ECC 2021 Holiday Contest

by Tom Goldberg

2021 Holiday Photography Contest
Held on Wednesday, December 8
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Judge: Andy Long
www.firstlighttours.com

The Themes for December 2021 year-end contest were Landscapes, Wildlife, People, and Miscellaneous. Beginner entries were combined into one category due to the number of submissions.

Contest results were as follows:
(note all images are copyrighted by their creators – please contact us if you want to use these for any purpose)
Click on any image for a larger slide show

Advanced: Landscape

Winner: Landscape Category,
Advanced
Randee Lawrence

Runner Up: Landscape Category,
Advanced
Ron Pearson

 

Advanced: Wildlife

Winner: Wildlife Category,
Advanced
Brian Donovan
Year-End Overall Winner

Runner Up (tie): Wildlife Category,
Advanced
Dick Oltman

Runner Up (tie): Wildlife Category,
Advanced
Kathy Snead

 

Advanced: People

Winner: People Category,
Advanced
Brian Donovan

Runner Up: People Category,
Advanced
Ann Zimmerman

 

Advanced: Miscellaneous

Winner: Miscellaneous Category,
Advanced
Ann Zimmerman
Year-End Overall Runner-Up

Runner Up: Miscellaneous Category,
Advanced
Kathy Snead

 

Beginner: Combined

Winner:
Beginner
Dave Nelson

Runner Up:
Beginner
Penny Mohr

 

ECC 2021 Virtual Holiday Party and Contest

by Tom Goldberg


Virtual Dinner Party
Time: Wednesday, December 8 at 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Location: Your home.
Dinner: Is up to you, however, we suggest that you have a pizza party just for fun!
Drinks: Whatever you have in the fridge or liquor cabinet.

Photography Contest
Wednesday, December 8
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
on Zoom (see link below)

Judge: Andy Long
www.firstlighttours.com
Enter three photos (maximum) per person as a beginner or advanced photographer.

Submit your entries by logging in using the Membership > Log In menu and uploading using the Contest > Contest Entry page and choose the appropriate category.

Choose any of the four subject categories:

  • People
  • Landscape/Scenery
  • Animals/Wildlife
  • Miscellaneous

Use a separate upload if you have multiple categories.
Entries must be submitted by 6:00 pm Monday, December 6.
Submitter must be an ECC member in good standing and in attendance on Zoom to win.

Prizes
Awarded in each category, Best Image of the Year and Best Image of the Year Runner-Up, Beginner (if there are enough entries) and Advanced.

New members, students and guests welcome
Must be a member to participate in contest

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82128669090?pwd=VTByYzZDaWozWFNiWk1lUzhMOFp1Zz09

Photograph the Frosty Moon Eclipse November 18th [corrected times]

by Tom Goldberg
Photograph the Frosty Moon Eclipse November 18th [corrected times]

Stay up late or set your alarm to see this lunar eclipse which will be visible from North America and Hawaii.

Corrected Mountain Times:

Penumbral Eclipse begins Nov 18 at 11:02:09 pm
Partial Eclipse begins Nov 19 at 12:18:42 am
Maximum Eclipse Nov 19 at 2:02:55 am
Partial Eclipse ends Nov 19 at 3:47:04 am
Penumbral Eclipse ends Nov 19 at 5:03:40 am
How to Shoot the Moon

ECC Member Ron Pearson has experience photographing the moon and shares some of his best advice for photographing this special event: “Check out the links below to Mr. Eclipse and Sky & Telescopes articles. I like the advice in the S&T article – basically, ‘bracket the hell out of it… ‘”
https://www.mreclipse.com/LEphoto/LEphoto.html
https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/observing-and-photographing-lunar-eclipses/

Why will the next lunar eclipse be called a Frosty Moon?

Lunar eclipses often have a variety of intriguing names attributed to them, with Blood Moon being the perfect ominous-sounding example. Earlier this year, the May 2021 total lunar eclipse was also known as a Super Flower Blood Moon. This is because the full moon in May is often called the Flower Moon, understood to be a reference to the time of year and the fact many flowers bloom this month. Whilst May 2021’s full moon is also a Super Moon, which is when the full or new moon coincides with when it is closest to the Earth in its orbit.

And the seasonal names continue when it comes to November 2021’s partial lunar eclipse, which will also be called a Frosty Moon. This naming convention for November’s full moon is understood to also be connected to the time of year it occurs and it’s also often known as a beaver moon, mourning moon and even an oak moon.

2022 Mount Evans Calendar Winners Announced

by Tom Goldberg
2022 Mount Evans Calendar Winners Announced

Since its creation in 1984, the “Seasons of Our Mountains” community calendar has symbolized the beauty of life enjoyed by the residents of our mountain communities. All proceeds from calendar sales benefit Mount Evans Home Health Care & Hospice.

Of the 181 photos submitted to the 2022 Seasons of Our Mountains Calendar Photo Contest (thank you to all who submitted!), the top 25 photos were selected as finalists by anonymous club vote. Of the 25 finalists, the top 13 (12 months plus cover) were selected by over 1000 public voters. The top three of those were selected by our Finalist Judge, Cheryl Opperman.
Winners Were:
January Allan M. Casey III – Second Place
February Dick Oltman*
March DJ Hannigan*
April Tracy Doty
May Rhonda Bueche
June Betty Holling*
July Ellen Nelson* – Best of Show
August Leslee Hempel*
September Beth Riser
October Michael Hopp – Third Place
November Kathy Snead*
December Holly Simon
Cover Dave Masters

Honorable mention images included Lisa Lakel, Eve Klein, Terry Shapiro (2), Len Brewer, Holly Simon, Martha Montiel, Ron Belak*, Ellen Nelson*, Bobbyjo Birdsong, Katie Williams and Tom Goldberg*. Evergreen Camera Club members were well represented and are identified with asterisks.

This calendar was a team effort with Mount Evans Home Health Care & Hospice and the Evergreen Camera Club. Committee members were:
Ellen Nelson
Tom Goldberg
Leslee Hampel
Tina Disorbio
Betty Holling
Ann Zimmerman
Cindy Brown
Kathy Snead
Csilla Florida
Bill Vogel
Many thanks to the calendar committee, Mount Evans Home Health Care & Hospice and to all of the photographers who put their heart and soul into their submissions. Keep shooting!

Mount Evans Home Health Care & Hospice provides home health, palliative, and hospice care to mountain residents and their families in Clear Creek, Gilpin, Jefferson, and Park counties. We also provide emotional and spiritual support for those who are grieving, caregiving, or adjusting to an illness, as well as Camp Comfort for children who have lost a loved one. They extend a special thank you to the Evergreen Camera Club for once again teaming with them to bring you such a beautiful calendar. We are so grateful for their support and talent.

Finalist Judge for Best of Show & Places
Cheryl Opperman is a nationally acclaimed nature photographer with a B.A. from Brooks Institute of Photography and nearly 30 years of professional experience photographing nature, wildlife, and indigenous cultures worldwide. She has received numerous awards from organizations including The Earth Day Network, Nature’s Best Photography, the International Photography Awards, and the National Wildlife Federation. Employing the power of photography to inspire interest in the environment, she has appeared in on-camera interviews for 9News Denver, The Luminous Landscape, and Smithsonian Earth and regularly presents slide shows or work- shops to schools, camera clubs, and organizations. Please visit http://www.cherylopperman.com.

2022 Calendar Voting Now CLOSED!

by Tom Goldberg
2022 Calendar Voting Now CLOSED!

2022 Seasons of Our Mountains
Calendar Photo Contest

Voting now CLOSED!

VOTING ENDED AUGUST 6TH. Come back soon to see who won.

Of the 181 photos submitted to the 2022 Seasons of Our Mountains Calendar Photo Contest (thank you to all who submitted!), the top 25 photos have been selected as finalists. And now we need your help to select the winners!

The 13 photographs that receive the highest number of votes will be included on the cover and each month of the year. The remaining 12 photographs are included in the calendar as honorable mentions.

To vote CLICK HERE and pick your three favorite photographs for each season.
Voting ends on Friday, August 6!

July 14th General Meeting: Seasons of Our Mountains 2022 Calendar Voting

by Tom Goldberg

Anonymous Voting Party for Members Only

Now is an ideal time to join our club if you are not already a member – see all the images submitted by our community and make your opinion count. Scroll down for important details.

The Calendar Voting and Judging Process

Calendar voting to initially select 24 finalists from all entries will be done by the membership of the ECC club, out of whomever logs on for the Zoom call for our July meeting. Image entry was open to all, this voting will be by paid members only.

As the calendar competition is open to everyone, and many ECC members have and are expected to enter, certainly those individuals will be voting on their own images along with everyone else. The artist names will not be disclosed so at most, voters will recognize only 3 of the images out of however many we get (we expect 100-200). Thus we feel there will be minimal bias in this process.

Each image will get a score from 1 to 5 averaged from all votes cast in the zoom meeting to determine the 24 finalists. The finalists will then be voted on by the general public using the voting website tool used for last year’s competition (that link will be posted when the finalists have been uploaded).

Hopefully this will yield an impartially judged set of 12 images to comprise our final calendar, however, if we end up with some kind of imbalance, there is an editorial committee comprised of Mount Evans and ECC volunteers who may make minor adjustments to ensure a good end product (i.e. if say 4 images of elk were to get the best scores, we may only include one or two).

If you have any questions about this process, please send and email to webmaster@evergreencameraclub.com.

Member Voting Instructions

Display of submitted images and voting will begin at 7:00PM on Wednesday July 14th. Setup and testing will be from 6:30 to 7, be sure to get on in time to work out any kinks you may have with the links or the process.

We will have 4 different groups of images, divided by season. We will run through each group quickly so you can preview them and then go back through them by name for the voting step.

The images will be displayed via Zoom – you should dial in with the Zoom link using whatever device you have with the best display so you can see the entries clearly.

Voting will be done using Google Forms – a “forms.gle” link and QR code will be provided to get your browser to the voting sheet. You can use a separate device, like your phone, to go to this link so you can have a separate screen to make your selections. If you are using your phone, simply take a picture of the QR code and your phone will offer to take you to our voting sheet. Alternately you can use a browser and Zoom on the same device if you can manage the 2 windows.

It is not required but recommended that you place a vote for every image.

Links will be emailed to ECC Members prior to the meeting.

February 2021 Non-Contest Contest! – WINNERS ANNOUNCED

by Tom Goldberg
February 2021 Non-Contest Contest! – WINNERS ANNOUNCED

The Theme for February 2021 is “Home Page Slide Show” – EVERY MEMBER SHOULD SUBMIT!!!
…and every member was a winner!

All submissions are now in random rotation on our home page slide show, and we are very pleased with the results. You can use your arrow keys or mouse to navigate through the photos or just let it run.

Original Contest Post:
When we built this web site, we found a bunch of formerly submitted images, cropped them and made the slide show that is running now… as it has been the same for 3 years now, it’s time to freshen it up!

Look back through your best photos and pick your favorite one, two, or three that will crop well into our horizontal format of 1200px x 500px. Get your image(s) to that size and just use our regular contest entry page and submit them into the Rotating category.

This is not really a contest because every paid-up member is guaranteed to get at least one image into the slide show rotation as long as they enter a properly cropped image. Submissions must be 1200 x 500 pixels. If we really like your stuff, we may put 2 or even all 3 in, strictly at the discretion of our Judges (tbd). Images will be added to the home page slide show with the creator’s name.

Remember to submit your photos for the ECC monthly competition by the Monday EXTENDED TO WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 24th before the T&T meeting at 6 p.m. Sharp (hard deadline). WE HAVE DECIDED TO LEAVE THIS OPEN FOR ANOTHER MONTH FOR STRAGGLERS WHO STILL WANT TO HAVE THEIR IMAGES ON THE HOMEPAGE – good til March 10

By entering the contest, you agree to allow ECC to use your photo in promoting the club.

Hint for Beginners: If you don’t know how to crop your image properly

Photoshop

Open it in Photoshop, select the crop tool, type in 1200 width and 500 height and crop away.
Extra Credit: Use the File > Save for Web option with JPG High and the correct number of pixels entered!

Photos for Mac

We had a request for instructions if you only have Photos for Mac – go to the Image menu and select show tools:

Then pick the crop tool and set the aspect:

Then crop away – select the ENTER key to finish your crop and then the File menu > Export item.

Videos of Past Meetings Now Available!

by Tom Goldberg
Videos of Past Meetings Now Available!

We’ve had some really great zoom meetings over the last year and we’ve been recording many of those, but for a variety of reasons, it has been difficult to make them available to everyone.

Well, Evergreen Camera Club now has a YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaWO2vKyWGXKG4GKcs9N70w with all of these videos. They also can be seen right here on this site, embedded into the Meeting Notice for each video, so just click on Meetings or Tips & Techniques to watch!

January 13th General Meeting: Constructive Image Critique and Review with Nic Stover

by Tom Goldberg


Can your photos be even better? Submit and find out! Professional landscape photographer Nic Stover will conduct a demonstration showing how to edit your images in Lightroom to create even greater impact.

Nic will demonstrate minor modifications in Lightroom while highlighting the times you might want to use Photoshop. If you wish to have Nic use your photo in the demo, submit your images by using our special upload page at:
https://evergreencameraclub.com/index.php/january-2021-upload-page/ or email them to nic@stoverphoto.com by Tuesday, January 12th.

Submissions can be anonymous, and each image review will be tailored to the image submission and where the photographer appears to be in their creative journey. The most impactful and compelling images are those that have the proper balance of Technique, Vision, and Processing. Nic’s goal is not to shame anyone, but rather talk about his own journey and the process used to look at his own images.

Evergreen Camera Club is continuing our popular Zoom meeting format, so join ECC on:

Wednesday, January 13th
6:30 pm social time
7:00 pm announcements and presentation

The Zoom link for this event is:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81435398826?pwd=QUNNVnM1SVFISUw3b1FEM3I3VVp1Zz09

Evergreen Camera Club