Great Falls Camera Club

Great Falls, MT
76 Members


Club Admins:

Patrick McDonald

Robyn Mehmke

Hello! Welcome to the Great Falls Camera Club Website. We hope you will visit us often as we work to improve and make additions to this Website. This is the March 1, 2021 update.

The Great Falls Camera Club(GFCC) was started on September 1,1946 with 8 members and has been the longest running active, functioning club in Montana, which we are very proud of. The club will be 75 years old on August 31, 2021, which is quite an accomplishment. We have had around 80 members in GFCC the last few years and welcome new members at any time. We are a diverse group of individuals from youth to senior citizens, hobbyist to professional with a variety of photographic interests. We like to share ideas and help each other become better photographers. So, come join our fun and friendly photography group. 

We meet on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays, September through the 2nd Thursday of May, except the 4th Thursdays of November and December, when we only meet on the 2nd Thursday of that month, because of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Our meetings are held at the Ursuline Centre, 2300 Central Avenue, in Great Falls, MT, on the second floor, in the Gold Room, at 7PM. The meetings usually last until around 8:30PM.  We do offer the meeting on Zoom for out of town members or those who can not attended in person.  Join us the 2nd and 4th Thursdays each month, except for November and December, when there is only a meeting on the 2nd Thursday. The Zoom meeting link will be emailed out to all members. The link also be available here on the website

The monthly contest pictures are submitted, here on the website, by the members of GFCC, by midnight, the 2nd Thursday of each month. There are three divisions, Advanced and Hobbyist, which are competitive, judged by an outside judge, and then given recognition for their quality and hopefully some constructive comments. The third division is called Critique Only and those photos are constructively critiqued by GFCC members, to help the participants make improvements in their photography. There are awards given for the Photographer of the Year and the Photo of the Year for the competitive Advanced and Hobbyist Divisions. The winners are determined by the number of points each member accumulates from the pictures they enter in the contests, with additional points given for placings.  Every GFCC member may enter the Critique Only division. Members may choose whether they want to be in either the Advanced or Hobbyist Division. However, they must stay in that Division for the current club year.

The Objectives of GFCC are to Promote Interest in Photography, Share Photography Skills, Try New Photography Techniques and Improve the Photography Skills of our GFCC Members. We also provide opportunities for GFCC members to become better photographers through education, outings, competitions and other activities. We strive to cooperate with other clubs and organizations that have similar goals and interests. 

To qualify to be a member of GFCC you need to have an interest in photography and be willing to learn and teach others. You must also pay dues of $15 for the membership year, which is from the last scheduled meeting in May until the end of the last scheduled meeting in May the following year. Dues must be paid to actively participate in the monthly photo contest and critique and to attend outings. New members are welcome at anytime of the year.

The first meeting of the month is usually a showing of the previous month's competition photos. Each monthly contest has a theme selected by a GFCC committee. There is also a short educational presentation at that first meeting. The second meeting of the month focuses on Education has a longer educational presentation by a GFCC member or a guest presenter. 





Contest Results: April 2024 Fences Advanced Division

1st Place
Spring Storm

Doug Zander

2nd Place
Where Fences Lead

Kirk Clark

3rd Place
Fence at The Front

Chris Gaare

3rd Place
Summer Sunset

Doug Zander

Honorable Mention
Spring Storm

Clinton Bersuch

Honorable Mention
Fence Post #3

Clinton Bersuch

Honorable Mention
Fences in Snow

Naoko Otani



Contest Results: April 2024 Fences Hobbyist Division

1st Place
This Wood be Paradise

Glen Gleaves

2nd Place
Brrrrrrr it's mighty chilly out there!

Jane Scoates

2nd Place
Golden gateway

Colleen Holzheimer

3rd Place
Brace

Bernie

Honorable Mention
Iron Fence in the Avenues, SLC

Glen Gleaves

Honorable Mention
Prairie Divider

Rachel



The Contest/Critique categories for the club year, 2023-2024 listed by month. I will be posting when the due dates are.

Here are the categories for next year's monthly contests.More information will be coming explaining the details of each contest. We had a tie between two of the categories that were voted on. So we combined them in January. One will be Advanced Division only and the other is Intermediate and Beginner only.

Contest Categories 2023-2024
September – Summer Photos -
Photos Taken from May 1 – Sept. 1, 2023.
October – Something Historical
November – Landscapes
December - Reflections
Water, Glass, Windows
January #1 – Black & White Fruits and Vegetables (Check out Edward Weston style) - Advanced Division only
January #2 - Motion Blur - Hobbyist
February – Framing
March – Wild Mammals in the Wild -No Zoos or Mammals in captivity or domesticated mammals.
April – Fences - 
The fence must be the main interest in the photo, not just a small part of it.
May – Best of the Best - 
Two photos previously entered during the current club year.

 

 

Great Falls Camera Club is a photography club with our goal being to take the best quality of “natural” photographs. Extremely modified photos are not acceptable in our club.

We are here to endorse photography, as we have known it, not photography that is generated in a post-processing program, not a composite of several images taken at different times and/or places. And not images which feature Artificial Intelligence(AI) to produce photographs. Switching skies or backgrounds, or adding elements from other photos will not be allowed. “Synthetic Photography” has become an actual form of photography, and the photograph produced is not a real photograph, but an image created by a computer using prompts without using a camera at all, and that is not allowed in our club contests.

 The Post-Processing which Will Be Allowed in our monthly photography contests will be:

1.     Cropping

2.     HDR

3.     Photo Stacking

4.     Stitching

Minimal Changes that Will Be Allowed in our monthly photography contests are:

1.     Lightening and Darkening

2.     Changing contrast

3.     Color or saturation

4.     Sharpening

5.     Minimal cloning of small, distracting elements to clean up a photo, like spots on your sensor and power lines

The following will NOT be allowed in our monthly photography contests:

1.     Removing people and other objects is NOT allowed

2.    Adding elements that were NOT there when the photo was taken is 

       PROHIBITED      

3.    Composites using different photos shot at a different time are NOT allowed

The judge/judges for each contest will have the freedom to disqualify or reduce the placing of any photo that he/she feels was altered beyond those guidelines.