News

Latest News and Announcements

August Meeting

Many thanks to Vince for his fascinating talk last Thursday evening at Primal Gallery. He covered his history shooting for publications around the country, covered many technical aspects of the craft, and presented some really amazing images.

Next Meeting, September 10

Our next meeting will be a photo walk on Mercer Street, Dripping Springs at 6:30pm on September 10th. Come along with a camera and see just how many great photo opportunities there are right in the center of the town.

Battle of the Brands, October 8

Our October meeting will be a “Battle of the Brands” where users of different cameras will discuss the pros and cons of their particular system. We already have volunteers signed up to talk about Canon, Nikon, Sony and OM System but if you shoot something else, Fuji, Leica, Hasselblad or whatever, and would like to present about your system, please drop us an email and we’ll make sure you are included in planning discussions for the meeting.

Songwriters’ Festival, October 16-18

The organizers of this year’s Songwriter’s Festival are looking for volunteer photographers to cover the event and provide images to the festival and artists for use in future publicity. If you are interested, drop us a line at DSAL.photo.club@gmail.com or leave a comment here with your name and email address and we’ll get you added to the list.

Volunteers are also sought to live stream performances so, if you have an interest in video and could help with this, also let us know.

Exhibition Space, November 2026

Primal Gallery has kindly offered us 3 display racks for the month of November and members are invited to submit up to two sale-ready photographs to add to the display. Bring them to the gallery any time after November 1st and hang them yourself. I’ll update this post later when I hear what the sale conditions are and what, if any, labelling is required. If we find that there’s still space available after everyone who is interested has hung two images, we’ll allow additional images to be added.

A closely cropped image of two football players.

8/13 Speaker: Vince Curletta – “Software Developer to Sports Photographer”

Club co-leader Vince Curletta is currently a sports photographer working for MaxPreps and photographing sporting events in the Texas Hill Country. Vince studied photography at the University of New Mexico and worked as a stringer for Associated Press. He changed his major to Computer Science and spent the last 40+ years developing software in various corporate environments. In 2013 he started working for the Chicago Sun Times as a freelance sports photographer. After moving to Texas, he began working for MaxPreps. Now that he’s retired from software development, he’s shooting sports as his main job, and is enjoying his love for art and photography more than ever.

In his talk “Software Developer to Sports Photographer” Vince explains his path back to photography, specifically sports photography, and tries to encourage others to pursue their love of photography.

A closely cropped image of two football players.
A single basketball player on the court.
In Shackleton's Footsteps

PODS Monthly Meeting, September 25th 2025 6:30pm

PODS members Dave and Drew Wilson took a bucket list trip to South Georgia and Antarctica last Christmas and ended up visiting many of the key locations involved in the rescue of the 28 members of the Imperial Transantarctica Expedition, marooned on the sea ice in 1914 after their ship Endurance was frozen in and crushed. Dave will give a presentation illustrated by his photos from the 2024 expedition and from Endurance photographer Frank Hurley, describing the trials and tribulations of Sir Ernest Shackleton and the rest of the crew as they survived for over 18 months on the ice and afloat on the Southern Ocean.

An aerial view of the carnival at the Founders' Day celebrations in Dripping Springs, Texas on April 26th, 2024.

PODS Monthly Meeting, July 24th 2025 6:30pm

This month’s speaker will be Jennifer Leigh Warner. Jennifer has a degree in Communications and Photography from the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University. She has been working as a full time photographer since her graduation, and her photos have been featured in over 57 publications, gaining recognition from 17 organizations for outstanding work in conservation and nature photography. Her work has been featured in over 50 exhibitions and Jennifer has been a guest speaker or a workshop leader for dozens groups. Thursday she will be talking to PODS about “Putting Your Images to Work.”  

Hamilton Pool near Austin, Texas.

PODS Monthly Meeting – June 26th, 2025 6:30pm

We will be working on critiques this month. To become better at your craft, there are three things you must do: 1- keep taking pictures, 2- expand your boundaries by going into areas you might not be proficient at, 3- examine your work and get ideas and suggestions to make it better. 

For the critique, please submit 1 or 2 images to Fred Cerkan (fcerkan@gmail.com).  Any genre is acceptable. Change image type to .jpg Limit size of image to either (1) 1500 pixels on the longest side, or (2) 3 Meg, whichever is easiest.

The meeting will be at our usual venue – Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, 301 Hays Country Acres Rd, Dripping Springs, TX 78620 – at 6:30pm.