Welcome to the fifth meeting of the Eden Photographers Club! I hope everyone had a good month of thinking about photography and looking at the world through a photographer’s eyes. I want to thank all of you who are here tonight, and especially those of you who submitted and critiqued photos on the Eden Photographers tumblr site. With summer in full swing, I expect all of us have had more photography opportunities and hopefully more people will be submitting and critiquing photos this coming month. But *please* people, consider doing some critiquing as well as submitting photos to be critiqued. Please trust me when I say that doing critiquing can be just as helpful as being critiqued.


Before we get started, is there anything anybody wanted to bring up about photography or the club? less

The first remedy is fill light. Fill light is light that is thrown into shadowed areas from another light source. Camera flashes can do this, although where they are situated on a camera often makes it difficult to put the light exactly where you want it. An off-camera flash or other light source that shines at an angle that illuminates the shadowed areas is a great way to solve this problem. However, such a flash is expensive, and another light source may not be handy.

One solution is…aluminum foil. Yup. It’s not just for cooking. A square of foil, say 12” x 12” (30 cm x 30 cm) that you fold up in whatever you carry your camera around in can make a handy, light, and easily transported light source. And don’t worry about it getting crinkled – it actually works better that way. Just position the foil as you would a mirror and reflect light into the shadowed area. Presto! Instant light! There are other reflectors you can buy that are more professional looking, but aluminum foil has been a standby of standby of even professional photographers for decades.



Everyone with me? less

The first remedy is fill light. Fill light is light that is thrown into shadowed areas from another light source. Camera flashes can do this, although where they are situated on a camera often makes it difficult to put the light exactly where you want it. An off-camera flash or other light source that shines at an angle that illuminates the shadowed areas is a great way to solve this problem. However, such a flash is expensive, and another light source may not be handy.

One solution is…aluminum foil. Yup. It’s not just for cooking. A square of foil, say 12” x 12” (30 cm x 30 cm) that you fold up in whatever you carry your camera around in can make a handy, light, and easily transported light source. And don’t worry about it getting crinkled – it actually works better that way. Just position the foil as you would a mirror and reflect light into the shadowed area. Presto! Instant light! There are other reflectors you can buy that are more professional looking, but aluminum foil has been a standby of standby of even professional photographers for decades.



Everyone with me? less

The first remedy is fill light. Fill light is light that is thrown into shadowed areas from another light source. Camera flashes can do this, although where they are situated on a camera often makes it difficult to put the light exactly where you want it. An off-camera flash or other light source that shines at an angle that illuminates the shadowed areas is a great way to solve this problem. However, such a flash is expensive, and another light source may not be handy.

One solution is…aluminum foil. Yup. It’s not just for cooking. A square of foil, say 12” x 12” (30 cm x 30 cm) that you fold up in whatever you carry your camera around in can make a handy, light, and easily transported light source. And don’t worry about it getting crinkled – it actually works better that way. Just position the foil as you would a mirror and reflect light into the shadowed area. Presto! Instant light! There are other reflectors you can buy that are more professional looking, but aluminum foil has been a standby of standby of even professional photographers for decades.



Everyone with me? less

Huh. I live near Chicago, where we get pretty much all weather types. In the summers we sometimes rival the south (although admittedly for not as long), in the winter we can get huge blizzards with wildly negative temperatures, and in the spring and fall we can get huge thunderstorms that do tons of damage. Hell, we can get tornadoes, and even the odd earthquake and even hurricane. Fortunately by the time the hurricanes get to us they're no worse than any of our severe thunderstorms, but still.

But my husband doesn't want to move. Having all the seasons so in your face lets him appreciate having the other seasons, lol. less

Huh. I live near Chicago, where we get pretty much all weather types. In the summers we sometimes rival the south (although admittedly for not as long), in the winter we can get huge blizzards with wildly negative temperatures, and in the spring and fall we can get huge thunderstorms that do tons of damage. Hell, we can get tornadoes, and even the odd earthquake and even hurricane. Fortunately by the time the hurricanes get to us they're no worse than any of our severe thunderstorms, but still.

But my husband doesn't want to move. Having all the seasons so in your face lets him appreciate having the other seasons, lol. less

We have all the seasons, but we get to choose whether we want to see them. If I want to see two feet of snow fall in a day during winter, I can travel a couple hours into the mountains. If I want to experience ungodly hot weather, I just need to travel a few hours to the other side of the Cascade Range.

We are waiting for the inevitable Cascadian Subduction Zone earthquake, though. That one will cause a ridiculous amount of damage to the northwest. There's something like a 1 in 3 chance it will happen in the next 50 years. But then, I'm a risk-taker. less

We have all the seasons, but we get to choose whether we want to see them. If I want to see two feet of snow fall in a day during winter, I can travel a couple hours into the mountains. If I want to experience ungodly hot weather, I just need to travel a few hours to the other side of the Cascade Range.

We are waiting for the inevitable Cascadian Subduction Zone earthquake, though. That one will cause a ridiculous amount of damage to the northwest. There's something like a 1 in 3 chance it will happen in the next 50 years. But then, I'm a risk-taker. less