Comfort Zone

We had talks by members at the club tonight and Infrared photography was my talk (plus a bit of Lensbaby & panoramic "stitching" thrown into the mix).

I did a similar talk (just IR) a couple of years ago when I first joined the club and was quite a nerve racking experience. And I think I may have confused the others a bit as most of them had never heard of IR photography before. But on the plus side back then, a few members came up to me and were quite impressed with what I spoke about.

I felt a lot more at home or "in my comfort zone" tonight as this is my 3rd year doing IR photography, though was still nervous. After the first talk by another member, one of the "three Bills" shouted my name.................gulp! I was the second talker......

It certainly helped being in my comfort zone talking about something I know well and explaining it in layman's terms. It also helped talking to photographers who know full well what apertures/ISO/WB are etc. I often wonder how politicians/teachers/MD's waffle on about things with no knowledge of the subject whatsoever! :-/ (cringe)

One of the main problems I had was keeping the number of photos to a minimum so that other members could get their chance. This is often the problem with digital slide shows/talks in general: too many photos of the same thing can get rather tedious.

After a few sleepless nights last week worrying about a 15minute slot, I felt it went ok and that I managed to include everything I wanted to include. Got a few laughs out of it as well so not all bad. I will certainly do it again next year hopefully improving my output.

As for the rest, there were some impressive talks on Photoshop techniques (Poondash), competition images from another club & holiday snaps.

Next week we are having a similar thing........