Overview • Galleries (See Galleries) • Monthly Themes • Field Trips • Speakers • Projects
By George Bradshaw / Revised January 8, 2018
This article provides an overview of the online OLLI Photo Club (OPC) Galleries, including a) a description of the main OPC Galleries, b) a reference for viewing, commenting upon, and uploading photos to specific galleries, and c) guidelines for the monthly competitions.
1. Overview
On April 1, 2016 the OPC transitioned photo sharing operations from the PBase photo repository service to the SmugMug service. All photos from PBase have been moved to SmugMug, and the gallery structure of PBase has been replicated on SmugMug. PBase is still available for viewing photos as of 2018.01.08. Following are the links to each system:
OPC Galleries
SmugMug https://olliphotoclubgmu.smugmug.com/
PBase http://www.pbase.com/olligmuphoto
The “OPC Photo Repository, Member’s Guide, 20180108” for the new OPC Galleries is available at the OPC Photo Repository Website under the “Site Notes” menu. The Guide discusses the transition plan and provides detailed instructions for uploading and commenting upon photos.
2. Galleries
OPC members use three galleries on a regular basis: two Competition galleries and one Field Trip gallery. The Competition galleries are shown on the second Friday of each month to select the best photo which will be published in the OLLI newsletter. The Field Trip gallery is shown on the fourth Friday as a basis for discussing photos taken during the club’s Field Trips on the third Friday.
Other galleries are available for special purposes such as OLLI Catalog Covers and Greeting Cards.
3. Viewing Photos
One may view photos in the galleries of the public OPC website:
https://olliphotoclubgmu.smugmug.com/
The OPC website has a menu- and icon-driven interface. To select a gallery for viewing, one need only start clicking on the menu item “Galleries” to see the various galleries available.
The Competition and Field Trip galleries are organized chronologically: under the “Galleries” menu, first select the year, then the month. For the Competition galleries, three icon photos (feature images) will be displayed for the month (see image 1), annotated as Critique, non-Critique and Slideshow. The title of the monthly gallery contains the date as yyyy.mm and the theme of the month; the title in Image 1 is “2016.01 Open” (“Open” means that no specific theme has been specified for the month). Click on one of the feature images to view the gallery. The Slideshow gallery contains all the photos of the Critique and non-Critique galleries.
Image 1: Selecting a Competition Gallery
The Field Trip galleries are selected directly from the corresponding “monthly” icon. The title of a Field Trip gallery contains the date and the field trip destination.
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4. Commenting upon Photos
OPC members upload photos to the monthly competition’s Critique gallery to solicit comments regarding artistic interpretations, technical or artistic improvements, or, let’s face it, just for the joy of socializing with fellow members.
The comment process is fairly simple: a) navigate to a photo in a Critique gallery, b) log in, and c) post a comment.
Commenting upon a photo requires logging in via a Facebook or Google+ account. Start the logon process by clicking in the empty gray box below the photo to which you've navigated (see Image 2). You will be taken to a logon page, follow the instructions to enter your credentials. Then, after the logon is accepted, click “OK” at the bottom right of the screen. You will then be returned to the OPC web screen with the photo upon which you wanted to comment. At this point enter your comment in the gray box and "Post" it.
Scroll down the page to view previous comments.
Image 2: Commenting upon a Photo
5. Uploading Photos
OPC members routinely upload photos to three galleries: the competition’s Critique and non-Critique galleries and the Field Trip galleries. No automated procedure has been established for uploading to other galleries; we will establish such procedures as the need arises.
The general procedures for uploading to the three routine galleries follow a three-step process.
- Assign the standard filename to the selected jpg photo. The standard filename format is
Title [spaces between multiple title words] <space> <hyphen> <space>
LastnameFirstnameinitial.jpg
For example, Double Daisy - BradshawG.jpg
- Point your browser to the appropriate OPC upload gallery using a link that will be emailed to you.
For the competition galleries, the two links (Critique and non-Critique) will be emailed one week prior to the competition that takes place on the second Friday of the month. To give other members an opportunity to pre-screen the competition photos, please upload your photos no later than the Thursday at noon before the competition.
For the field trip galleries a single link will be emailed to participants the evening of the field trip.
- Drag and drop your photo into the upload gallery. You may also select the photo from within the “upload gallery” page by clicking “Browse Computer.” The OPC website administrator will then move your photos from the private upload gallery to the public competition or field trip gallery within 24 hours.
Detailed descriptions of these procedures are available in “OPC Photo Repository, Member’s Guide” at the OPC website under the “Site Notes” menu (https://goo.gl/TkoKkN).
Note. Since our current image hosting service offers unlimited storage, the OPC no longer requires a restricted image size for uploaded photos.
6. Guidelines for Monthly Competitions
Each month club members may submit up to two photos to the Competition galleries by following the procedures described in “5. Uploading Photos” above. The photos may be uploaded in any combination to the Critique and non-Critique galleries. Please don’t put the same image into both the Critique and non-Critique galleries.
Specific themes are established for most months. Some months are considered OPEN with the only requirement being the photo was taken in the past two years. We generally do not meet for a Competition in August.
The current year’s themes are listed in the OPC Information Portal’s “OLLI Photo Club – Monthly Themes” page (https://ollidev2.earthcare.com/bi-monthly-photo-themes/). The link for that page can also be found at the “OLLI Photo Club – Overview” page (https://ollidev2.earthcare.com/photography-club-overview/).
Overview • Galleries (See Galleries) • Monthly Themes • Field Trips • Speakers • Projects