Autumn colors highlighted by the sun as it burns through the morning fog.

On Saturday Jonna and I attended the Fall 2011 meeting of the Nature Photographers Of The Pacific Northwest. I know their VP from the local photo club I belong to, EPS. Bob needed some help and Jonna worked the check in desk for print competition and I judged in the Digital Wildlife category. I’m guessing that we had a turn out of about 300 photographers from all over the Northwest. I got a chance to see some very good work by some pretty darn good photographers.

The one thing I didn’t see was members of the under 40 or so age group. I see the same thing our local club. I would really like to encourage younger photographers to try and make time in your busy lives to attend some of these functions. NPPNW only meets twice a year and it is only $15 to attend. You will get the chance to meet a lot of “old school” shooters that don’t leave it all to the computer in the camera to make images. They use the manual settings and take things into their own hands. It is amazing what you can learn from them. I’m 60 and got into photography on a serious scale pretty late in life. I love talking to and listening to the old hands. You can learn so much from them. They will make you want to get out and shoot and try new things to make your images better.

One thing I have learned and one of the things I love about photography is when I’m looking through that viewfinder or at that LCD screen in live mode is that you are focused on that one thing. You don’t have time to be thinking about every day problems, your other work or whatever else may be clogging your brain. It really is good for you.

While not a huge deal by any means I did manage to get a 4th place in Scenic Prints with the image above.

Have a great week.