Bill called the meeting to order at 1:00.

Present were: Suzy, Lynn, Mary Ellen, Bob, Tim and Mary.

During our usual round-table catch-up, Bob discussed photographing the recent lunar eclipse. Bill showed a photograph, “Honeybees on Crocuses,” for which he received Honorable Mention in the March/April issue of NH Magazine.  Way to go, Bill!

Bob reported a treasury balance of $658.30.  The annual dues were collected.

Bill ran a slide show of this month’s Photo Contest (“Story Telling”) without titles. We decided to vote before seeing the captions so that everyone could vote based on how well each photo told a story. Bill’s photo of a homeless man outside the World Trade Center won the contest. As we viewed the slide show a second time, members explained the story each photo engendered in their mind, and then the photographer told us the intended story.  This took some time but the result was a more in-depth discussion and critique of the photos. <In the interest of time, we skipped Bill’s topic about “My Storytelling Journey”>.

The monthly edit challenge photos were critiqued.

Bill then gave a fascinating presentation called “The Stories Behind the Stories”, in which he revealed the true background story of two famous photographs: “Migrant Mother” and “Afghan Girl”. The main message was how it is important, when photographing a person, to actually spend time talking to the subject and learning their real backstory.

The subject of next month’s Photo Contest is “Complementary Colors”. In place of a presentation on this topic, Bill handed out info about a website called “52 Frames”. Here you will find examples of different challenges including “Complementary Colors”. He also handed out a list of past Photo Contest topics and possible future topics. He suggested we use specific topics in the future, avoiding “Open”, thereby giving members something more concrete to critique.

The meeting adjourned at 3:00. Scott will be the moderator in April.