Category: Blog

15 Jul 2026 Themes: Portfolio Project; 4th July/America’s 250th/SD Fair

Another lively Zoom meeting with the several regular and semi-regular participants. We discussed the SD Fair and the photos members of our group had accepted. I compiled the photos three members of the group had accepted, some winning ribbons or honorable mentions: https://ucsdphoto.group/2026/07/2026-san-diego-fair-photos-from-ucsd-phig/

This month’s theme is the third & final installment of the Portfolio Project. The idea was to compile 30 or more images of similar style, subject, or technique. The portfolio theme can continue if participants want to keep working on the project.
The alternate themes were Fourth of July, America’s 250th birthday, and SD Fair. Many of us visited the SD Fair to check out the photography exhibition, take photos, eat fried Oreos, people-watch and go to photography workshops. The photos we had accepted into the exhibition are here.

Barb – shared more architectural photos to add to her portfolio. Architectural photos are often great subjects for black&white so she’s exploring DXO Nik Collection’s Silver Efex post-processing. Stay tuned for black&white versions of the color photos if she likes the results.

Barbara – shared photos for her street photography portfolio. She uses her Nikon Zf’s black&white mode to improve the visualization of photos in black&white. A handy & useful feature of this camera.

Cathy – shared more photos of San Diego Landmarks. This month’s iconic locales were landscapes.

Norm – added panoramic images to his immersive 360 panoramas. Some of these are crops of his 360º panos, some rectallinear versions. He already has a nicely produced portfolio at his website normolsonphoto.com. So we’ll compile the images he’s shared during the meetings with links to 360cities.net and his website.

John – shared some 4th of July/America’s 250th parade photos from Bristol, RI. The parade participants marched in wilting summer upper 90º heat (+100º heat index).
Bristol Rhode Island hosts America’s oldest continuous Fourth of July celebration, which began in 1785. The nearly two-week event spans from Flag Day on June 14 to July 4, featuring concerts, a parade, and fireworks.
John splits his time as docent between the Star of India Maritime Museum in San Diego and the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol.

Sharon – shared more of her favorite backyard decorticating eucalyptus tree bark photos. These become a humorous Rorschach test.

Jim – continued his Japan portfolio with 16×9 crop/style. Inspired by Cathy’s San Diego Iconic Locations, Jim added more iconic locations in Japan. His multiple trips from 2007-2023 have been limited to southern Japan, visiting Tokyo, Yokohama, Hakone, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara (deer city), & Kagoshima.
His photos of Diabutsu of Kamakuri were from 2010. Photos of Kagoshima & its volcano, Sakurajima, were taken in 2007. Sakurajima, one of the world’s most active volcanoes erupts hundreds of times a year, sending dramatic ash clouds into the sky on an almost daily basis.
If you visit Japan in April, the cherry blossoms are blooming, especially around Kyoto, adding to its charm.

2026 San Diego Fair Photos from UCSD PhIG

We had a total of 23 photos accepted out of over 4000 entries. Getting accepted is awesome but winning a ribbon in your category is even better. Here are the entries from Cathy, Barb, and Jim that were accepted. The ribbon winners are at the top.

Cathy 1st Place “Mechanical” Category

Cathy’s 2nd Place “At The Fair” Category

Cathy Honorable Mention “Abstract”

Barb Donovan 3rd Place “At The Fair” Category

Barb Donovan 3rd Place “All Other Plants & Trees” Category

Barb Donovan Honorable Mention “All Other Plants & Trees” Category

Barb Donovan Honorable Mention “Architecture & Cityscsapes” Category

Barb Donovan’s accepted entries

Jim didn’t win any ribbons this year but here are his five accepted entries

17 Jun 2026 Theme – Portfolio Project; Color

Our June 17th meeting themes this month were: the continuation of the portfolio project, and “color”. An alternate theme for everyone but especially those not participating in the portfolio project. After catching up on everyone’s travels, goings-on, and SD Fair photography ribbon winners. We shared an eclectic variety of photos:

BarbD – continues with her dual portfolio ideas – architecture and “green”. She uses a compact 1″ Sony RX100VI pocket travel camera. It produces photos of suprisingly great quality with little or no post-processing. I’ve started carrying mine around a lot more, inspired by her stuff.

Green

Architecture

Barbara – continues her black&white and color street photography porfolio. She also captured photos of Rock-n-Roll Marathoners later in the race.

Cathy – has been out-of-town a bunch recently but she submitted photos for her “San Diego Landmarks” portfolio. We browsed through them during the meeting and have questions saved for her next participation. We also want to discuss her ribbon-winning SD Fair photos. A dedicated webpage for these images, including Barb’s will be forthcoming.

Gary – continues to share images from his recent trip to Arizona, particularly Antelope Canyon. Definitely makes you want to go there with your camera more than once. He also revisited (reprocessed) his elk in snowstorm photo. Revisiting and reprocessing an image is a great way to fine-tune your photo processing skills. Often improving or re-interpreting an image.

Mikky – apologies to Mikky, I mucked up his photo downloads from OneDrive. Why can’t Macs and PCs get along better in this day-n-age? He had a great group of portfolio images centered around birds of prey, particularly Peregrine Falcons. Also some long exposures of the San Diego Bay Skyline that smooths out the choppy water. He’ll go first at the July meeting since this all happened late in the meeting.

Norm – expands on his 360 panoramic image portfolio. Of everyone in the group, he has the most specialize and technical group of images. I respect his focus and the amount of effort to create one immersive image from a set of fisheye or wideangle photos. Please click on the thumbnail to connect to his 360cities.net version for the full immersive experience.

Sharon – is not building a specific portfolio although she could compile her black&white prints into one. She worked on the “color” theme this month, particularly her favorite shade of blue. Focusing on a particular color when out taking photos is a wonderful exercise. It’s surprising how a particular color can be everywhere and make a great image.

Jim – continues his Japan porfolio, focusing on 16×9 horizontal compositions in particular. Although many photographs in his archive are vertical – a suprisingly large percentage he realizes during this project. He’s recomposed verticals or selected horizontal compositions to crop into this semi-panoramic format.

20 May 2026 Theme – Portfolio Project

I proposed a portfolio project for our May-June-July meetings. Participants were asked to put together a group of images of similar style (ie black&white), theme (ie travel), or subject (ie birds, architecture). Here are the first group of images for our portfolios:

Barbara – her portfolio style is her recent interest in street photography using her Nikon Zf camera.

Barb Donovan – Barb shared two sets of photos – “Green” and “Architecture”. We’ll have to see if she’ll continue with both or work on one.

Green

Architecture

Gary – Gary was on the road during the meeting but managed to send three photos to share. His portfolio will most likely be a compilation of his travel landscapes or kayaking images.

Norm – Norm has a particular speciality – 360deg imagery – that is very unique to the group. He did not use a 360deg camera that is currently available. He took a series of images using a superwide or fisheye lens then stitched them together using PTGui software. He processes the image set into a 360deg panoramic image which, when view on 360cities.net, is immersive and interactive. Click on the panoramic image to open it’s 360deg link.

Jim – Jim traveled to Japan several times and wants to compile his favorite photos. It is not meant to be a travel log or photographic journal but a gathering of his favorite images.

15 Apr 2026 Themes: Before/After; Clouds; Spring-Flowers

The themes of Spring-Is-In-The-Air and Flowers are reoccuring springtime themes we enjoy each year so this April was no different. Lately, with the recent rain, the skies have been filled with interesting Clouds, great for photos. Lastly, sharing Before/After photos make for great conversation. We shared images straight-out-of-camera (SOOC) and processed. Cropping and post-processing techniques used by the different photographers in our group can be educational and generate some insightful feedback.
My choice of themes can often influence meeting attendance so I am always glad when members we haven’t seen in awhile participate. Here are this month’s photos:

Barbara – had some great Cloud images that I did not track down until after the meeting unfortunately – sorry Barbara. I really like the b&w bench photo – amazing clouds.

Barb – focused on Before/After, showing two pairs of images, 1st SOOC, 2nd cropped & processed – beautiful!

Cathy – also shared SOOC plus cropped & processed images. Her wonderful boat image, taken with her iphone, caught some amazing clouds & late afternoon sunlight. It was one of ten of her photos accepted into the SD Fair Photography Competition.

Gary – share Before/After photos which also fit the Spring/Flowers themes.

Mikky – one of Mikky’s favorite subjects is Flowers. He shared a variety of flower photos with beautiful bokeh (blurry background). He also included a favorite Cloud photo from Bryce Canyon.

Sharon – Sharon’s photos always make me smile. They always have a touch of humor or irony. She’s got a eucalypus tree is her yard that sheds some artful &/or humorous pieces of bark. She also shared a photo of vibrant flowers from her backyard.

Norm – shared some wonderful lightbox Flower photos that generated a lot of interest and discussion on backgrounds and lighting. Some images were processed with the Orton Effect which diffuses edges and creates a dreamy, soft focus effect.

Jim – shared some springtime photos from his recent Joshua Tree National Park Easter trip. Most of the trees and plants were in some stage of bloom. He combined the Spring/Flowers with Before/After, sharing SOOC photos followed by cropped and processed images. His Safari Park vulture and eagle shots were for Before/After. The eagle shot demonstrated the recent reflections removal AI tool in Lightroom/Photoshop, greatly improving the photo taken through netting.
The last two images were three minute long exposures of Clouds over Mission San Luis Rey.

18 Mar 2026 Themes: Animals/Safari Park; Black&White; Macro/Bokeh

After February’s meeting focus on the San Diego International Photography Competition. This month’s meeting was a follow-up with discussions and photo-sharing partially focused on SD Fair photo categories.
We had an informal meetup in February at San Diego Safari Park since it was free Senior admission month. Three of us explored the grounds, hunting for interesting animal behavior and general practice.
Black&white is always an interesting style of photography that many of us pursue, often presenting our photos in both color and b&w. This month was no different. Plus Lois mentioned that black&white is an under-represented category at the SD Fair Competition. Since they only accept (have room to display) ~1200 photos and they receive tens of thousands of entries. Any strategy to help gain entry in the Fair’s exhibit is useful.
The last category this month was Macro – Bokeh which, in my opinion, is one of the hardest styles of photography. Finding the right combination of critical focus for a sharp image AND blurry background is challenging. Here are the photos shared this month, some were “open-theme”:

Barb Donovan – has some interest in entering photos into this year’s SD Fair Photography Competition. Here are a few for the black&white category and a wonderful image for the documentary category.

Barbara – continues to explore street photography with her new full-frame Nikon Zf. She also loves photographing birds so, of course, there are some great bird photos. Using her tried-n-true Olympus/OM System gear, she caught some wonderful insect-flower images.

Cathy – is our most experienced SD Fair exhibitor, even participating in a panel at last year’s Fair after being awarded some ribbons. She is also great at finding appropriate titles for her photographs, an under-appreciated skill. Here are some contender for possible entry into this year’s competition, many for the black&white category. I’m sure she has plenty of others for consideration.

Gary – has a few fantastic images he’s considering for entry into the SD Fair competition. A particular favorite is the Boat Jetty on the Lake with some amazing light in the background. He also shared some photos from his recent trip to the Grand Canyon where a sudden snowstorm interrupted his travel plans.
Gary participated in the Safari Park meetup and shared some of his favorites. The gorilla relaxing and lion snacking are excellent examples of catching amusing animal behavior that can elevate a zoo safari.
He is also considering submitting one of his favorite Dios de los Muertos portraits in this year’s fair.

Sharon – dug into her archives for an interesting photogram – a technique of photography done without a camera. Photographers like Man Ray explored this form of photography thoroughly enough they dubbed it “Rayograph”. Placing physical objects directly on a sheet of photo paper (or film), exposing with light, then developing was a darkroom process done without a camera – creative fun!

Jim – took a recent daytrip to Sonny Bono Salton Sea Wildlife Refuge looking for burrowing owls and water fowl. No owls unfortunately, and the Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese aggregated on the farside of the ponds. So, to make the best of a long drive, he pivoted and focused on the great light at sunset and blue hour.
Jim joined the Safari Park meetup, practicing long lens and macro-with-flash photography.
A recent visitor to his backyard hummingbird feeder warranted a couple photos. He had never seen an iridescent orange Rufous Hummingbird before.
Lastly, he demonstrated the new “reflection removal” feature in Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop by removing the glare off the enclosure glass at the zoo.

18 Feb 2026 Meeting: Guest Speaker Lois Fong-Sakai

During our February UCSD Photography Interest Group Meeting, Lois Fong-Sakai, one of the photo coordinators for the San Diego County Fair Photo Show, gave a comprehensive presentation on their International Photography Competition.
Her hour-long talk discussed all aspects of the photography competition rules, categories, judging and photo preparation & presentation. She also included a short video of last year’s 1st place winners.
There are two video clips: the 1st is her entire Powerpoint talk; the second is a short Q&A with a few members of the photography interest group.

Short Q&A with remaining meeting participants

21 Jan 2026 Themes: Travel; Landscapes/Oceanscapes

The UCSD Photography Interest Group’s first meeting of 2026 was Wednesday Jan 21st. Some faces we haven’t seen in awhile – Norm and Karen – were a welcome addition to the usual participants. They did not share any new images but were part of the discussions and planning for future themes and meetups.
This month’s themes were: Travel – always popular; Landscapes/Oceanscapes – appropriate for the recent King Tides outings and travels. (Holidays was the third category but no images were shared.)

Barbara – continues to practice with her new Nikon Zf with 40mm f2 lens. Coming from micro-four thirds Olympus/OM Systems, the larger Nikon full frame camera is bulkier than her more familiar system. She shared a group of images from a vintage car gathering at Liberty Station, and a colorful hummingbird photo.

Cathy – took a daytrip out to Anza-Borrego and captured the wildflower blooms from all the recent rains we’ve had. She used three different setups to test and compare the results. She photographed with her full frame Canon R6II with 24-105mm f4 lens; her Canon Rebel SL3 with 90mm f2 macro lens; and her iPhone 15 Pro Max ultrawide. Her other images were from King Low Tide of a starfish (they’ve made a recent recovery & their population is booming). Plus a long exposure at Wind-n-Sea surf shack, at sunrise. This is an ongoing project for her.

Gary – has been re-processing some travel photos using Lightroom’s HDR feature to bring out detail and improve contast. His images show definite improvement and better color contrast. Gary’s favorite place to photograph is Yosemite, often visiting the national park a couple times a year. He also likes to invert reflection photos when the clarity of the reflection adds a twist to the image.

John – shared some older King Tide images from Del Mar’s dog beach where the super high tides really affect beach access. The last King Tide around Jan 2nd, he tried to photograph the same beach but the addition of 750k of sand had changed the beach topography. So trying to measure and photograph this month’s King Tide was a no-go.

Sharon – shared more witty images which she has a real eye. The “no pets” and “T-Rex crossing” photos are easy to miss unless you are really aware of the moment. Her other images were taken on an unusually uncrowded Hotel Del Coronado beach in Dec 2025.

Jim – returned from a recent 5-day trip to Death Valley. He shared a bunch of landscape images from it’s iconic landmarks – Mesquite Dunes, Zabriskie Point, Badwater Basin/Lake Manly, & Artist Palette. Jim had one clear night to try out the Seestar S50 smart telescope he got for Christmas. This single image is actually a stacked mosaic of 180 20sec exposures.
After returning to San Diego, he photographed the King Tide Jan 4th at La Jolla’s Children’s Cove. A mainly overcast morning had some sun break through, creating a favorable backlight.

17 Dec 2025 Themes: Holidays; Weather; Portraits

Our last Photography Interest Group Zoom meeting of 2025 had 8 participants. The “holidays” theme was appropriate for the season. This theme will continue next month since Christmas & New Years are not here yet. The second theme – weather – seemed appropriate since we’ve actually had some rain & fog, plus King Tides, since last meeting. We scheduled a King Tides meetup in early December but the waves were small so not much drama at the coastline. Gary had some images from November’s King Tides which were what we were hoping for. Hopefully, our January King Tides will be more photogenic & dramatic. Last category was Portraits, and there was an eclectic variety of portraits shared. Here are the images shared:

Sharon – I always enjoy seeing how Sharon interprets the themes each month. There is often humor or a wittiness to her interpretation of the themes. Its hard to view her images without them making you smile. Sharon was the 1st person to submit photos to me and unfortunately I missed adding them to the folders. By the time I realized my mistake, it was 4pm – sorry Sharon, you’ll go 1st next meeting. She only had 4 images so here are her festive holiday images:

Barbara – Barbara went to Ocean Beach during Dec 5th’s King Tide and the small surf was perfect for surfers shots but not dramatic high-tide waves crashing. She makes great use of her OM System camera and lens for sports, birds, insects and wildlife. But tempted by the Black Friday sales and the group’s persistent full-frame gear-talk. She was inspired to buy a new full-frame Nikon Zf camera with 40mm lens. We look forward to seeing images from her new camera soon.

Barb D – Barb has recently “upgraded” from iPhone photography to a compact but capable Sony RX100VII. It has a 1″ sensor with a 24-200mm fixed zoom lens. It squeezes all of Sony’s bigger camera features into a tiny point-n-shoot. She recently returned from a month-long trip to Japan and shared a variety of wonderful images taken with this pocketable camera. Her images of fog (weather) in Kyoto and Cabrillo Beach coastline during King Tides show off this camera’s output.

Cathy – Cathy gets inspiration from multiple sources and is continually challenging herself. She’s been sharing images from her recent photography trip to Arizona & Utah. This month she shared an amazing double-rainbow taken over AZ’s Horseshoe Bend during a rain storm. An iphone is perfect for when it’s raining and you want to protect your bigger camera. She uses a Canon R6m2 mirrorless camera, Canon Rebel APS-C and an iPhone. A long exposure Christmas-themed ocean & pier shot at blue hour was a particular favorite. Plus a Christmas tree ICM (intentional camera movement) photo shows her creativity.

Gary – Gary shared a recent moonrise photo taken earlier this month on his latest trip to Yosemite. Planning his shot using Photopills, he captured the moon rising in Yosemite Valley. He also shared some portraits from our Nov meetup at Old Town for Dios de los Muertos. Gary had some spectacular surf crashing against the coast from November’s King Tides event. Big waves combined with King Tides are the optimal conditions for showing the power of this event. Gary uses a Nikon Z7 with his favorite 100-400mm lens, plus a 24-70mm for people, and an iPhone when kayaking.

Heather – Heather loves her compact (micro-four-thirds) Panasonic GX85 and never ceases to amaze us with the quality of her images. She has a great eye and timing especially with people photos. Her Do Dah Parade portrait is particularly strong and we think worthy of submission to the SD Fair. She proposes a Pasadena meetup in Nov 2026 for the parade. Her other portrait was from our Dios de los Muertos meetup Nov 1st. Other images were weather-themed and had great depth. Her backup camera is an iPhone proving the best camera is the one you have handy.

Mikky – Mikky visits India frequently and his portraits capture the warmth of his subjects & the culture. One of the motivations for the Portraits theme this month was his excellent “passion-project” portfolio of portraits from Jan 2025. But the majority of this month’s photos were black & white landscapes. A style of photography he hasn’t shared before so the group may be influencing his photography. I know it has affected mine.

Jim – Jim was unable to get out in December so most of the images he shared this month were photos from the Nov 27 2025 Oceanside Annual Thanksgiving Holiday Turkey Trot . The other holiday image was from a 2019/2020 trip to Italy at New Years. His single b&w portrait was a homage to photographer Diane Arbus’s “Child with a toy grenade in NYC Central Park“.

PhIG Founder Jerry Vaughn

The UCSD Photography Interest Group founding member, our mentor, and friend Jerry Vaughn passed away Oct 10 2025. We found out this sad news during our Oct 15th Zoom meeting. His good friend and group member John shared a moonrise photo taken standing next to Jerry during a group outing and told us the heartbreaking news.
Jerry started this group in the fall of 2015. He secured the Photography Interest Group space for our in-person PhIG meetings in the Retirement Resource Center (RRC). This was in the center of campus near the Chancellor’s complex in an old Camp Matthews building. The first meeting was in November 2015.
This photo was in 2015 when he received the UCSD Volunteer of the Year Award.

In 2020, PhIG went to Zoom meetings because of Covid and we’ve been meeting via Zoom ever since. He asked for someone to take over as group leader while he dealt with health issues. I volunteered as interim group leader, running our meetings while he got better. Tragically, that didn’t happen.
There is not much I can say since I only knew him a short time. But during that time he inspired my photography and desire to be a better photographer. His friendship and comradery, and that of everyone in the group, motivated me to become the group’s leader. Everyone in the group will miss his guidance, good-humor, inspiration, insightful feedback, and generous technical advice. JRW Oct 2025

You can view his Flickr account photos here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/187544510@N06/with/49705606001

Here is a link to his the images he shared during our Zoom meetings:
https://ucsdphoto.group/category/albums/jerry-vaughn/


I was able to find more background information on Jerry from the UCSD 2014-2015 Volunteer of the Year web page: https://retirement.ucsd.edu/volunteer/index.html#2015—jerry-vaughn

Text from that page:
“We would like to share with all of our members, the recipient of the prestigious “Volunteer of the Year” for 2014 – 2015 is: Jerry Vaughn.

This year at the RA Spring Volunteer Luncheon, we surprised our exemplary volunteer, Jerry Vaughn with the news that he was the recipient of the UCSD Retirement Association’s Volunteer of the Year Award. We would like to introduce Jerry to our members.

“I grew up on a farm/ranch in Eastern Colorado where my father raised wheat, corn barley, cattle and hogs with a smidgen of other crops and critters. When people talk about how small their graduating class was I always laugh – K through 12 at my school was about 80 students.

After graduating from Northeastern Junior College with a degree in applied electronics, I enlisted in the Navy where I spent 10 years, mostly on fast attack submarines, as a reactor operator. While on shore duty I attended San Diego State University part time and, after leaving the Navy, returned there and graduated with a degree in computer science.

I started my career at UCSD while finishing my degree working at the Hillcrest hospital in the pulmonary division. If you have ever done the breath test where they tell you to blow! blow! blow! – I helped write one of the first computerized versions of that. After a year I moved to the Human Subjects Research Lab where the primary focus was on evaluating equipment for medical equipment companies such as ventilators, oximeters, and metabolic monitors in a patient environment. Programming, statistics, data management and engineering were useful skills for that task.

After about 5 years Dr. Dave Burns, the principal investigator I was working for, was selected to be the scientific editor for the Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health and my focus slowly changed to the health effects of tobacco. At 10 years, a new group was formed by Dave and we moved to the division of Family and Preentive Medicine with the entire focus on tobacco and health issues associated with its use.

My volunteer work also related to tobacco as I served as a member and chair of the San Diego Tobacco Control Coalition, as a member and chair of the San Diego Youth Task Force, as a volunteer for the American Lung Association and as a member of the San Diego Department of Health Services Tobacco Control Grant Review Committee.

During that time we were under contract with the state of California and the National Institutes of Health for state level and national level monographs relating to tobacco and health. The topics ranged from determining the most effective smoking cessation methods to how to prevent youth uptake as well modeling smoking related diseases to aid in forecasting health and financial benefits of cessation and reduced uptake.

In 2007 after 25 plus years, I decided I was not busy enough so I retired and started pursing other interests including photography, travel, volunteering my software skills to non-profits, just plain old learning, tinkering in electronics (which lead to me getting my HAM license) and enjoying the family.

Jerry and his wife Alice are two mainstays in the center of the RA Gazette Groupies, the group of members who, every month come out to volunteer a few hours to assist us with Gazette post-production. But, in addition to his years of service to the RA in this area, Jerry stepped up and provided extraordinary service over the last year. We have wanted to put together a new tracking system for our Chancellor’s Scholars Program, which is maturing nicely, with eight years of students moving through our mentoring and communications and leadership development programs. We wanted a unique CSP database which would keep all student data neatly sorted and allow us to better report on the programs successes. Jerry took on this challenge, and for a many months, analyzed, programmed, tested and debugged an entirely new system, tailored especially for the CSP. Jerry came in to fix and tweak the new system so frequently for a while, that it felt like he was part of the RRC staff! Our new system is all finished, quite an achievement for Jerry, and for the RRC.”