Our next workshop night, on Tuesday 20th February 2024, has been designated a “Gear Night”.

For those of you unfamiliar with this concept (the last one was possibly before COVID), this night is where we focus on improving our familiarity with our camera equipment. But that’s not all, we also use this as an opportunity to swap/buy/sell gear amongst members – I’ll come back to this shortly.

Gear Discussion Groups

For the main part of the evening we will divide up into groups (tables) according to the make/vendor of our gear. Each table will have a designated member who owns the same brand of camera as the others on the table and will help lead the discussion.

To kick things off, there will be some prepared tasks that we will ask everyone to do – I hope this will inject a bit of fun into the exercise. More importantly, I hope this will get the conversation started at each table, and after those 6 tasks, each table can take the conversation forward according to the needs/wishes of the group.

Swap/Buy/Sell Gear

At some point in the evening, we’ll move over to the swap/sell/buy activity. If the gear involved is unique to a brand (e.g. Olympus), such as a lens, then this part of the evening may well start off at the ‘brand’ table. We’ll also have a couple of tables set up for selling ‘generic’ gear, such as tripods etc.

Advertising Gear For Sale

As preparation for the swap/buy/sell segment, members are invited (or even encouraged) to post items for sale on the club members Facebook group, or via the members email group (especially if there are more expensive items, such as lenses, camera bodies, etc.). The FB group is the preferred mechanism for advertising gear as each email to all members needs to be vetted and ‘sent’ which creates work for our team, so please only use email if you are not on FB. You may wish to negotiate a deal offline and simply use the night as an opportunity to exchange the gear.

To be crystal clear, any goods/monies exchanged through this event is a matter between the members concerned only – the club will not be involved in any way, and does not offer any warranties around goods, equipment condition, and/or advice on price or good value. Any and all issues relating to goods, payments etc., is a matter for the members involved only, and caveat emptor is advised. The club is only providing the opportunity for members to get together to ‘swap’.

This is usually a fun evening, involving a high level of interaction between members with ‘like’ equipment. There is a good chance everyone will take away something, if only the realisation that you really need to spend more time getting to know your gear!

I hope you are looking forward to it. I know I am. See you there at the Mount Waverley Community Centre, starting at the usual time of 7:30pm.

On Tuesday March 15 we have our monthly workshop being held at the Mount Waverley Community Centre in the main hall commencing at 7:30PM. This month our guest will be Craig Wetjen presenting Portrait Photography.

You are right to be thinking that Craig’s name seems familiar to you – he was our judge for the club’s end of year competitions last year. Craig has over three decades of experience in the industry and has won countless awards. He has published his own book in the portrait genre, Men and Their Sheds, and has been involved in teaching at a tertiary level for many years. Craig is an enthusiastic and engaging presenter and we are thrilled that Craig is joining us again for this workshop.

You may note that our set subject for the club’s May competition (due for submission on April 5th) is “Portrait”, making this a very timely workshop and I am sure Craig will be providing plenty of valuable tips.

With regards to COVID-19, Monash Council have advised that masks are no longer mandatory in the Hall, although other restrictions are still in place:

1. Attendees must be fully vaccinated to enter a community facility & provide proof to your group representative;
2. attendees must check into the facility via the QR Code or register via the manual registration provided; and
3. use hand sanitiser on entry & through your occupation of the facility.

We hope to see you there from 7:30PM tomorrow (March 15).

We have a couple of things happening tonight over Zoom.

First up, we have the club’s AGM commencing at 7:30PM. I appreciate this may not be everyone’s cup-of-tea, but it is an important event on the club calendar.

The AGM will be immediately followed by a workshop on post-processing software options led by Geoff Shaw, and ably assisted by John Noble on this occasion. This is the first part of a two-part series looking at alternatives to the usual Adobe suite of products (Bridge, Camera Raw, Photoshop, Lightroom etc.). The second part will be presented later in the year.

See you tonight.
Cheers, Russell.