1 May 2019

FOCUS

Newsletter of the Mayslake Nature Study and Photography Club

Hosted by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County www.naturecameraclub.com

Up Coming Programs

May 6th

– Members’ Night with Noppadol

Paothong

June 3rd: Exploring Nature in Illinois by

Michael Jeffords and Susan Post

July 15th: Antarctica by Dave Schooley

MNSPC Annual Members’ Night May 6 We have a very exciting program planned for the upcoming Members’ Night. We are pleased to

have Noppadol Paothong speaking about prairie-chickens, sage-grouse, and sharp-tailed

grouse. He will highlight the spring courtship behaviors of these birds that he has been

documented for 17 years for his books Save the Last Dance and Sage Grouse, Icon of the West.

Including extraordinary story of life/history of sage-grouse and the habitat under threat in the

American West.

Noppadol Paothong is an award-wining nature/conservationist photographer with the Missouri

Department of Conservation since 2006 and an Associate Fellow with the prestigious

International League of Conservation Photographers.

The night will culminate in presenting the coveted Image of the Year.

Advance Reservations Required

2 May 2019

Welcome New Member Deb Dorian

And Returning Member Tom Soltis

Image of the Year Voting

Voting is now complete for the coveted MNSPC Image of the Year. It was very difficult to

chose a top image since all the images were excellent. But the votes are being tallied and

the winner will be revealed at the May 6th Annual Members’ Night. Thank you to all who

participated and voted.

The 75 images that won awards over the current competition season (September 2018-

March 2019) can be viewed via the following link: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmaX1xqB

The top 9 from Round #1 voting can be viewed via this link: https://flic.kr/s/aHskTRPGVd

Tech Tidbit

In Lightroom and Photoshop Vibrance will act as a smart tool. It cleverly increases the

intensity of the more muted colors and leaves the well-saturated colors alone. Saturation is

generally more aggressive than Vibrance. It affects all colors and pixels in the image

equally, regardless of how saturated they already are.

Very often in Lightroom Classic CC or Photoshop, if you increase the value for Vibrance

and decrease the value for Saturation, you’ll find an excellent balance for the overall

intensity of colors in a photo. See how it’s done in this quick tip video:

https://photofocus.com/learn/technique-tutorials/vibrance-up-and-saturation-down-in-

lightroom-classic-cc/

We are looking for contributions for tech tidbits. If you have an item you love in your software or came across a good tool, share it with us. Send tidbits to Sheila (drsnewenham@gmail.com)

3 May 2019

Upcoming Outings

May 15 Lombard Lilacia Park botanical tour and outing on May 15; all available spaces are

booked.

May 19 Date change from May 4 to May 19. Very exciting news! A park ranger will take us on a

private tour of the bog at Indiana Dunes National Park. He describes himself as an avid

photographer too! Contact me at bartobee@comcast.net if interested and for more

information. May 19th was his first available time. Please remember that the Indiana Dunes

is now a national park and has an access fee. Please respond no later than May 12th if

interested.

Save the Date

Sunday morning – July 14 Dragonflies, Quarries and Canyons.

Sagawau Nature Center in Lemont, IL It’s an exciting photographic opportunity!! Sagawau Nature Center in Lemont has something for everyone in all seasons. With over 140 acres of forest, and grasslands there is lots to photographic We will visit 2 areas in Sagawau that is only accessible by guided tour. The first one will be to visit and photograph Cook County’s only canyon. Then after that, we will head to a quarry that is closed to the public, to look for and photograph Dragonflies. More information to come as the date gets closer. For now, just save the date!!

4 May 2019

2019 MNSPC Post Card Competition Ist Place (tie) 2nd Place (tie) Newport State Park – Steve Ornberg The Denton Butterfly Collection – Steve

Magee Marsh – Barbara Dunn Ornberg

Hong Kong – Ramu Bijanki On the Bridge of Avignon – Sue Gadja

3rd Place West Thumb Geyser Basin – Barbra Dunn

5 May 2019

ELEVENTH ANNUAL CACCA POSTCARD COMPETITION APRIL 13, 2019

A big THANK YOU to all who entered this year's postcard competition. There were 94 entries in all from 15 clubs – 25 fewer entries than last year and three fewer clubs participating. Kankakee had the most entries with 14, followed closely by North Shore and DesPlaines which both had 12. North Shore had eight winners – two thirds of entries! Mayslake and Downers Grove each had 4 winners.

And a big THANK YOU to the ten postcard judges: Bob Benson, Peggy Benson, Phyllis Brauer, Ralph Durham, Lois Ekstrand, Joe Falout, Jerry Hug, Linda Kruzic, John Peterson, Sharon Peterson, and Sheri Sparks. The judges were asked to cast votes for their favorite 15 postcards -- not an easy task with such a high-quality field of entries. The scores were tabulated based on how many votes each postcard received from the judges. All postcards receiving three or four votes achieved honorable mentions, and those receiving five or more votes received awards. The Best of Show image received eight votes.

The winning postcards were retained and will be mounted on a display board for exhibition at the CACCA Banquet in August. The board will be made available for club use. Postcards not receiving honors were returned to club representatives. Ribbons will be issued at the May CACCA meeting.

BEST OF SHOW "Mount Rushmore" – Ken Kendzy, Des Plaines

AWARDS “Come Visit Florida” – Diane Bodkin, Riverwoods

“Shalom Wildlife Refuge” – Gary Edwards, Lake County “Ireland: The Emerald Isle” – Allan Fisher, Photogenesis

“Chicago” – Pamela Myers, Downers Grove “Jerome, Arizona” – Rudy Navarro, 3H

“Newport State Park” – Steve Ornberg, Mayslake “Route 66 Brick Wall Sign” – Bonita Palma, Downers Grove

“Czech Us Out in Prague” – Dave Putz, Photogenesis

HONORABLE MENTIONS “Air Egret” – Rami Bijanki, Mayslake

“Owls of Stillman Nature Center” – Bill Brown, North Shore “Baha’i House of Worship” – Bill Brown, North Shore

“Our National Parks” – Roney Budz, Kankakee “Fixer Upper” – Bob Dietz, Oak Lawn

“Aspen, Colorado” – Bob Dietz, Oak Lawn “Magee Marsh Birds” – Barbara Dunn, Mayslake

“Orchids by Hauserman” – Debbie Durham, North Shore “Butterflies of Lake County” – Emma England, North Shore “Hummingbirds of Ecuador” – Emma England, North Shore

“Ireland: Pubs, Guinness, Castles” – Allan Fisher, Photogenesis “On the Bridge of Avignon” – Susan Gajda, Mayslake

“Old Joliet Prison” – Jan Ivaska, Downers Grove “Morning at Maroon Bells” – Jan Ivaska, Downers Grove

“Dine in/Carry out” – Scott McNeill, North Shore “Open Wide” – Scott McNeill, North Shore

“Brookfield Zoo, Chicago” – Rudy Navarro, 3H “Shedd Aquarium” – Roberta Smith, North Shore

“Kenya: Take a Selfie with Us” – Gary Taylor, Des Plaines

6 May 2019

Air Egret by Ramu Bijanki

2019-2020 Officers and Committee Members

Officers

President Steve Ornberg

Vice President Ramu Bijanki

Treasurer Chuck Klingsporn

Secretary Barbara Dunn

Chairpersons and Committees

CACCA Karl Knapp*, Marcia Nye

Communication Sheila Newenham

Competition Ron Szymczak*, Lee Balgemann,

Nature Study Dee Hudson

Equipment Dave Schooley*, Bill Dixon

Forest Preserve Liaison Cheryl Rausch

Exhibits Fred Drury

Education Fred Drury

Membership Mitch Stemler

Outings Coordinator Beverly Bartos

Social Vacant

Webmaster Steve Ornberg

7 May 2019

MNSPC Equipment We are happy to announce that we have purchased

a new laptop for MNSPC meetings and competition.

This purchase was made possible by the generous

donation of photo paper By Marilyn Dorn which we

sold to MNSPC members. The collections were put

towards a new Dell 15 inch, 1920x1080 HD laptop

with 12 GB of ram and a 1TB hard drive. This will

allow us to make full use of our new projector

purchased earlier. In addition, Bill Dixon donated a

Microsoft Office license so we can show HD quality

PowerPoint presentations many of our speakers use.

We are extremely grateful to Marilyn Dorn and Bill Dixon for their generosity.

Within the last year we have purchased a new HD projector, lavalier and hand held

microphones and the new laptop. FPDDC is also looking into purchasing a new

projector screen that will display HD quality images. This completes our equipment

upgrades.

Exhibits

I hung the new show, ‘Macro/Close-up’ on Saturday, April 6. We have a total of 20 images on display.

The exhibitors include: Susan Gajda, Barbara Dunn, Marcia Nye, Sheila Newenham, Bill Dixon, Steve

Ornberg, Jim Hutchinson and myself. We’ve already had one sale: Marcia Nye’s, “The Bug Zapper”!

Congratulations to Marcia!!!

I plan to take down the ‘Macro/Close-up’ exhibit on the July 6-7 weekend and replace it with our next

show, ‘Abstracts & Intimate Landscapes’. Exhibitors can drop off their images for the new show when

they come to the July 1 meeting, and the ‘Macro/Close-up’ images will be available for pick up from

the storage area after July 7.

The ‘Abstracts & Intimate Landscapes’ show theme is new to our exhibits so here’s a couple of web

references for those who are less familiar with them.

For ‘Abstracts’, check out ‘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_photography’ and

‘https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=abstract+photograph’For ‘Intimate

Landscapes’, check out ‘https://improvephotography.com/51468/top-10-tips-for-photographing-

intimate-landscapes/’ and ‘http://www.artnet.com/artists/eliot-porter/’. This new show provides an

opportunity to exercise a whole lot of creativity within our overall Nature theme and I hope that you’ll

embrace this opportunity.

If you have any questions, drop me a note at fred@marklandimaging.com. –Fred Drury

8 May 2019

Save the Dates!

Once again, we are teaming with Lou & Todd Nettlehorst for a hands-on workshop that will concentrate this time on visual design. Using the Four Principles of Picture Organization:

Dominance, Balance, Proportion and Pattern, along with the building blocks of visual design; Light, Shape, Texture, Line and

Perspective, you will learn to create images with a fresh eye. As before, we will have a presentation before the hands-on

workshop and a feedback session afterwards. Sessions and outdoor workshop (weather permitting) will be at Mayslake on:

Oct 7th Monday - Inform

Oct 13th Sunday - Practice

Oct 21 Monday - Feedback Cost will be $60 and sign-up will be available through the FPDDC website (date to be announced). So, in the meantime block out

your calendar for another exciting, informative event.

9 May 2019

Mayslake Nature Study and Photography Club Approved Budget for FY 2020 as of May 1, 2019

2019-20 Notes About the 2019 - 20 Budget

As required by the club constitution and by-laws, the

Board must approve a budget during the last quarter

of the prior fiscal year. This budget for FY 20 was

approved at the Board meeting on March 20. It also

meets the requirement that the annual revenue

budget is at least as much as projected expenditures.

Finally, per club by-laws, it is now published in the

May issue of FOCUS.

This budget supports the Board's understanding of

what you, the membership, wants the club to

continue to use your membership fees for. In

addition to fixed costs such as insurance, CACCA

and PSA memberships, there is continued support for

competition, high quality programs and the annual

Member's Night. On the Revenue side, we continue to

be heavily dependent on annual membership fees; it

is good to see that our membership has been

increasing over the past year.

During the past year, we have had to invest heavily in

new equipment; the projector and a new audio

system. We are also in the midst of purchasing a

new laptop to drive the higher resolution of the new

projector and new competition software. Fortunately,

we have been able to generate additional revenues to

partially cover the cost of the new equipment.

Finally, our working relationship with our hosts, the

Forest Preserve District continues to evolve. We are

hoping for another "special" event such as the

Nettlehorst Macro workshop to generate some added

revenue this coming year. In the meantime, our cash

reserve and overall financial position is solid.

If you have a comment or question about this budget,

please contact me, either by Email -

northrockies@aol,com or by phone, 708-927-7215.

Thanks for your membership and continued support.

Chuck Klingsporn - Treasurer

Income Budget

Membership Dues $2,085.00

Photo Classes $150.00

Banquet $600.00

Mat Board Sales $80.00

Misc. Revenue $30.00

Total $2,945.00

Expenses

Programs: $600.00

Club Competitions: Supplies - Judges $190.00

Mat Boards $100.00

Equipment $275.00

Web Site $138.00

Social:

Meeting Refreshments $90.00

Annual Dinner $600.00

General Club Costs:

Liability Insurance $375.00

Photo Exhibitions $100.00

CACCA Membership $160.00

PSA Membership $45.00

Other/Misc. $245.00

Total $2,918.00