The following Plano Photography Club members received recognition in the Gulf States Camera Club Council January photo competition:

Color Projected

1st HM: Sea Town - Sanjay Kaul

Monochrome Projected

2nd HM: The White Queen - Fred Manchester

Nature Projected

3rd: Here I Come - Alan Daniel

To see the winning images and a full list of award recipients, please visit the GSCCC competition results page. Congratulations to those listed above.

The PPC will once again make photographer passes available to members for The North Texas Irish Festival (NTIF) in March of this year. More to come on that later.

But right now, we want to make you aware of the many volunteer opportunities available at the festival and a quickly approaching volunteer meeting where you can learn even more.

From the NTIF Volunteers web page:

Volunteers

Volunteer applications are now being sought for NTIF 2023. We have all kinds of openings available for all age groups and for families, church groups, singles groups, corporate groups, etc.

Why Volunteer

First and foremost - we all have a lot of fun! NTIF is a family, and we welcome everyone to become part of our family. Quite a few of our volunteers have been with us for years, and their children are now doing their part as volunteers, having grown up with us. Family indeed.

For each 3-to-4-hour shift worked you will receive a free beverage of your choice at the Festival. One 3-hour shift gets you free admission into the Festival on the day of your shift. Two or more 3-to-4-hour shifts get you free admission into the Festival on all three days plus you will receive a free NTIF volunteer T-shirt. We also have a limited number of free, close-in parking spaces - the earlier you sign up the more likely you will get free parking.

Many of our volunteers return year after year, often to work in the same area, but sometimes they like to try something new. Whatever your preference, you are a welcome member of one of the most dedicated and hard-working families in Texas.

How to Volunteer

New volunteers can either sign up online or just attend one of the volunteer orientation sessions planned for Sunday, January 29, 2023. Even if you sign up online attending the volunteer meetings is a good way to become reacquainted with old friends and get the latest information on what we are planning for this year's festival. If we get to the printers in time, you could also get your T-shirt early, plus a chance to buy more NTIF-branded items at a discounted price.

The 2023 NTIF Volunteer Meeting will be held on Sunday, January 29, 2023, at our host hotel, the Doubletree by Hilton Campbell Centre. The hotel is located at 8250 N. Central Expressway, Dallas, TX. Coordinators and Managers meet from 1 – 2 pm, followed by the general volunteers meeting. We will be meeting in the Ballroom located just behind the front desk reception area. We look forward to seeing everyone and kicking off NTIF 2023! Please check our Meeting page for more information.

We'll be sharing additional information about the club's visit to the North Texas Irish Festival very soon. Keep your eyes peeled.

Club member Jan de Meulder has asked that the following request be shared with all members:

For the last several years a small group of volunteer photographers, mostly PPC, have been covering the Dallas Quilt Show, by taking pictures of the 350+ quilts in competition and providing timely quality shots to post on the official Dallas Quilt Show website and related social media.

With a couple of volunteers not being available this year, Sam Lucas and I are looking for two (2) additional volunteers to take ~100 quilt pictures on the late afternoon/early evening of Thursday, March 9, 2023 and early Friday morning, March 10.

Maybe there are new club members who would enjoy something new and challenging (i.e., taking lots of shots under time pressure, with changing sizes, challenging light from the late sun or neon lights, alternating flash, and tripod, and so on…).

We also need to post-process them all in Adobe Lightroom, and manually frame the picture for every shot.

If you feel you’re up for a challenge and would be interested to help out with this event, please contact Jan de Meulder via email.

As 2023 begins, we are again inviting all club members to create some new banners for use on the PPC website.

There is a big difference this year - we are opening the contributions up to include your favorite photos from anywhere in the world - not just the city of Plano.

Guidelines and requirements for the graphics are as follows:

• They may consist of a single photo or a collage of photos in JPEG format
• Banner dimensions must be exactly 1372px wide by 260px tall
• The maximum banner file size is 1 MB
• Banners may be in color or black & white (or anything in-between)
• Submissions may include a photographer watermark
• If no watermark is included, submitters will be acknowledged by name
• You may submit more than one banner

NOTE: The club logo will be overlaid on the submitted banners by the webmaster, so please do not incorporate it into your submissions.

To participate, send your image(s) to clubphotos@planophotographyclub.com.

Approved banners will be incorporated into a display rotation on the website. Our plan is to refresh them weekly, but the actual schedule will be determined by how many approved submissions we receive.

Thanks in advance for your participation, and we look forward to seeing your creativity at work.