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I saw an ad in the paper about a local camera club - they're starting in Feb 1 and have some photography workshops which I'd be interested in going to. I think I might be a bit intimidated though...
Just wondering - who here is part of a local camera club, and how do you find it? What have your experiences been like, and what benefits do you get out of it?
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I joined a large local camera club in September. It's been an interesting experience....
I went looking for a camera club because I spend a lot of time online, but have no 'real' photography friends or contacts. I found a number of local clubs by searching on-line (naturally), and selected it because it has a good location, size... and I like its name. The biggest and oldest club is the Toronto Camera Club; I joined the Toronto Guild for Photographic Arts. I wanted a photo club, not a camera club, because I already spend too much time on cameras instead of photos. It's a semantic difference (TGPA is a splinter group from TCC) but I care about odd things.
It's a very active group, with clinics, competitions, and workshops monthly, and group outings most months. I've learned a lot. The biggest change is that I'm a below-average photographer. I got used to being one of the better photogs on a small board; the new fish:pond ratio has been refreshing and given me a reason to improve.
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I joined the Fresno Camera Club around 14 months ago, we have twice monthly competitions for prints and slides. The quarterley workshops and the odd field trip.
I publish the newsletter and the website.... and got talked into taking over as president for this year "Due to my enthusiasm and interest in learning!"
It's a club of two halves really... half that are helpful and help you learn... (3 members have over 60 years of experience each! And half that feel if your in a cam,era club, you should know what your doing already!
The last year has certainly improved my photography a lot.
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I acutally did join the Photographers' Collective at the famous Camara Club of New York when we got here and was supposed to get invitations to lectures and workshops..... Seems like there haven't been any since I joined :-((
I think it's pretty sad for such a big Club to be that inactive, but people seem to use membership mostly to do darkroom work and printing, I think there are a lot of professionals there.
I also started a course at a different school in Manhatten though. I've only been once, but people seemed generally intested and open minded, so I am looking forward to meeting some "photo mates" there. However much I enjoy ST, it is still important, to have some non-virtual photography contacts I think :-)
uli
) here is a link where you can select your region and get a list of the camera clubs in your area:
