We are into the second quarter of the year looking forward to many upcoming activities.  The Lone Tree photography show begins on April 20, hope everyone will attend the reception from 3-6!  We also  need about 7 more pairs of hands to hang art on April 18.  If you can help please sign up on the Volunteer Spot  site as soon as possible.

Elane Graves is heading up the Lone Tree Library Show, which will be in June.  She asks everyone who wants to participate to register here.  Space in limited so depending upon how many wish to participate we will be allowed to bring 1-3 images.  Also, the Club will be printing post cards for members to send out to friends, family and fans.  Please let us know how many postcards you would like for this purpose. Registration and additional details can be found here.

Congratulations to the 2012 Year End Winners of the Colorado Council of Camera Clubs.  Lone Tree Photography Club had a terrific year for winnings!  They are posted on the site here.

Please consider signing up for the Weldon Lee Presentation, May 18 at the Lone Tree Arts Center.  Weldon is this year’s judge for the Photography  Show and promises to have a very informative presentation.  Hope to see you there!

Thank you to all those who have stepped forward to help make all these activities possible.

We  have 3 months of presentations, exhibitions, competitions and workshops under our belt! Whew!  It’s been a crazy and fun first quarter!

I heard good news from the Visions of Light, our Lone Tree Photography Club members won big!  Congratulations go to:

• Rich Spellman for “Lanyon Quoit #2″ won 1st place Architecture and Best of Show AND “Desert Ram” (my fav!) won 1st Place Wildlife
• Eric Wulfsbery for “Escher’s Stairway” won 1st Place Abstract
• Brad McDowell for “Virga” 1st Place Landscape
• Charles Lehman for 2 Honorable Mentions
• Lloyd Davis for “Bison Burger” Honorable Mention

More exciting news came from those who have been accepted into the Lone Tree Photographic Art Show and Sale.  There were 606 entries, with only about 90 being accepted.  I’ve heard from at least 8 members of the Club that they are among the ones selected!  It’s going to be a great show, I hope everyone will get out to see it and enjoy the Reception on April 20 from 3-5 p.m.

Don’t forget to purchase your ticket for the Weldon Lee Event on May 18th from 3-6 at the Lone Tree ARTS Center.  $30.  Weldon is a renown wildlife photographer who is judging the Photographic Art Show this year.  Follow this link to read more about it.

With all the activities surrounding the Club of late, I’ve been getting some lectures from my business partners.  Basically, they know me and know I tend to take on more than I should.  The best lecture of late has been how I need to keep my ducks in a row.  I need to count my ducks and I must not take on responsibility of anymore ducks!

I’m going to ask the members to help me with a duck or two, three.

First duck I need someone to care for is  the Library Show Duck.  The Lone Tree Library invites us to show our photos for the month of June.  This Duck Herder would need to organize a crew to hang the images for a couple hours on Sunday and another crew to remove them from the walls at the end of the month.  We can  post a request for  help on the website and possibly provide some able duck hunting for this head duck.  If you can help, please contact me.  If I cannot get help, I will be forced to cancel the Library show.  Sorry, that’s how it is.  THANK YOU ELANE COMEAUX for sending me an email already! Elane has volunteered to organize the show!  Yeah!

Second Duck is we need a Head Duck to organize the Lone Tree Photography Club table at the Weldon Lee Photo Seminar.  This Duck only needs to recruit a couple friendly ducks to be nice to people and pass out brochures during the session on May 18.  So ducky!

Third Duck needed is a cool dude duck who isn’t afraid to ask people to give him stuff to present as door prizes.  We need about 6 really cool photography related door prizes to impress the attendees and the City of Lone Tree Fathers that we can put on a fun day of photography at the Art Center.  Are you up to the challenge?  Be a hero and volunteer!

Please note that none of these positions require a year long commitment.  They take some time, a little  planning and actually will result in fun and recognition.  Let me hear from you soon!

Our first competition of the year left me very impressed with the quality of work our Club members are submitting.  I see huge improvements in images, both technically and artistically.  It’s really exciting to see this happening, it tells me we are doing something right!

A huge round of applause goes out to our volunteers led by Lloyd Davis, they are Jane Lane, Dona Moody, Don DeSanti, Maria Chiu, Elane Comeaux Graves and Ed Davis.  They took on the task of organizing and setting up the voting for the Colorado Council of Camera Clubs.  Without their support and work this competition would have died!  Thanks to them we are participating and competing with other Clubs in Colorado.  Competing is vital to improving our craft, so let’s keep it up! Thanks guys!

Another behind the scenes activity that you need to be aware of is going on thanks to Danny Lam.  Danny has created a spiffy new online submission form that is going to make our lives easier.  It has always been a goal to post Member images on the website. The actual doing it was a job that is very time consuming.  Now, thanks to Danny’s help we should be able to start doing that next month!  Please take a minute to thank Danny and give him a well deserved pat on the back!

We are in the process of scheduling a workshop each month (a worthy goal!).  I am working on the final details, but I can tease you with a few names: Dan Ballard, Dr. Jason Odell and Weldon Lee.  Please watch this website, or your email for the latest details on these seminars/workshops.  Also, do you know you can subscribe to the latest updates on this website?  Just click on the puzzle piece below to have the news delivered to your inbox.  It’s the best way NOT to miss the latest happenings with the Lone Tree Photography Club!

Your 2013 President,

Often I’m asked what we do at the Lone Tree Photography Club.  Our Club consists of a  nice group of people who have a wide range of photographic skills, from beginner to professional.  Each month we meet twice, once on the first Monday of the month for Exhibition Night, where we submit images that we’ve taken.  On Exhibition Night the members provide critique and suggestions of the images presented.  This process is interesting and helpful for photographers who wish to improve.

On the 3rd Monday of the month we have a speaker.  I must say we have had an impressive group of speakers over the past years.  If you would like to investigate the topics, take a look at this thread.

We also compete in a multi-club event through the Colorado Council of Camera Clubs.  Competition happens quarterly, where we choose the best images from our Club that quarter to be sent for CCCC Competition.

In addition to our meetings, we also have a variety of workshops throughout the year.  In 2012 we sponsored a series of Lightroom Classes taught by George Jardine, a Night photography workshop taught by Mike Berenson and a Lighting workshop by Darryl Pearson and Art Ballah.

Our Club sponsors the Front Range Photography Meetup, an active group of people who meet at various venues for photowalks, workshops and monthly competition.  It is free to join the Meetup, so if you are interested in finding like-minded people who actively want to shoot, join the Front Range Meetup as well.

IF you think you might be interested in our Club, please feel free to attend.  We welcome guests, the more the merrier!

Kristal Kraft

Exploring the Light – 2012

Book is ready!

Prices are as follows:

Softcover US $51.49 plus shipping
Hardcover, Dust Jacket US $60.69 plus shipping
Hardcover, Image Wrap US $64.14 plus shipping

To order please follow this link to the Blurb Store

Image: 2011 Edition of Exploring the Light

The 10th Annual Photographic Art Show is just around the corner.   This year we are excited because it will be the first year the show will be held in the Lone Tree Arts Center.  The new venue promises to make a wonderful setting for our photography.

The opening night is open to the public, complete with Cocktail Reception.  Artists will be present and selling their accepted artwork along with a sampling of bin work that will offered for sale at the reception only.  Be sure to mark your calendar March 3, 2012 from 3:00-5:00 p.m.

In addition, the Lone Tree Photography Club is compiling a book of all the entries called, “Exploring the Light.”  This lovely book will be a welcome addition to your coffee table, to order please visit the site.