the Walt Library, 6701 S. 14th and not at our usual location at Gere Library.  Have a fun summer!