Last Saturday, Dennis Plank and myself attended the biannual meeting of the Nature Photographers of the Pacific Northwest in Centralia Washington. The meeting was well attended by over 350 participants. The keynote speaker who delivered 2 presentations, was wildlife photographer Charles Glatzer. He spoke about the use of spot metering in his morning session and covered his own excellent work in the afternoon session. In addition to providing valuable information, he was an excellent teacher and a very entertaining speaker.
At each meeting, there is a print competition and a projected image competition covering wildlife, scenics, and plant life. Dennis and I both placed images in the wildlife category.
Typically, NPPNW (https://www.nppnw.org) covers the states of Oregon and Washington with meetings between Eugene and south-central Oregon as far north as Olympia in central Western Washington. Meetings are every six months currently. At this meeting on November 3, Dennis Plank set up a table for NPN and passed out cards (provided by David Kingham) with NPN vital information. By the end of the day, nearly all the cards had been passed out to NPPNW attendees. This should increase NPN membership.
The next meeting will be held in six months in Salem, Oregon. Dues to NPPNW (which is run entirely by volunteers) are $10 per year which is most reasonable.
David, thanks for bringing this up. I live in the Portland area and it looks like the NPPNW would be a good organization to join.
I really appreciate you and @Dennis_Plank doing this, we are seeing an uptick in membership this week and I’m assuming it’s because of this. Sounds like a fantastic organization!
I think Dennis and I both enjoyed talking to the NPPNW members about NPN. Almost everyone in this group is retired with 90% of the membership probably over the age of 60. Many have been amateur photographers for decades. It is a well educated and very congenial group. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes of each meeting; arranging the venue, arranging for speakers and sponsors, getting food and coffee for the mornings of the meeting, etc. All done by volunteers. There are vendors who show up selling their wares. At each meeting, one of the camera stores from Portland, Oregon shows up to do sensor cleanings. Dennis and I really discussed our enthusiasm regarding the educational aspect of NPN and how important it has been to both of us in improving our photographic skills. I would say along with the one-month free membership in NPN, this is what attracted the NPPNW members the most. The only other thing that I could possibly recommend with this group would be a small senior discount. I will keep my eyes open to see if I recognize any new names.
As it appears that many avian photographers from NPN 1.0 are no longer participating in the new platform, I am hoping that the NPPNW
group will provide some new photographic input in this category.