Eastern Idaho Photographic Society

BY EASTERN IDAHO PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

For those who are new to our club - or this newsletter - this is some of the mechanics of how the Advancement Program is set up. We think it has been a good addition to our club. The Advancement Program was set up as a way to stimulate the growth of photographic skills in our members. The advancement program is designed to force photographers to photograph new and different subjects. The subjects are not what they would normally photograph. This has resulted challenges to the photographers skills, creativity and imagination. At each meeting of the Advancement Program, we ask the participant to bring three digital images or prints (8x10 or larger) to be evaluated by other club members. The images are judged on point system from 6 to 10. We comment on what is liked about the image and also how an image can be approached or done differently. The In other words, we are trying to have a positive critiquing session. Since all members see every image, we have the advantage of finding out what other images might be available for us to see in this locality. Every other month is a theme presentation so that we can find out how differently we each interpret that topic. This also makes a scenic photographer shoot some still life or people pictures and the people photographer look at other parts of their viewfinder. Additionally, we would like for the image to have been shot within the last two years so that you continue to shoot photos and not just dip into your archives of past photos.

We give each participant an additional 5 points for presenting to that night’s session. (If a person does their own darkroom work - or works on the image with their computer, an additional 2 points is awarded per image.) From the above data, you can see that we will usually get from 23 to 35 points in a session. To encourage members to participate in club field trips, we also give bonus points if the image was taken on a club outing.

If we present about 30 images for judging, the participant will have about 300 points at which time will feel that they deserve recognition in the form of a Certificate of Achievement. We really encourage all members to come each third Thursday at 7:30 p.m. to Good Samaritan Society-Idaho Falls Village, 840 Elva Street, and share their images with other members. All people benefit by the sharing of this knowledge. Even if you don’t want to show your images, please come and observe what others are doing with their cameras. You will learn something new and exciting! Every year our membership changes enough so that there is a very fresh view of the world as seen through our photographer’s