When: 6:30 P.M. till we are done (you don’t have to be on time). Thursday evening, May 15th  (that’s this week!) and every third Thursday of the month from here till eternity.

Where: St. Julian’s Episcopal Church Dining Hall, 5400 Stewart’s Mill Road, Douglasville GA 30135

Why: Because people with digital cameras, computers and image manipulation software need a place to meet and show their images to an audience, get some feedback and participate in the discussions.

Hey there,

A group of us here in Douglasville are starting a new visual arts educational and social group for digital camera owners, computer artists, and other digital arts hobbyists and professionals. You are invited to join us. We want to help you show an appreciative audience your digital images, photos, short digital videos etc.

Imagine going out and making interesting photos and digital illustrations, then showing them to an audience and talking about them without having to print them out. That’s as simple as it gets—no hurdles between your making an image and you showing it to an interested audience. Of course, if you want to print them out, that’s up to you but it isn’t necessary.

The purpose of our new group is to “cut to the chase” – as simply and quickly as possible. You don’t have to print out your images. We will project them up on a screen through a computer/digital projector. There are no contests, no lectures, very few rules and hopefully after the first organizational get-together, no business meetings. Just visuals, information sharing, and fun in a very relaxed atmosphere.

All we want to do is have people of all ages show up for an evening of visual enjoyment and learning. The meetings will take place on the 3rd Thursday of every month from 6:30 until everyone goes home. Currently there are no membership fees.

You can project your images up where people can see them, talk about your work a little bit and get some audience discussion going. This is basically an image and idea-sharing discussion group. You may bring your camera equipment, laptop computer, photo album, prints—whatever visual arts you are into. Small groups can break up into separate sections of the room and talk about whatever issues are of concern. This is a social group as much as it is an educational one.

For example, one person might bring their digital camera and get some help with it. Another person might want to share her or his sports photo albums. Some people might gather in the kitchen area and discuss the best places to find great photographic subjects of a particular kind.

Younger visual artists are welcome as well. We ask that you keep the focus of the group to be “digital arts.” If your son or daughter has a digital camera, this is their opportunity as well.

Our first mission is so simple: we ask the question, “where are you currently in the course of your visual growth? Show us and let’s talk about it.”

It’s O.K. if you haven’t made a decent picture recently . . . our goal is to motivate and stimulate you to start creating again, to find out what moves you inside and go for it. If you have been making images for years then this is a way to display some of your work and teach others about your methods and goals.

Because you have expressed an interest in making pictures, I have included you in this invitation to take part in this new group that is forming here in west Atlanta and west Georgia. We hope you will come and become a “charter member” of an organization that has an interesting mission and a great future.

The name of the new group is tentatively Digital Image Group and may eventually have a website at www.digitalimagegroup.org. 

If you have a digital camera, and/or use a computer to create digital images using image manipulation software such as Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, Corel Photo Paint, or others, you may enjoy participating in the activities of Digital Image Group. At this point in time, we are not offering classes, workshops, software training, fieldtrips or contests. We are offering a meeting place, a laptop computer hooked to a digital projector, a screen, plenty of room to spread out, and an audience of visually oriented people.

Whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced image maker, an artist, an illustrator, graphic designer, amateur or professional photographer, we hope you will find this to be a harmonious group of life-long learners. 

The concept of the group is very simple, very informal and we will do our best to keep it simple and well focused. For starters:

You may bring in as many as 15 images or photos that you have created recently or you can just be a spectator. The ideal way to do this is to copy your digital images to a CD or a jump drive, or bring a USB external drive of some kind. Or you may bring your camera’s digital film in if you don’t have another way to transport the images. 

If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to call me at 770-577-3201. If you can’t make it to this month’s meeting, plan to come next month, Thursday, June 19th.  This first meeting is a formative one, meaning that we will be making some group decisions and contemplating a variety of ideas concerning the mission and goals of the group during the evening.

We already have our first corporate sponsor, Tim Collins, the publisher of the Chapel Hill News & Views has stated “You are welcome to use the magazine to promote the group, however you wish.” We are open to other corporate sponsorships. This group will be independent of any other arts or photographic organizations so that it can find its own direction.

Come join a monthly visual arts celebration! Hope to see you there!

Richard