Our guest this month is renowned outdoor photographer, Ian J. Plant.

Ian J. Plant has been photographing the natural world for fifteen years and is known for his dramatic and evocative landscape and wildlife images. His work has appeared in a number of books and calendars, as well as national and regional magazines, including Outdoor Photographer, National Parks, Blue Ridge Country, Adirondack Life, Wonderful West Virginia, and Chesapeake Life, among others. His sixth and most recent book is the critically acclaimed Chesapeake: Bay of Light. An Exploration of the Chesapeake Bay's Wild and Forgotten Places. Ian's work has also appeared in five books of the Wonder and Light series. Ian is co-owner of Mountain Trail Press, a publisher of nature photography books and calendars. Ian also leads photo workshops and tours through Mountain Trail Photo. For more information, and to see more of Ian's work, visit www.mountaintrailphoto.com.

Ian will be presenting some of his favorite wildlife and natural landscape images from his critically acclaimed book, Chesapeake: Bay of Light. An Exploration of the Chesapeake Bay's Wild and Forgotten Places. Copies of the book will be available for sale following the presentation, available at a discount for club members.

Chesapeake: Bay of Light. An Exploration of the Chesapeake Bay's Wild and Forgotten Places
Published by Mountain Trail Press
Hardcover, 12"x12", 192 pages, color
List Retail Price: $45

Gallery f64 will be hosting a reception in an on-going series of Emerging Photographer Artists. Join them on Friday, March 21 from 6-9pm as they offer work from Christopher Daberko, Suzanne Garr and Drime Kelsang.

Gallery f64 will also be celebrating one year in business, and a new location. Gallery f64 is now located at 8090 Main Street, Ellicott City. There is more wall space and more work exhibited.

F64 has previously hosted the work of CMPG, and we hope you can take the time to visit.

Just a reminder that Gallery f64 in Ellicott City (8289 Main St., 410-480-9004) continues to exhibit prints from CMPG members throughout the month of December. The show that opened on December 7th will continue to hang until January 2nd. Please stop by to appreciate our members' work and to visit a local gallery truly devoted to promoting photography. Owner and Director Doug Bruns donates all operating profits to Images for Change, a philanthropic charity.

For members who want them, here are some links to documents you may need for the f64 show on December 7th.

There was an error in the calendar entry for the August meeting. The 4th Wednesday of this month is 8/22, not 8/29 as previously shown. Please make a note of the correct date....

CMPG has elected its first cadre of officers as of its January 24th meeting. We thank those who have served to get the Guild to this point, those who have volunteered to pick up the slack when things have needed...

Good news - we've found the problem with the link between the main page and the featured photos gallery. The problem wasn't the program code after all, but a bogus corrupt entry in the gallery database. It's all been fixed,...

The December CMPG meeting has been moved from the 27th to the 20th. There was considerable feedback saying that people would be traveling between Christmas and New Year's. So, in the interest of accommodating our critique session as well as...

CMPG is looking for a member who is willing to assume certain responsibilities for planning and coordinating Guild-sponsored educational seminars.

Mark your calendar for January 13th, 2007. CMPG presents David Hobby, "The Strobist", who is offering a half-day lighting seminar and workshop. Seating is limited to 40 attendees - SOLD OUT! Waiting List is available....

The Featured Photos section of the website has undergone a major overhaul. Out with the old, in with the new. We start the current crop and the archives with a clean slate.

New gallery features and upgrades. CMPG members get new gallery benefits.

Forum upgrades, database maintenance, and gallery problems.

Updates to the web site. A new member's forum. Notes from the June 12th business meeting.

After listening to feedback about the website, we've recently undertaken a redesign of the entire site. The most common complaint was that the layout was a bit cluttered, making things difficult to find at first glance. We agreed with you. And so, we changed it.

At our April meeting, we introduced the first draft of the CMPG handbook. Now, it's time to start gathering feedback. We are in the process of posting the text of the draft, broken into sections, as forum threads in the Policy Forum, with polls attached to gauge general opinions on the content of the handbook.

Members: The April, 2006 meeting agenda topic is open in the forums. There is also a short three-question website poll there, as well. If you want to discuss the agenda, suggest agenda items, or have something you want to prep for the meeting, please read on.

The CMPG website is undergoing a complete overhaul. In order to improve our online services, present our information more efficiently, and provide access to all of our new features, the CMPG site is being heavily upgraded and modified on the back-end.

The forums are temporarily down while I convert all the content over to the Invision Power Board system.

After several months of meeting at various branches of the Howard County Public Library, the Central Maryland Photographers' Guild has found a permanent home. "I'm very excited for the Guild to finally have a permanent home again," said Acting Director...

It's that time of year again, when we ask everyone to re-up their dues. As always, dues are $25 per member for the year. We'd like to collect dues at our December 28 meeting. This year, after you pay your...

Just a quick note... We will be watermarking all Featured Photos from this point onward with a copyright notice in the name of the submitter.

If you have a Nikon digital SLR (models D100, D70, D70s, D50) that came with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery model EN-EL3, there is a massive recall on these batteries.

The first batch of feedback from the web site surveys has been tallied. I've been working to incorporate some of the suggestions that people have made, and update certain sections to take into account the results of your input.

CMPG is offering an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) newsfeed from its site, www.cmpg.org. Keep on top of the latest info on our site!

The "Featured Photo" selections will be rotated on a bi-weekly basis on the home page. We will still be chosing four photographs per critique session, but they will be displayed for two weeks at a time as opposed to one....

This months meeting marked the CMPG's first birthday. The club has come a long way in its first year, and is continuing to follow the formative vision of Geren and Will:...to further the art and craft of photography, with a...

Come one and all to CMPG's Inaugural Exhbition at the Margaret Smith Gallery in historic Ellicott City.

Library update: new Tips 'n' Tricks article regarding hand holding at low speeds and quickly framing moving subjects.