The Camera Club

With frequent sundown visits to the Tualatin Wildlife Preserve for sunset and bird photos, I wasn't alone in the attempt for another great photo. With mega lenses and high end cameras and tripods, my photo taking by comparison was entry level.

Conversations with fellow amateur photographers informed me of a local camera club's monthly meeting in a room at the Preserve visitor center. Attendees were asked to bring a photo (on a USB drive) for critiquing. Not knowing what was the competition, I declined that opportunity.

There were three judges -- two supporting themselves with photography and workshops. After brief intros about their background and how they look at photos for judging, the critique began. The photos were projected from a PC. The projected photos were not equal to what was visible on the monitor. Considering this, the judges ignored color and sharpness and limited their comments to the form, focus, subject and overall composition.

Surprising to me was the frequent suggestion to use Photoshop to improve the photo through cropping, cloning out distractions or blur annoying backgrounds. Along with a good camera, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom are part of the photographers tools to create a magazine cover, nature book photo or wall art.

In retrospect, I realized I should have brought a photo. However, selecting one from my hundreds of bests would have been difficult. Perhaps creating a file "a best ten" from those hundreds would be a good idea. That would make the selection a little easier.

Note: Photo was taken at Tualatin Wildlife Preserve. The sunset cast the great colors on the scenery with the great blue heron. Photoshop was used to crop and add the frame.