It’s that time of year when we gather together socially to share fun, our photographic stories of the year, and see some of our great work.

This is a more relaxed meeting, one in which we all bring a dish to share that would feed 6 to 8 people. The club will provide a large ham. If that isn’t appealing to you, there will be plenty of other food or feel free to bring another type of meat. We’ll eat first and during that time we will share some of everyone’s best photos of 2012. If you could send 10 or fewer photos to Don Casper (via the exhibition link), we can watch everyone’s work while we eat and visit.

Of course, this is an excellent time to invite your special “other” to join us in the celebration of another year of learning more about photography.

Please also be thinking about what you would like to learn more about or whom you would like to be a speaker next year. We would like some honest input regarding this year’s programs and how to best plan for next year. By the way, nominations and elections will be held for next year’s Board of Directors and all seats are open.

We encourage members to participate as board members in order to advance the agenda of the Lone Tree Photography Club. We would sincerely appreciate it if you would RSVP so we have enough for everyone. Please RSVP using the form below.

Capturing Cupids Milk by Mike Berenson

As the third session in a 3 part series, I invite you to join us for an instructional series of presentations and field work focused on an introduction to night photography.  At  high level, the first session will provide a general background before going out into the field.  Then, we’ll have a second session out in the field where we’ll shoot under the night sky up on Mount Evans.  And then finally, we’ll have a follow-up instructional session where we’ll look at post-processing our images.

In the third and final session, we’ll show off several different approaches to post-processing night photography captures.  We’ll look at processing a single exposure, blending multiple exposures, and even stacking up to 10 exposures taken in sequence.  We’ll look at the reasons you might choose one over the other and then dive into how to process our raw images into (what will hopefully be) a real unique work of art.

There are several post-processing tools I plan to use in this session including: Lightroom 4, Photoshop  CS5, Nik Color Efex Pro 4, and Registar (stacking software).   If there’s time, I may also show some panoramic stitching  of a starry night scene with PTGui.  Having this event scheduled soon after our night photography meetup on Mount Evans, this session should give us a great chance to process those same images and see the results together.  And with the opportunity to learn from each other in this event (including both shooting and post-processing), we’re targeting this as a great learning opportunity for everyone involved.

Here are the quick points on what on what you should expect in this third and final session:

• Post-processing images captured in the 2nd session in the  “Capturing The Dark Side” series up on Mount Evans.
• See how I use tools like Lightroom 4, Photoshop CS5, and (sometimes) Nik Color Efex Pro 4 to get the most out of my night images.
• See how to blend multiple exposures.
• See why we would stack multiple images with Registar.
• If there’s time, see how to assemble an all-sky panoramic image.

Attendance at previous events in this 3 part night photography series is not required but is encouraged.  I look forward to seeing you on September 17th.

Capturing the Dark Side Part 1 Monday, August 20, 2012 at the Lone Tree Civic Center 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Capturing the Dark Side Part 2 Friday, August 24, 2012 on the Summit of Mt. Evans 8:30 – ?

Mike Berenson

berenson@usa.net

http://www.coloradocaptures.com

http://www.flickr.com/berenson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~