Valley Photo Center Camera Club
Information about the Club
Longmeadow MA Adult Center, 231 Maple Road, Longmeadow MA
Are you passionate about photography? Are you 55+ years old? Are you eager to improve your skills and connect with fellow photographers? Join us for a club meeting at the Longmeadow Adult Center 231 Maple Road, Longmeadow, MA 01106 on the second Thursday of the month at 1:30 pm.
Meetings will alternate between a speaker and a photo topic and the next month a photo competition and or photo critique. The July meeting will feature a program about how to make close up and macro photographs. The August meeting will feature a critique of member photographs
The club will offer a supportive environment for photographers of all levels. You'll have the opportunity to:
- Improve your photography
- Share your work
- Participate in club contests
- Challenges with other New England camera clubs.
Best of all, membership is free you just have to register with the Longmeadow Adult Center! If you’re interested but unable to attend the meeting, please contact D. John McCarthy at valleyphotocenter@icloud.com or call 413-596-8752 for more information. We hope to see you there.
If you can't attend the live meetings because you are to young or live to far away you can still participate in the contests and critiques at our My Camera Club Site. CLICK HERE to learn how to join.
NECCC Inter Club Competition Awards
2025 Fall Class B Nature Honorable Mention Peter Fazekas
2026 Winter Class B Nature Honorable Mention Christine Sickle
October, 2026 MEETING
“…for a RETURN TICKET ”
ARTHUR LEVI RAINVILLE, M.PHOTOG. CR, CPP, API, ASP HON. ESP
The big Why… why do we make photographs? For a Return Ticket of course. We want to slide back to a memory, a time, a place, a face… somewhere, something, someone that was, is, an integral part of the fabric of our life.
As visual artists we create these images from two sides of our creative brain. We weave the technique into a viable language with our seeing brainside and we cement it with our feelings, our personal connection way of making the image a worthy emotional treasure.
Arthur will share a bohemian approach to crafting powerful work from landscape to nature to ‘real humans.’
Drawing from historic art and from his trove of personal experiences as a lifelong celebrated photographic artist and educator, he will offer a rarified path to the new meaningful imagery.
The October, 2026 meetings will take place at the Longmeadow Adult Center on the 8th. You must be 55+ to attend live meetings of the photo club at the center. Please register at the front desk. All meetings take place on the 2nd Thursday of the month at 1:30 PM.
About Arthur Levi Rainville
“There are many prophets who bang the drum loudly. Arthur Levi Rainville has quietly set an illustrious stage with his work and his teachings for half a century. He wields his lens with the ardor of a great portrait painter. It has been said, ‘…he deserves the bravissimo afforded a maestro.” “Arthur is the official ‘soulful philosopher’ of our art world!”
- S. Cohen, SC University
“…Rainville will be known for his significant contributions as a pioneer in the societal aspects of the visual arts. His work, his tutelage, have impacted many an artist, given rise to a new generation of sensitive creators.”
-M. Peabody
Arthur Levi Rainville, M.Photog., Cr, CPP, API, ASP Hon.EA
Emotive Visualist
has been creating stunning photographs and paintings drenched in atmosphere, drowned in romanticism, for over 60 years. With his life’s work being displayed in museums and private collections on three continents; he has been touted as, “the Poet Lauréate of Photography and Art, one of the most sensitive artists of our time.”
He is widely known for his muted, granular color work. Refinements of this life’s passion led to his lyrical, quixotic Mansuesco style. Defying a definable formula, Mansuesco, much like Impressionism, is a plurality of looks. At its essence, a sentimental subject, ambiguity of spirit, wrapped in subtle intrigue. An innate quality of light coupled with a compositional choreography is akin to his intimate signature style.
In a one-man show at the French Cultural Center, his work was astutely referred to by a critic/connoisseur as “... a synthesis of observation and imagination blended with a palette of gauzy colors.”
Arthur has devoted a lifetime to teaching portraiture, inspiring artists to look inward as they face their blank canvas.
Former Portrait Depart Chair and Academic Director of the New England School of Photography in Boston, Arthur has lectured across the country at Universities and Fine Art Museums from Boston to New York, Minneapolis, Dallas, throughout California and across Canada. Arthur has imbued audiences with his Fine Art Workshops around the world - Athens, Paris, Venice…from Trinidad and Tobago to the Hawaiian Islands. Most recently, Arthur has taught classes and workshops to visual artists from his unique ‘Art of Life’ series.
Besides being a noted touring lecturer, he is a prolific author with copious writings and four published books on the Creative Spirit and Living an Artful Life. As photography’s resident ‘Sage,’ Arthur continues to spread the word that private, personal vision matters, that soulful connectivity with a subject matters. Ever the consummate Portraitist, he is recognized for his saying; “A picture is of someone, but a portrait is about someone.”
After 50 years in his private studio practice, Arthur served as Vice President, Creative Development at Lifetouch Inc., the world’s largest portrait corporation, where he coached the originative workings of 35,000 photographers.
He has been honored with the PPA (Professional Photographers of America) degrees of: Master of Photography, Photographic Craftsman, Certified Professional Photographer and API, recognized Instructor.
He is the 2019 recipient of the PPA International Helen K Yancy Lifetime Achievement Accolade, only the twelfth such award bestowed by PPA in its 150-year history. From a membership of 40,000 in 64 countries, the honor is presented to an individual who by their gracious sharing of talents has bequeathed to the art of photography an achievement of distinguished service of far-reaching value.
In 2024 he was awarded the prestigious American Society of Photographers Honorary Educational Associate for a lifetime of enlightenment.
In the world of art, he is the founder of the KenZen school of visualization, an old-world new-world study of primal aesthetics, an inward practice of seeing and creating. Utilizing sensory life experiences as tools to mastering more personal art, KenZen is the bridge between technical and spiritual artistry.
His latest book, CHASING GRACE incorporating KenZen, the Art of Reflective Creating, and Whilom and Consent, is an insightful philosophical approach to the ‘arting’ war on self.
His current portfolio lives on the periphery of a bold, contemporary acumen, a radical role-reversal from his life-long Mansuesco imagery. Termed, Tempramentsa, every piece is a personally emotive journey for each viewer.
His time is devoted and divided between private portrait commissions via Artisan Trusts, consultancy and private mentoring, originative teachings, independent curatorial work and his experiential fine art studies and gallery oeuvre.
August, 2026 MEETING
The August, 2026 meetings will take place at the Longmeadow Adult Center on the 13th. You must be 55+ to attend live meetings of the photo club at the center. Please register at the front desk. All meetings take place on the 2nd Thursday of the month at 1:30 PM. The program will cover the workflow for cataloging you photographs using a variety of programs including Light Room Photo, and others.
May, 2026 MEETING
The May, 2026 meetings will take place at the Longmeadow Adult Center on May 14th. There will be a demonstration of basic portrait lighting. You must be 55+ to attend live meetings of the photo club at the center. Please register at the front desk. All meetings take place on the 2nd Thursday of the month at 1:30 PM.
April, 2026 MEETING
The April, 2026 meetings will take place at the Longmeadow Adult Center on April 9th. It will be a photo critique of submissions to our my camera club site. There will also be an introduction to portrait lighting. You must be 55+ to attend live meetings of the photo club at the center. Please register at the front desk. All meetings take place on the 2nd Thursday of the month at 1:30 PM.
Notes from meeting below. Lighting Ratios explains how to calculate them. Basic Lighting-compressed is a PDF of a slide show that illustrates lighting ratios and types of lighting.
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Lighting Ratios 1.pdf Size : 2736.184 Kb Type : pdf |
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Lighting Ratios.pdf Size : 2752.808 Kb Type : pdf |
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Basic Lighting-compressed.pdf Size : 401.922 Kb Type : pdf |
January, 2025 Meeting
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Handout Smartphone Photography Valley Photo Center pdf 2026 01 08.pdf Size : 71.259 Kb Type : pdf |
will be on Thursday, November 13, 2025 at 1:30 at the Longmeadow Adult Center will have a presentation by award winning photographer, Paul Hetzel.
'Paul Hetzel is a photographer based in Springfield, Massachusetts. His photographic career was launched during a trek to Mt. Everest in 1994. Time constraints of his busy Medical Oncology practice stimulated him to move from film to digital capture in 2005. He finds the use of Black and White photography allows him to better convey the aesthetics of and emotional attachment to a particular subject. His images have been awarded best in show at the Monson Art Show and the New England Camera Club Conference. Exhibitions of his work have appeared in multiple galleries in New England. He published his first book, From This Sapling, in 2013. He has been fortunate to capture landscape and nature images in such distant lands as Nepal, Tibet, Patagonia, Africa and throughout the Southwest United States. However, some of his favorite images have been captured close to home.'
You can attend the live meeting if you are 55+ but you can participate in the contest and critique at any age on line.
"Photographing an astrolandscape is becoming increasingly popular. People are discovering that their digital cameras see very well in the dark and can capture the splendor of the starry skies. Infrared Milky Way photography ramps up the ability to see more detail of the magnificence of a star-filled landscape. Using digital infrared converted cameras expands their already impressive seeing abilities." - Silvana Della Camera
For our September meeting had a special guest speaker, Silvana Della Camera, will give a special program about photographing the Milky Way using digital infrared. This program will have special appeal not only to photographers, but to anyone interested in gazing the stars at night so invite your friends to attend. The program was at our regular second Thursday of the month on September 11th at 1:30 and as always is free to attend. This program will be paid for my the Valley Photo Center.
If you missed the Valley Photo Center camera club meeting at the Longmeadow Adult Center, Seeing At Night - Milky Way & Astrolandscape Photography by Silvana Delia-Camera or you were to young to attend in person I posted a video of Ms. Delia-Camera’s presentation on YouTube. You can see it by clicking here: Click Here
You can read her presentation notes: Click Here
If you want to convert one of your to digital cameras to make infrared photos you can use code SDCIR2025 at LifePixel.com.
For more information about Astro Photography with simple equipment watch this video on YouTube entitled, You don't need expensive gear to photograph other galaxies:
July 10, 20225 Meeting
- Magnification Ratio – The relationship between subject size on the camera sensor versus its actual size (1:1 means life-size)
- Working Distance – The space between your lens front element and the subject
- Depth of Field – The zone of acceptable sharpness in your image, typically very shallow in macro work. What’s in focus in front of the subject and behind.
- Focus Stacking – Taking multiple gshots at different focus points to combine into one sharp image
- Extension Tubes – Hollow tubes that mount between camera and lens to enable closer focusing
- Focusing Rails – Sliding platforms allowing precise forward/backward camera movements
- Reversing Rings – Adapters enabling a lens to be mounted backwards for increased magnification
- Macro Ring Light – Circular flash unit that mounts around the lens for even lighting
- Image Stabilization – Technology reducing camera shake effects
Some tips
- Use manual focus for precise control
- Start with apertures between f/8 and f/11 for optimal sharpness
- Consider using a tripod for stability
- Practice with larger subjects before moving to tiny ones
© Copyright 2025The Valley Photo Center