Aug outing / Sept meeting

The outing this month is on Sunday, 31 August, to Inchanga Station, which is the base of the Umgeni Steam Railway. The original thought was to do a club block booking to travel on the steam train from Kloof Station to Inchanga, have lunch and then to travel back to Kloof on the train.

A number of club members have suggested that, instead of riding on the train, we drive and meet up at Inchanga Station which would give us the chance to take pictures of the train at some places along the way.

Riding along with the train

There is no reason why you can't still ride the train if you want to and meet us at Inchanga. The train leaves at 12h30 from Kloof Station but you will have to book your seats in advance. Just go to http://www.umgenisteamrailway.co.za/ and you will find a booking form and online payment facility.

Self-drive

The train leaves Kloof Station at 12h30 and you can meet it at a couple of places along the way. The first good place is on the pedestrian bridge over the railway line opposite the Maytime Centre in Kloof. You have to get onto the road on the other side of the railway line from Shunters Arms in Kloof (the same road that Makaranga Lodge is in). Drive inland from Shunters towards Makaranga and you will see the bridge on your left. The train doesn't take long to reach that spot so you will need to be there promptly.

Head inland again and you soon get a chance to get onto R103. Go into Hillcrest and through the village to the bottom of Botha's Hill. There's a level crossing (Padley's Crossing) on the right just after the Kassier Road intersection.. You should be there not more than 20 minutes after the train has left Koof.

Go up Botha's Hill after the train has passed and you can catch it again at either Botha's Hill Station or at the Alverstone turnoff further along that road. Fast drivers may be able to get in front of the train again but it may be best just to head for Inchanga, where you will probably be able to get the train arriving.

September Meeting

The September meeting will be at 7pm on September 2, 2008 at the Hillcrest Sports Club. We will be having a talk by wedding photographer David Weeks and viewing member's picture after that.

We will have dinner as usual at 6pm before the meeting. Please book your meal by replying to this e-mail.

NEW

You can now submit your images by e-mail to Andre DuToit. Contact Allan at the e-mail address at the top righthand side of this page to get correct the address to use.

PUHLEEZE!! Not more than three pictures per person and please make sure that they are not bigger than 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels high. Please do not submit after the Sunday before the meeting. Entries sent on Monday or Tuesday will not be shown.

If you don't know how resize and mail pictures:
The easiest way to do this that I've found is to use a free program called FastStone. You can download it from here. Install the program as usual and use it to view the folder containing the pictures you want to send.

Then:
** Select the first picture you want to send by clicking on it.
** Hold down the control key and click on the other pictures.
** Let go the control key and click the Envelope Icon which is third from the right in the strip right under the menu bar.
** A new window will come up with the selected pictures in it.
** Click the box next to Resize Using JPEG Format If Possible so that a tick appears in the box.
** In the boxes next to New Size, enter the values 1024 and 768.
** Click the Send E-mail button on the right and the program will use your default e-mail program to send the pictures. Just enter Andre's address when asked.

It's all a matter of time

Many newcomers to photography give up when they find out that becoming a photographer is a journey that takes lots of time with plenty of failures along the way. Failure, or 'getting skunked', is all part of learning the craft and should be embraced, according to Mooose Petersen.