The meeting began with
introductions. We discovered that Emily makes interesting sounds, Sue is
visiting her daughters, Steve was around when the local grotto was the UNC
outing club, Anuj transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill, Ken knew Sue when he started
caving, Mike is wearing a salamander, Pete was sitting there, Martin has been
here since 2011, and Carlin was born in a cave.
Rob was born in an IHOP, but Rachel denied it. Mark D. has caved seven
years.
The member dues are $8 for
the rest of 2014, and half that for family members at the same address. Rob
shared the T-shirts, but the blue was too dark and didn’t contrast the black
enough for the cave to be visible. The company has agreed to reprint the
shirts, so Rob accepted new orders at $14 apiece.
Brick buying campaign for
the new NSS Headquarters. Mark heard the speech 1800 times at Convention. Each
brick will be cut with three lines of twenty characters each, and the TriTrogs
could get together to sponsor a block containing individual bricks. The
campaign does not seem to have an end date. Someone suggested TriTrogs bricks
carry the phrase “Caving ‘til extinction.”
How to Cave meeting: Mark D.
hasn’t thought about it much or the meetup group advertising he’d use. Matthew
Weiss is going to help, but Mark would appreciate help from anyone else who may
want to join them.
Pete is looking for
volunteers for BugFest at the museum on September 20. It’s organized into
two-hour shifts (reward of a nice T-shirt), and working two shifts or more gets
volunteers free food. Pete organizes the Orthoptera display and will teach
volunteers what they need to know at the event.
In terms of trip reports, Mark
D. mentioned that Sue, Emily, Lee Olsen, Tanya, and Pete went to the NSS
Convention. Convention was good, and Pete set records on rope climbing. He won
300 feet of rope, and Mark further awarded Pete the dead flower centerpiece
from the banquet. One seat had the carabiner under it. Mark detailed his 137-foot entrance pit trip
to War Eagle Cave—the cry of Auburn University—
near the small Crimson Tide Cave. A
lower entrance had frogs and fish in it.
One spot on the map is labeled 40-foot domes but Mark found some new
passage that was off the map if you climbed up.
Cathedral Caverns: Pete H. went on commercial cave tour with an ill-behaved mass of
school children. Pete’s camera was shaken by the kids who were jumping on the
railing. He related a good cave tour with reasonable lighting, although he
questioned its ability for a civil defense shelter with 10,000 people inside.
The tour guides can tell the weather in advance by a cloud near the entrance. The
$5 fee for NSS members was money well spent. Mark had a tenth-grade tour guide
who asked him questions about the cave, but Emily couldn’t understand her
guide’s speech.
The CaveSim broke when Emily
went through.
Pete went to Neversink Cave with double drops to see
the glow worms. He had to wait 15-20 minutes to see the modest, continuous
glow. He even saw them on the cave floor
but mostly those close to him. Mark took the vertical workshop and learned
something at every station.
Hungarians, Australians,
Slovenians, and other countries were represented at the NSS Convention. Pete
mentioned next year’s convention in Missouri. The 2016 Convention is in Nevada.
Carlin went with Dave and
Andrea to Perkins Cave. Buford, Bill Grosse, and Carlin surveyed 500
feet. Jason’s team surveyed almost 900
feet. The weekend total was 1900 feet. Carlin, Dave and Andrea also scoped out Water Cave for dive opportunities.
Mike Broome went to Grand Caverns with his family. His family had fun, and the NSS discount was
good. They let his family stay late to
see the movie and Mike shared survey stories with the tour group.
Ken described finding some
small caves in Hemlock Gorge near Prettyboy Reservoir.
Upcoming Trips
July 25-27 – Missed
Opportunity and Saltville Quarry Cave Surveys
-Harper’s Ferry climbing with
Rob
August 16 – TriTrogs Annual
Trip to Friars Hole Cave
August 28-Sept. 1 – Old
Timers Reunion
Oct. 10-12 – Fall VAR at Rich
Mtn Battlefield
Others?
After the break, the program
was “European (and Worldwide) Cave
Photography - From a Publisher's Perspective,” presented by Sue Widmer. Below
you’ll see the notes I took from her slides.
Sharpness
Composition
Lighting
Good model placement
Audience appeal
High res file
Purpose
Not in 72-dpi(stamp size)
sharpness
Tripod mounted
Model not moving
Focus
Perfection
Composition
Cave features prominent
(even for the critters)
Interesting perspective
Balanced
Contrat—photoshop can adjust
Scale (sometimes)
Lighting
-well placed flashes
(firefly triggered or radio triggered flash units)
-avoid burnouts (cannot be
fixed)
--ambiance (how do I feel in
a cave)
--use of assistants and
models to hold/aim flashes
---variety of models—give
credit to everyone who helped
Good model placemnt
--location in composition
--stance/action
--included for scale or to
demonstrate action
--patience
--facial epression-attitude
--experienced and trained
models/assistants
audience appeal
is it interesting to look
at?
Is the cave the main focus?
Is the formation or passage
special or unique enough to hold the viewer’s attention for a month?
Wow| factor
High resolution
Raw or tif file
Needed for printing, crpping
and enlarging (300 dpi)
Better for photoshop
enhancement
30-100MB
purpose
calendar
society/scientific/report
photo (as Sue publishes)
club newsletter
trip documentation
friends and memories
