Category: 2026 Meetings

UCSD Photography Interest Group > Blog > Themes > 2026 Meetings

SD Fair

Posted on July 15, 2026July 21, 2026 by jrwilkinson

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.

The glowing white appearance comes from marble chips blown into the exterior stucco plaster

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.

17 Jun 2026 Theme – Portfolio Project; Color

Posted on June 17, 2026July 2, 2026 by jrwilkinson

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

Posted on May 20, 2026May 31, 2026 by jrwilkinson

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

Posted on April 15, 2026April 21, 2026 by jrwilkinson

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

Posted on March 18, 2026March 30, 2026 by jrwilkinson

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

Posted on February 22, 2026February 22, 2026 by jrwilkinson

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

Posted on January 21, 2026January 23, 2026 by jrwilkinson

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.