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From the Chairman's Desk By Michael Rosenbaum, PPSA |
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Our 2009-10 season and it has been an exciting one with a lot of variety in chapter programs, field trips, and exhibition venues. We began with two great nature photographers in our September 2009 program/luncheon, Barry Wilkins and Jill Sneesby, from South Africa. They were en route to PSA where they would be keynote presenters. Barrie and Jill showed us about 10 audio-visual presentations that surpassed our expectations. These ranged from the sand dunes of Namibia to hot air balloons in New Mexico to a hilarious rendition of "12 Nights of Christmas" done with animal images and other great digital slideshows on a variety of subjects. Our November 2009 program was a presentation and model shoot coordinated by Jim Mahoney, APSA, PPSA (our PSA regional director). Jim gave an extremely informative slideshow and discussion in the morning about photographing models, and in the afternoon we had two set-ups with studio lights and several models for members to put into practice what they had learned. We have subsequently seen some of these images get high scores at our local camera clubs. In January we began with a terrific presentation by the dynamic Ron Magill, public relations person for the Metrozoo in Miami. Ron showed us slideshows of his trips to Botswana, Alaska and the Gallapagos, in addition to short videos of the birth of a giraffe and the hatching of a harpy eagle. After our luncheon, we were treated to a showing of the PSA Nature Division International Exhibition as it was shown at the PSA Conference in Yellowstone. This was provided by a new chapter member, Shiv Verma, 1st Vice Chairman of PSA's Nature Division. We also viewed the 2009 PSA Chapters Showcase. We had over 70 attendees for this program. We are now getting ready for a March program, which will feature Tom Icklan, APSA, doing a presentation on HDR in the morning, focusing on how to use Photomatix on only one exposure (rather than the usual 3 to 5) to obtain "High Dynamic Range" images. This will be followed by a three-course luncheon and then we will see the PSA program, "An Invitation to Charleston," which was presented at the last PSA conference due to the fact that the site of the 2010 conference will be Charleston, SC. And the fact that the conference will take place in Charleston is exciting for many of us--it is much for accessible (even by automobile) than the recent conferences which were held much further from us. We recently had our first field trip of 2010 when we met at Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Delray Beach, FL, to photograph and then go off to breakfast. Our next field trip is an overnight, scheduled for March 12-13. We will spend the night at a motel in Vero Beach, go out for dinner, and go for a dawn cruise on two pontoon boats on Blue Cypress Lake, home of over 100 osprey nests. This will provide an exceptional opportunity to be in a beautiful setting and make some great images. Our chapter has also been exhibiting locally and on the internet. We have had two exhibits running concurrently from January 1 to March 31. The first has been a small exhibit of Florida nature photography at the Daggerwing Nature Center in Boca Raton, FL. A number of our members have participated. The other exhibit has been on the PSA website. We had the opportunity of being the first chapter to exhibit in this venue, with 14 of our photographers represented. (You may access this exhibit by clicking PSA Exhibit. Also, in a couple of weeks our Vice Chairman, Barbara Miller, FPSA, PPSA, will begin collecting images for the Everglades Chapter to participate in PSA's 2010 Chapters Showcase. We look forward to sharing our photographic interests on our field trips, programs/luncheons, and local exhibits, and we intend to continue to grow the chapter to meet the needs of PSA members throughout South Florida. We also are eager to receive suggestions from our members on improving the chapter, so feel free to contact any of our board members. Michael Rosenbaum, PPSA |
