TPG Communication – How to stay informed

Elk Refuge-9073
TPG Business and Planning Meeting 2014

The TPG Steering Committee hosted the annual business and planning meeting on December 15, 2014.  A number of procedural, structural, and planning issues were discussed and we are delighted to announce some immediate new services for our members.  Our primary concern is who our members are and how we communicate effectively to meet member needs.  Below you will see a section about how to be sure we communicate effectively with you.

Linked to our communication concerns is our website.  We are hoping to increase traffic on the website so our members can have “one-stop shopping” for their local photographic information needs.  We would like the site to be your source for regional educational and training services.  Effective in the next week we will start syndication of blogs from individual members to TetonPhotographyGroup.org/blog.  This will give you access to several high-quality, local member blogs and the latest information about what is happening photographically in our region.

Next, starting next week we are launching a new “Photo Wednesday” activity on our Facebook site. We encourage you to submit photos to this feature to better show your work to the larger membership.  Aaron Linsdau will coordinate this program and provide submission instructions and suggested topics as the weeks go by.  You will need to “like” and join the Facebook TPG group to participate in this program.

Finally, we are happy to say that the Rocky Mountain Photo Council page (www.TetonPhotographyGroup.org/RMPC) is up and running.  The TPG has joined with 12 other regional photography clubs in the inter-mountain west to improve communication among the groups and share program information with all members.  This gives our members access to more than 4,000 regional photographers.

How to stay in touch with the TPG

One of the biggest problems for any new organization is communication and although communication is generally easier in the digital age, it can also be confusing.  The Teton Photography Group communicates with its members by any of four methods: our website (www.TetonPhotographyGroup.org), our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/459493864122722/), our GooglePlus group (https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104570801506195329251), or traditional email from info@TetonPhotographyGroup.org.  However, as a member, you must register to have full use of the website and forum, join the Facebook and GooglePlus groups, and submit your contact information to receive email notices.  Please check out each of these sites and send your contact information via email to receive our monthly newsletter and event mailings.  If you have signed-up and sent your email address but are not receiving monthly newsletters, be sure to add our email address to your contacts list.  Some email services will not accept blinded-address email if we are not in your contacts folder.

By the way, if you have tried to join our Facebook group and have been rejected, be sure that your Facebook account has a viewable public city address in the region and you have original photographs on your FB page.  If we don’t have an indication that you are a photographer or have links to the region, you may be rejected.  If you are rejected and want to join, please send your contact information and your FB account to us via email. 

Please share our FB posts with your photographer friends and those interested in the region.  Your shares will help get the TPG message to more photographers and improve our presence in the region.

TPG Photo Wednesdays

Viewfinder issues

Viewfinder issues

I’ve been self-assigned the duty of creating Photo Wednesdays with the Teton Photography Group. To foster discussion, have a good time and improve communication between photographers in the group, we’re going to do this.

Loren Nelson will be sending out more specifics. Specifically, it’s informal, post your photo you think is interesting, even it’s your house cat. We’ll eventually have themes, but it’s a forum for everyone to post, have fun, and learn something. It’s a supportive environment and I hope to grow this into something fun that people always like to check out every Wednesday.

This will be open to everyone who is a TPG member, more details from Loren forthcoming, but we expect it to be fun and worth the time. Even if your photo is like the above and you’re hoping to get some discussion, it’ll be good. You see the pink area? That’s from light leakage in the Nikon D800. That’s why it has a little hatch on the viewfinder for long exposures. I learned that one. But it does make the photo more colorful, so maybe it worked out.

The post TPG Photo Wednesdays appeared first on Aaron Linsdau.

Our Partner – the Art Association of Jackson Hole

From the beginning, the Teton Photography Group recognized the need for strategic partnerships to become a viable, long-term organization in the greater Teton region.  Discussions with established photographers, community and organization leaders, and existing ‘brick and mortar’ institutions helped us to understand why previous photography ‘clubs’ had struggled and ultimately failed.  We explored many partnerships with existing not-for-profit organizations in the area with a goal of avoiding the expense and time needed to become an independent organization with federal 501(c)3 tax status and to acquire a stable venue for our meetings and programs.  These discussions all pointed to an obvious and critical partnership with the Art Association of Jackson Hole.

The AAJH is a stable, 50-year old organization that has been the community leader supporting the arts in all forms.  They have strong community support, a proven financial base, and a versatile and flexible location that can support activities from small group meetings to large educational programs.  They also have a well-established communication and community education history.  In a word, the AAJH is a perfect partner for the TPG.

Over the past six months the AAJH has hosted our monthly public presentations, planning and organizational meetings, and our first large educational symposium.  They have provided infrastructure, staff, equipment and supplies, and communications to support our activities. They serve as our bank and financial resource to help us pay our bills.  Our partnership sounds good, but over the last month, it has changed – for the better.

Detailed planning for our first Outdoor Photography Symposium exposed some issues with the infrastructure of both organizations and the AAJH immediately stepped up to the plate to address these issues in a very positive way. We have had discussions about the computer equipment and software in the photography lab and the AAJH developed a plan to update hardware and software to a state-of-the-art system that will better serve their educational programs and the needs of our members. The AAJH has carefully listened to the TPG needs for improved video projection and audio systems for large programs. They have found methods to meet our short-term needs and expand their long-term capabilities. We have had discussions about the AAJH membership database that will better support partnering organizations with their communication and financial needs. But more important and longer lasting changes have also begun.

We have entered in strategic planning initiatives with the AAJH that will help optimize community educational goals of both organizations by streamlining and coordinating our respective programs.  This will be evident in the new AAJH catalog to be released this winter.  There will be expanded coverage of the TPG programs and marketing and promotion for our major educational activities. This will start with the support of two new educational symposia in February and April.  Based upon the feedback from members and attendees of our first symposium, we will present a more basic and a more advanced symposium this winter and spring. The basic symposium will address introductory issues of how to make better images with dSLR cameras. The advanced symposium will explore the details of post-processing image editing software.  Additionally, the AAJH has committed to support for our monthly public presentations scheduled on the third Monday of every month. We have a plan to expand the breadth of the photographic subjects presented and expand our membership using resources of the AAJH.  We hope that these initiatives will allow the TPG to explore cutting-edge introductory programs that will lead to expanded educational classroom activities from the AAJH.

Our partnership with the Art Association of Jackson Hole has been a win-win proposition for photographers in the region.  The membership in the TPG has grown steadily from about a dozen last April to more than 150 in October. The partnership is stronger than ever and I hope that every member of the TPG will support the AAJH by becoming a supporting member – only $35 per year – for full membership and all of the benefits provided by the Association as well as full privileges of the TPG.  It is a win for art and photographers in the region, the community, and you as someone who wants to improve photography as an art through education and networking.

Where do we go from here?

The Teton Photography Group (TPG) has grown in the last five months from a vague concept to a viable organization and partner with the Art Association of Jackson Hole. We have this website managed by Mike Cavaroc, a Facebook page, a Google Plus Community, a Twitter presence, and an active email list. We have somewhere between about 75 and 100 self-declared members, many of whom are regularly active on the electronic media. We have three public programs under our belt and have presenters committed for the next 6 months. In September we will have our first all-day public photography symposium on Outdoor Photography. You must agree that we have come a long way. My question in this posting is “Where do we go in 2014 and beyond?”

The group has chosen an administrative model of loose organization with a volunteer Steering Committee consisting of 8 members with broad photography backgrounds. This model allowed us to avoid the cost and hassle of becoming a free-standing not-for-profit organization under a 501(c)3 umbrella but also put the burden of planning and organization on a small number of members. I would like to solicit input from all members about the direction we should go in the coming year.

The Steering Committee has amassed a list of about a dozen specific topics for presentation next year and several categories of topics we would like to explore in some semi-structured manner. Some of the general categories include: composition and aesthetics, technical aspects of image capture, photography gear and gadgets, post-processing software and techniques, photo critique and commentary, photo travelogues and shooting locations, learning from the greats, and specialized photographic skills. Our 2013 public programs have attempted to sample several of these categories.

The Steering Committee has also discussed many types of activities we would like to pursue beyond the structured public presentations. Some of these activities include a quarterly newsletter, quarterly photo contests or competitions with exhibitions of submitted work, all-day symposia on specific areas of photography, expanded electronic portfolios, syndication of member blogs, a gear swap, photo sales events, an expert discussion forum, a local Teton ‘stock photo’ agency, tag-along local photo shoots, and various social events like pot-luck dinners and wine tastings. We are strong on ideas but will need dedicated help from our members for execution.

So back to my original question – where should the group go in 2014 and beyond? I hope you will share your comments and thoughts on this blog page or on our social media sites. We need specific ideas and specific people to carry-out the ideas. We are all fortunate to live in or visit this beautiful area and to have such tremendous local photographic talent.  Our future as an organization is very bright so long as we have committed members who are willing to share their talents and dreams. Thanks for being a part of the TPG. I hope to hear from you soon.