A Notch Above Photography Club
Minutes
October 10 2026

Tim called the meeting to order at 1 PM. Present were Lynn, Bill, Bob, Tim, Mary and Clay.

Catch-up and discussion. Lynn, especially, had been very busy with numerous pursuits.
Bob reported a balance of $828.30 in our account after paying our previous guest
speaker.

Viewed the PC photos and voted. Mary won the PC with her “Sugar Hill Meadow” photo
– praised for its color palette, composition, depth of field and dynamic range.

Prior to reviewing the PC photos, Tim explained how he spent time before the meeting
studying and formulating critiques of each photo, and offered to share his critiques.
Everyone agreed to hear them and pitched in with their own. Members agreed this gave
them a better appreciation of the entries.

Tim then showed two PowerPoint presentations which he said were the last in a series
of three talks about critiquing (the two former were “Storytelling” and “Photos that make
you feel”. He created this series to help everyone become more comfortable with
critiquing.

Interspersed between two PP presentations about critiquing was an interactive exercise
entitled “Critique My Critiquing”. The first team was given 5 minutes to critique one of
Tim’s photos, following which the second team had 5 minutes to critique the critique.
Then the roles were reversed using a different photo. Tim was the “umpire” and
everyone thought both teams did a good job, except there was a tendency to forget
“positive” critiques come first.

By this point, all were feeling more comfortable with the critique process. Tim then
presented a proposal for working critiques into future photo contests using a new
approach. Members will hear the photographer’s intention first, formulate critiques in
their own minds and use that as the basis for voting (not just “I like it”), then share the
critiques as we review the entries after voting. Open discussion will follow.
Bill asked how that will relate to future PC topics. Tim explained we should still select
topics as we have done previously. Critiques should be based on the classical criteria
we reviewed in the PP presentation (composition, artistic and technical), and also on
how well each photo reflects that month’s topic. Voting should be based on your
critiquing.

Following this we viewed two videos about “Shadows in Landscape Photography”. That
is the subject for next month’s PC. Photos should be in the broad category of
“landscape”, not architechtural, portrait or street.

After a brief discussion, members chose to defer field trip plans until the next meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 3 PM.