August Edition of the Newsletter - Below is a copy of the monthly newsletter "Coastal California Journal", which is the first newsletter of our combined organizations. Enjoy the content, and give us feedback on how we could improve our newsletter.

Week 33 - Aug9, 2026 Mike Mercadante Highlights Event Reminders August Newsletter New Members Highlights Q3 Image Competition and Monthly Critique Participation in the Image Competition or our Monthly Critique is a great way for members to accelerate their photographic learning. Putting your work in front of others for feedback helps you focus on refining your capture and processing techniques. Q3 Image Competition Images will be reviewed and scored by a 3-judge panel of cer

Week 32 - Aug2, 2026 Mike Mercadante Highlights Event Reminders Recent Blog Posts New Members Highlights Q3 Image Competition and Monthly Critique Participation in the Image Competition or our Monthly Critique is a great way for members to accelerate their photographic learning. Putting your work in front of others for feedback helps you focus on refining your capture and processing techniques. Q3 Image Competition Images are due to Dan Holmes by Aug 6th, 2026 by Midnight Ins

Members intending to participate in our Q3 Image Competition may submit images for prior review and discussion. This quarter, Michael Gordon will be our guest at the Peer Review, providing his insights on the submitted images alongside feedback from your peers. All members are welcome as guests to the Peer Review to learn from the process and the interaction. The Merits of Peer Review A peer review process in photography improves technical skill, uncovers hidden blind spots,

Week 31 - July 26, 2026 Mike Mercadante Highlights Event Reminders Recent Blog Posts Website Directions Highlights CCP Website Update - This week, we introduced phase 1 of a CCP Members contact list on the website. This list is accessible only to CCP members who have logged in. Each member's contact card displays their name, phone number, email, city, and state. Additionally, the card includes sections for your preferred genres and the camera brand you use. Click here to view

Week 30 - July 19, 2026 Mike Mercadante Highlights Event Reminders Recent Blog Posts Website Update Highlights Getty Outing Video - Last weeks workshop at the Getty Study room was an inspiring look at Landscape images from 1830s forward. John Grusd selected a series of images and shared his insights about the images and the state of the art at the time. A fun educational outing with friends! Ventura County Fair Volunteers: The County Fair is rapidly approaching. We need volun

Coastal California Photographers Workshop at the Getty Study Room. What a great day, perfect weather, great companions, and lots of great images to review. Experience a rare chance to see a collection of historic photographs from the vast Getty archives, up close, and without frames or glass between you and the images in the private setting of the study room. Hope to see you at our next event.

Finding Beauty in Imperfection For the month of August, Coastal California Photographers invites members to explore a concept that is both deeply artistic and profoundly human: Wabi-Sabi. Rooted in Japanese philosophy and aesthetics, Wabi-Sabi embraces the beauty of imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness. It encourages us to see value not in flawless surfaces, but in the marks left by time, weather, use, and experience. A rusted gate, a weathered fishing boat, peeling

Week 29 - July 12, 2026 Mike Mercadante Highlights Event Reminders Recent Blog Posts Website Update New Logo / CCP Branding Highlights Event Ideas - We want to hear your ideas on events that you would like to see on our calendar. We are already looking at 2027. So, we created a simple page on the site where you can share your ideas with us. Click here, or go to the Events Menu, and select the Submit Event Ideas item Ventura County Fair Volunteers: The County Fair is rapidly a

July Edition of the Newsletter - Below is a copy of the monthly newsletter "Coastal California Journal", which is the first newsletter of our combined organizations. Enjoy the content, and give us feedback on how we could improve our newsletter.

Week 28 - July 6 Mike Mercadante Highlights Event Reminders Recent Blog Posts Website Update New Logo / CCP Branding Event Ideas - We want to hear your ideas on events that you would like to see on our calendar. So, we created a simple page on the site where you can share your idea with us. Click here, or go to the Events Menu, and select the Submit Event Ideas item Upcoming Event Reminders - To find other upcoming events on our website, click here Monthly Critique, Colorless

There was a time, not so very long ago, when entering the Coastal California Photographers Monthly Critique was as easy as photographing a sleeping cat. Life was simple. Your masterpiece needed only to be 1080 pixels vertically, 1920 pixels horizontally, and have the proper filename that didn't resemble your cat walking across the keyboard. Those carefree days have now ridden off into the sunset. The Competition Committee, in its infinite wisdom (and probably after consuming

Week 27 - June 28 Mike Mercadante Highlights Event Reminders Recent Blog Posts Picnic Highlights Website Update - We have shifted our event ticketing to our Wix Website during the first week in June. Bob Turk has done a great job of switching all the events over from LearnDesk. Thanks, Bob! Please read the blog post dated June 5th to learn how to book any upcoming event. Click here Event Ideas - We want to hear your ideas on events that you would like to see on our calendar

Website Update Tonight - Tonight we have a Zoom session to update members on changes to the website, including event registration, site login, and other minor updates. Please attend so we can ensure you can log in to the site and register for events. Click here to register 6/24/2026 7pm Discussion working the image - Discussion: Working the Image - June | CIPPA. 6/25/2026 7pm TechTalk - Preparing your image for Competition - TechTalk: Preparing your Image for Competition | CI

Week 26 - June 21 Mike Mercadante Highlights Event Reminders Recent Blog Posts Picnic Highlights Website Update - We have shifted our event ticketing to our Wix Website during the first week in June. Bob Turk has done a great job of switching all the events over from LearnDesk. Thanks, Bob! Please read the blog post dated June 5th to learn how to book any upcoming event. Click here This week, we will post a TechTalk to illustrate the process, answer questions, and remind me

Photography is often celebrated as the art of color. Brilliant sunsets, vibrant flowers, colorful city lights, and richly saturated landscapes all compete for our attention. But what happens when color itself becomes nearly invisible? July's Coastal California Photographers challenge invites members to explore that fascinating question with a deceptively difficult theme: Colorless Color Photography. The objective is simple to describe but surprisingly challenging to achieve:

Week 25 - June 15 Mike Mercadante Highlights Event Reminders Recent Blog Posts Member Recognition Website Update - We have shifted our event ticketing to our Wix Website during the first week in June. Bob Turk has done a great job of switching all the events over from LearnDesk. Thanks, Bob! Please read the blog post dated June 5th to learn how to book any upcoming event. Click here Next week, we will post a TechTalk to illustrate the process and answer questions and remind

Newsletter June Edition of the Newsletter - Below is a copy of the monthly newsletter "Coastal California Journal", which is the first newsletter of our combined organizations. Enjoy the content, and give us feedback on how we could improve our newsletter.

Week 24 - June 7 Mike Mercadante Highlights Event Reminders Recent Blog Posts Member Recognition June Edition of the Newsletter - Shortly, you will receive a copy of the monthly newsletter "Coastal California Journal", which is the first newsletter of our combined organizations. Enjoy the content, and give us feedback on how we could improve our newsletter. Website Update - Given the maintenance issues with LearnDesk this week, we implemented a contingency plan to create an e

June 5, 2026 Motivation Recently, LearnDesk went down for maintenance unannounced on May 31st, and as of 6/5/2026, it remains down. This behavior is totally unacceptable, so we are acting on our contingency plan. On Monday, I deferred some of the website rebranding changes to implement a ticketing mechanism within the website. As a result, I’m turning off the LearnDesk events page and enabling the new event registration capabilities on the website. While you will see some vis