Van Wert Area Photography Club 3/15/16

By Rex Dolby

The Van Wert Area Photography Club held its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, March 10.  Secretary Rex Dolby reported that the IRS had sent a letter informing us that because of the way our mission statement was written, we were not eligible for 501(c)(3) status, and if we did not amend it promptly, we would risk having to resubmit the entire application. Dolby had done the research and copied an amendment statement from an IRS publication for discussion.  After considering only few suggestions, the amendment was passed as presented by a unanimous vote.   The amendment was also sent to the Ohio Secretary of State to amend our Articles of Incorporation. Once that is achieved, we can then apply for the Ohio 501(c)(3) status.

Vice President Randy Shellenbarger showed pictures he had taken on the club’s recent photo trip to the Wright-Patterson AFB Museum near Dayton.  Randy had a wide variety of pictures that really showed  the displays well.

President Stuart Jewett reminded the group that the reason the club had a place to meet was the agreement that we would take the Civic Theatre’s publicity and competition pictures. The problem is the lack of having a uniform way to do the job because of individual lighting set-ups and equipment.  He proposed that we inventory the club’s lighting and backdrops to decide what was usable, repairable, or needed to be pitched.  Items in the latter category would then be researched for replacement.

Once we are using consistent lighting and backgrounds, we would create a handbook providing the position, angle and power settings of the lights to the subject; the position of the subject to the backdrop, lights and camera; the position, angle, and power of the highlight; information about the framework to hold the backdrop, and where it is to be placed.  Such a handbook would assure that future results would match previous work.

Commenting on the photo trip to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, Ind., Stuart said that it is an amazing museum of some of the most beautiful automobiles ever produced.   Both he and Randy Shellenbarger have albums of photos from the museum on their Facebook page. Enjoy!