Photography Study Group

John Harmon asked me, Thomas Walsh, to post this blog on a photographic study group that I am forming. Personal group meetings will be private, but there will be an open Facebook extension. Though this will not formally be a part of Flatirons Photo Club, several club members have expressed interest in being involved. The following is the first paragraph of the blog on my website, thomaswalshimagery.com. If it interests you, please click on the link at the end of this post for further information.

About eight months ago I was wondering what I could do to grow as much as possible as a photographic artist over a short period of time—a year for example. The project I settled on is an immersion into the technique, methodology, and vision of one master photographer per month for a year, with each artist having their own, distinct spirit and artistic voice. I have decided to open the study to a small number of people who will meet at my house for two hours on the first Wednesday of each month from 7 to 9 p.m. In addition, the program will be open to all photographers through a Facebook group. This may prove to be an ongoing project for the rest of my photographic life; in words oft attributed to Michelangelo aged 83, “I’m still learning.”

For further information, see http://www.twalshimagery.com/Blog/Artist-study-series/Twelve-Months-Twelve-Photographic-Artists.

Photographic Frontiers Study Group Meeting December 6

The next Photographic Frontiers Study Group meeting will feature Flatirons Photo Club’s own Ning Mosberger-Tang. Titling her talk “Storytelling Through the Lens,” Ning says “in a single frame, it’s possible to capture a socially, culturally or historically significant moment. Sometimes our subconsciousness and instinct drove us to push the shutter but the meaning of what was captured wasn’t revealed to us until later. A photo can be much more complex than it looks on the surface and it’s up to us and the viewers to interpret it in context.” Ning will explore this idea with the audience through some photos she took from different corners of the world.

Ning is a Boulder-based event and documentary photographer (http://imagesbyning.com). She has photographed in many countries and has exhibited in Darkroom Gallery (Longmont) and Colorado Photographic Arts Center (Denver).

After Ning’s presentation, and subsequent question and answer period, club members will be able to present photos that they would like to discuss and, if they choose, have critiqued. The primary purpose of this group is education and mutual support.

The meeting will be held December 6 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Boulder Digital Arts, 1600 Range St., Boulder.

Year End Competition Reminder

The Flatirons Photo Club will meet at 7 PM on Thursday, December 14 at Har Hashem Synagogue for the year end meeting and competition. Only members can participate in the  competition. Information on entry rules is available at https://flatironsphotoclub.org/year-end-competition. Please send your digital files by Sunday, December 10th to: [email protected]

There will be a $100 prize for the Best Print and a $50 prize for Best of Show. 

It’s a Potluck, so please bring something to eat or drink to enhance the festivities.

November 9, 2017 Monthly Meeting and Competition

The Flatirons Photo Club will meet Thursday, November 9 at 7PM at Hashem Synagogue (our regular monthly meeting spot). The competition topic is Travel. See the Competition sidebar for submission details.

Beth Wald, a documentary photographer who creates compelling visual narratives that look at our relationship with the natural world — of which we are an integral and often destructive part — will be the featured speaker at the Flatirons Photo Club monthly meeting and competition from 7-9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, at Har HaShem in Boulder.

Wald thrives when working far off the grid and immersing herself in a place and a culture. Her wide-ranging career has taken her to remote corners of the world for many publications, including National Geographic, Smithsonian, The New York Times, Outside and many others. Wald has also partnered with organizations such as the Wildlife Conservation Society, Panthera, Alaska Conservation Foundation, Conservación Patagónica and many others. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Rowell Award, POY among others.

Her presentation: Immersion – Journeys in Light and Time

Wald has explored the rich diversity of natural environments and cultures under threat around the world – from Afghanistan, to Alaska, to the Amazon. In this talk, she will show work and discuss how she got started in photography, her creative evolution and the work she has done documenting a range of places, peoples and issues, including:

  • mountain peoples, wildlife and their interaction in the Pamir Mountains and Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan and Tajikistan;
  • the traditional sustainable harvest of the wool of vicuña that has helped this endangered species recover, and the resurgence of ancient weaving and other indigenous traditions in Puno and Sacred Valley;
  • the creation of national parks in Chilean Patagonia that will protect a range of environments from temperate rainforest to steppe grasslands, and the wildlife that depends on these habitats;
  • the environmental and social impacts of large-scale metal mines being built in a remote region of the Ecuadorean Amazon;
  • groundbreaking work to restore the full range of species that once existed, in a vast wetlands region of Northern Argentina, which is the largest re-wilding project in the Americas.

Her work presents the beauty of pristine and undeveloped corners of the world, and tells visual stories about struggles to save ecosystems, species, ancient knowledge and ways of being and in her presentation, Beth Wald will look at the role that photography can play in these efforts by erasing boundaries between us and distant-endangered places and peoples.