Andrea invites photographers to join her this January for a new season of inspiring photography courses designed for curious, mature learners. The courses are designed to help you explore fresh techniques, develop your creative voice, and build confidence in your craft.
Spaces are limited, so if you’d like to join, reserve your spot now and start the year with renewed photographic energy and community.
The course offerings include:
The Photographer’s Eye: Inquiries in Perception + Design (online)
The Advanced Abstract Lab: Experiments in Seeing (online)
The Photographic Explorers Group (in person, Vancouver area, includes field trips)
Enrollment is now open for Andrea’s three new Autumn 2025 online photography courses, designed to inspire, challenge, and expand creative vision.
Courses are weekly and range from four to eight weeks in length. This time around the focuses are Urban Stories (begins Sept. 23), Natural Light Photography (begins Sept. 24) and Exploring Cyanotypes (begins Sept. 29).
The classes include weekly assignments that aim to motivate you to get out with your camera while being part of a like-minded community of photographers.
(Originally planned for Nov. 2024, but postponed due to a storm and internet outage.)
We are pleased to welcome John Barclay as a guest speaker. John is an award-winning freelance photographer based in Bucks County, PA. A passionate photographer, workshop leader and inspirational speaker, he has been presenting his programs to audiences around the world and his work has been published in a number of books and magazines. John has received an excellence award from B&W Magazine and was chosen by Dewitt Jones to participate in Dewitt’s www.healingimages.org program. You can see a few of John’s images below (click to enlarge).
John explains the background and purpose of the presentation he’ll be making:
“Why Dream – Believe – Create? There was a time when I felt I could not create. My self-talk was, I am not a creative person, I’m not smart enough, I can’t do this. After seeing images projected at the first workshop I took, I dreamed of becoming a good photographer. Primarily with the help of well known accomplished photographers Tony Sweet, Nancy Rotenberg and later Dan Sniffin, I was able to chip away at the negative self talk and believe that I could create worthwhile images. Thus Dream – Believe – Create has become the centerpiece of what I teach in my workshops. I believe that everyone has dreams and can achieve their dreams. I also believe that when you truly believe, you will be liberated to be able to create.
The process and journey required to create images feeds my soul and brings me great joy. My goal in this presentation is to inspire you to capture the essence of the subjects you are drawn to, using the creative medium of photography. This might entail capturing a small intimate portion of a scene. It might involve more creative techniques such as multiple exposures or the “slide sandwich” or camera movement for a more expressive interpretation.
I will also touch on the digital darkroom including the popular HDR (High Dynamic Range) technology and how having a keen understanding of these can help you achieve your artistic vision. Numerous examples will be shown which include traditional nature scenes as well as more abstract and urban compositions. We will explore the beauty in both the grand scale as well as more intimate details. The ideas presented in this program have application to any genre of photography.
I believe, like Ansel Adams, photographers bring to their images their own journeys, their sense of the world, their experiences and their passions. For me photography is simply another medium of artistic expression, visual poetry if you will.“
The meeting will be held via Zoom, on Wed. November 19, 2025, at 10 am PDT. The link will be sent by email to all Gabriola Photography Club members on the weekend before the meeting. Make sure your membership is up to date so that you receive this info.
Harbour City Photography Club is hosting a free presentation in Nanaimo by David duChemin on Tuesday evening, March 18. Click here for all the details.
Creative image processing doesn’t need to be limited to our desktop and laptop computers. In our first guest speaker presentation of 2025, we’ll learn how to create exciting, creative images right on our smart phones.
Special guest Hazel Meredith will explore some of her favorite apps for creative processing, including Snapseed, DistressedFx+, Image Blender, Retouch, and the JixiPix suite of apps. (The session will be relevant for both iPhone and Android users.)
Hazel is an award-winning photographer and a sought-after teacher, speaker, and competition judge. She began teaching in 2007, and now does seminars at camera clubs and conferences – both in-person and virtual – and offers her own workshops and webinars. She has written two eBooks on working with textures and released two creative courses. She and her husband, Dave, produce the “Virtual Creative Photography Conference” with attendees from around the world.
Hazel loves the creative aspect of photography and post-processing, especially the use of textures and software to create unique images.
She is actively involved with the photographic community and has held leadership orles and received honorary distinctions from several organizations. In the fall of 2020 she was the recipient of the Ashbrook Award for Digital Imaging Instruction from the Photographic Society of America.
You can see a few of Hazel’s smart phone images below (click to enlarge), and you’ll find more info about her and many more of her images on her website.
The meeting will be held via Zoom, on Wed. February 5, 2025, at 10 am PDT. The link will be sent by email to all Gabriola Photography Club members on the weekend before the meeting. Make sure your membership is up to date so that you receive this info.
Gabriola Photography Club 