When I first got into collecting, it was quite popular to collect California OA Lodges. This came from geographical interest, as well as the excellent and legendary OA Green Book. The Green Book was one of the first guides to include actual photographs with their listings. The book now is a collector’s item, and the guide was ahead of it’s time.
Eventually, creating a credible collection of California OA Lodges became impracticle. There were too many issues, too many varieties, and the problem was growing each year. Ironically, there seemed to be an inverse relation between having fewer Lodges due to consolidation, and more collecting issues being released by those fewer Lodges.
At one point, I decided to change my collection goals to the traditional Area 4 Lodges, but even that got way out of hand.
Bold-faced names are active Order of the Arrow Lodges – list is still being populated
T.M. Schultze is a San Diego-based photographer, traveller, and writer. He writes, photographs, and draws things of the outdoors that have inspired humans for thousands of years. He co-authored the Photographer’s Guide to Joshua Tree Park which can be purchased here.
T.M. Schultze is a San Diego-based photographer, traveller, and writer. He writes, photographs, and draws things of the outdoors that have inspired humans for thousands of years. He co-authored the Photographer’s Guide to Joshua Tree Park which can be purchased here.
This weekend, I co-photographed the 2016 Double Vigil Golf Classic, which is an annual Scouting charity tournament. It was held at the Arizona Grand Resort and Spa in Southern Phoenix near Tempe. It was an excellent day to make images, with warm but mild temperatures and party cloudy skies. Continue reading →
T.M. Schultze is a San Diego-based photographer, traveller, and writer. He writes, photographs, and draws things of the outdoors that have inspired humans for thousands of years. He co-authored the Photographer’s Guide to Joshua Tree Park which can be purchased here.
Using photography to develop a local OA history is important. Images are a well-known resource and an under-appreciated asset. The written record provides the core facts and information about a Lodge’s history. Supplementing that record with a photographic record provides perspective and presence.
There should be two separate goals to add photography to your Lodge history. The first is to research and acquire photographs from the past. The second goal is to begin creating contemporary photographs to serve future Lodge historians of the future.
Photographs From The Past
Scanned print from the 1956 Area XII-A Conference
It is likely your Lodge already has some photography to start with. Long-time lodge members or their families likely possess them in their homes. If you know members who own these images, you can either ask for a donation, or ask for the opportunity to scan them so the Lodge has a copy.
You have hit the jackpot If you locate images that are still available in slides or negatives. Scanning your slides or negatives will result in superior images. Access to a film scanner will come in handy, but you can also look up a local shop who will do the scanning for you for a fee. Save your scans at least 300dpi and in TIF format. Jpegs are popular lossy formats, and there is a significant loss in quality. If you want to someday print an image in a large size, having the highest quality will be very important.
Prints are also acceptable, but you will likely run into issues with damaged paper, fading paper, low quality prints, and other issues. Older images tend to age better. Higher quality paper was used in the early days of photography.
The 1970s in particular are notorious for the low quality of their prints. Most prints from this period are low quality and fading/yellowing on mediocre paper. Those images will need serious restoration work from an experienced Photoshop artist. Many photo businesses offer restoration services but they do charge a hefty fee.
Contemporary Photography
Section W6W Chief Vianney Careaga delivers a speech at the 2015 Section Conclave. The right location can deliver a truly impactful image.
Every day, history is made. It is very important to keep a photographic record for those in the future to enjoy. Collecting images from the past should provide clues about what is important to your Lodge.
What parts of your Lodge’s history did you find photographs? What parts of your Lodge’s history are missing images? What historical moments would you have loved to seen an image? Write those down and compare to what your Lodge is doing today, and you will have an excellent starter list.
Ribbon Cutting to open the 2015 NOAC GEO Museum
Events are a great way to start. As you track past events in your Lodge’s history, you will see that recording your current events are important. Capturing Lodge leaders, key guests, and Arrowmen in action are a great start to a great photographic history. Supplement your images with names and the subject matter, so future people will know who is who.
Candid photographs are best. While it is easy to make an image of Lodge leaders standing together, why not capture them in action, whether it be an Ordeal, a fellowship, or a banquet?
Plan your images. Make a list of the images you want from an event and capture them. You will be ready when significant unexpected moments come up.
Equipment is not everything. Everybody would love to have a professional DSLR, a speedlight, and other fancy equipment, but the best camera in the world is the one you have in your hand. In good light, even a cell phone can make a great image.
Organizing The Images
Now that you have built a historical collection of photographs, and you have a plan for making future images, now you need to do something with them.
Hosting the images on your Lodge website is a good start, but you can also use services like Flickr. Be wary of social media sites. They are a good place to upload images copies for many members to see, but those services frequently compress and alter your images to save storage space. They will not be the same quality as your originals.
Where possible, it is important to save the original RAW files if you taken by an SLR. You may consider also saving in Adobe’s DNG format to help future-proof your raw files.
In addition, you need to go beyond simply posting photographs. Photographs should be searchable and include additional metadata. The most important task is to “keyword” your images with descriptive items that make the images searchable by a variety of areas.
Categorizing your images by a variety areas will help you show your images. Categories can include events, years, decades or eras, or other descriptive information.
With a plan to acquire older images and create new images while building your Lodge’s local history, photography can be a huge resource to making a resource for your Lodge members and future members to enjoy.
T.M. Schultze is a San Diego-based photographer, traveller, and writer. He writes, photographs, and draws things of the outdoors that have inspired humans for thousands of years. He co-authored the Photographer’s Guide to Joshua Tree Park which can be purchased here.
Most of these Pages recount personal experiences, things I have learned over the years, and thoughts I want to share about a program that has been important in my life. All Pages should be considered rough drafts as I suspect I will have more to say, revise, and change over time.
Area4History.com: Originally a published booklet by Tom Tabb. In 2002, I set up this website to continue the project and build a larger and more meaningful history of the Areas/Sections/Lodges that have made up the traditional Area 4 of the Western Region.
T.M. Schultze is a San Diego-based photographer, traveller, and writer. He writes, photographs, and draws things of the outdoors that have inspired humans for thousands of years. He co-authored the Photographer’s Guide to Joshua Tree Park which can be purchased here.
At a Scouting event held locally in San Diego’s Mission Bay (San Diego Youth Aquatic Center), the Naruwan Taiko performed in front of over 500 people. Their performance was excellent. In hindsight, I should have set up video to share with everyone. I did create still images of this very impressive group in action.
Their performance is loud, rhythmic, and athletic. If you haven’t seen a taiko drumming performance, it is remarkable. Memories of Kishin Daiko performing at Section Conclaves in the early 2000s was the catalyst to invite this drumming team to be a part of the Saturday night show. While I don’t post a lot of images from Scouting events on my photography blog, I thought the drumming performance was too cool to not share.
Overall, their performance was about 30 minutes and included several songs. They also got an assist from the audience during their final song and earned a standing ovation from the crowd. I had a lot of freedom of movement along the Youth Aquatic Center stage, which enabled me to capture various parts of their performance from a variety of angles. I needed my flash unit and a quick shutter speed to catch them still before they moved too quickly (and they move fast!).
If you are interested in having Naruwan Taiko perform at your event, email them at naruwantaiko@gmail.com. They are great people and excellent to work with.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the images.
T.M. Schultze is a San Diego-based photographer, traveller, and writer. He writes, photographs, and draws things of the outdoors that have inspired humans for thousands of years. He co-authored the Photographer’s Guide to Joshua Tree Park which can be purchased here.
