The Sioux City Camera Club's Annual Banquet and Awards will be Thursday, May 9th, at 6:00 PM in the fellowship hall at the First Presbyterian Church, 6th & Nebraska St., in downtown Sioux City.  Sneaky's will be the caterer for the event.  The cost will be $12.00 per person.  A sign-up sheet will be at the April 25th meeting or contact Doug Conrad at [email protected] if you would like to make a reservation.

The guest speaker for the evening is Mark Volkers, the digital media instructor at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa.  Mark will give a presentation on story telling with images.

Many people take a lot of photographs. Mostly snap shots of family and other events like activities their children or grandchildren are involved in, or church events and holidays.

Some of us pursue our interest in photography and take it to another level, excelling in photographing wildlife, nature, people and other interests, mostly through participation in a camera club where we learn with others how to take better photographs and create images with impact.  But mostly these are just dynamic images. They stand out because they have impact in their conception and execution.  However, there is a difference in a very nice image that captures attention and those that tell a story.

Mark Volkers began as a still photographer working for the Christian Reformed Church and other organizations after working as a missionary for seven years in Africa. From shooting stills he transitioned to filming all the while telling stories about people he hoped his images would help and make a difference for them.

Volkers’ presentation will touch on how to create images that help tell a story, beyond making nice images or even images with impact. Roaming with world for a decade as a photojournalist and documentary filmmaker before joining Dordt College in Sioux Center to teach digital media production ( http://dordtdigitalmedia.wordpress.com ), Volkers honed his skill in arriving at a location, finding those salient aspects of a story he needed to tell, make connections with locals (many times long term connections that continue to this day) and telling their story in the hopes of creating a better environment for them and the world.

Volkers is a storyteller, using images. Transitioning from stills to “moving stills” or film (video) Volkers will introduce us to a way of seeing and possibly a new avenue to pursue in our own photography and become better storytellers ourselves. He will touch on basics of telling a story and show us how even a single photograph done correctly can tell a story of a person, time or place that hopefully becomes memorable to a viewer.