Camera Club of Hendersonville still going strong after nearly 50 years
Occasionally in downtown Hendersonville or at one of the many local events and attractions held throughout the year, you may run into a pack of photographers intently clicking their cameras at everyone and everything. Be assured, they are not a street gang or some secret government spy agency.
What you have encountered are members of the Camera Club of Hendersonville participating in one of their many image-creating field adventures.
The Camera Club of Hendersonville has been active in the area for almost 50 years and has a membership with a diversity of picture-taking skills ranging from beginning photographers with cell phones to advanced photographers with the latest in high-tech digital photographic equipment. A wide variety of activities assures that regardless of skill level, the club has something to offer for everyone interested in photography.
The club holds meetings on a monthly basis hosting a variety of topics related to photography. At each of these meetings, a well-known regional photographer provides a presentation on a specific aspect of photography that is intended to nurture and expand the members’ talents in making images. Topics cover such things as landscape, macro, portrait and abstract photography as well as related topics like producing books and digital presentations or aerial photography equipment and its use.
In addition to presentations, the club also has two very popular activities at each meeting called "Give Me You Best Shot" and "Before and After," in which all members are encouraged to participate. GYBS is a themed activity in which members are asked to shoot images related to specific monthly assignments such as holidays, animals, gardens, seasons, and transportation.
A second popular activity at many meetings that benefits all members in improving the visual presentation of their images is the Before and After program. The club officers will select specific photographs, make them available to all club members, and ask the membership to ‘post-process’ the images for visual improvement. This activity is designed to foster use and mastery of post-processing editing software like Photoshop while having fun in seeing what improvements individual members come up with in their attempts to improve upon specific photographs. The improvements range from subtle changes like straightening horizons, improving tonal contrast, and lighting to the outrageous like having a foot coming out of the sky to step on an assigned image.
The Before and After photographs are popular largely because they give members, especially those just starting out, with ideas on how to improve upon their own image-making processes. Seasoned members also enjoy the activity because it provides an opportunity to be inspiringly creative in presentation of their post-processing work.
On a yearly basis, the club also hosts a print competition for the membership which encourages members to maintain and improve their print-making skills in an era when so much imagery has moved into the digital on-line realm. A typical print competition will include over 100 entries, and each entry is shown individually to an outside group of judges who score each photograph against a variety of criteria. After the print competition takes place, all photographs entered in the competition are displayed for public viewing in the Kaplan Auditorium of the Henderson County Library for several weeks.
The Camera Club of Hendersonville also engages in ongoing field trips for members who enjoy the comradery associated with event photography. These field trips include local events like the Apple Festival and the WNC State Fair as well as visits to parks, waterfalls, resale shops, farms and just about anything else that a group wants to visit that provides good photographic opportunities.
To assist new photographers with acquiring both basic and advanced photography skills, the club also offers a mentoring program where new members are paired with experienced members to explore any and all photographic topics of interest to the new member. As digital cameras have evolved into very technically complex devices, this often involves learning how to use each of the camera’s setting and features to produce the best possible photographs.
Like the mentoring program, but in a group setting, the club also offers workshops on specific aspects of photography throughout the year. These workshops allow members to come together in an educational setting to learn about skills developed by other members in a variety of areas of photography. Recent workshops have included topics such as macro photography , Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) photography, specialty lenses for adding effects, and the art of creating abstractions in photography.
The Camera Club of Hendersonville also provides a public service to the local community through the Chamber of Commerce in documenting a variety activities happening in and around Hendersonville. If you have seen photographs on-line or in local publications of things like the baseball day camps offered by the local baseball team, The HoneyCrisps, or bicyclists participating ion the ‘Tour D’Apple’, chances are that those images were made by Camera Club of Hendersonville members.
More information on the Camera Club of Hendersonville and how to become a member can be found at https://cameraclubofhendersonville.com.
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Camera Club of Hendersonville still going strong after nearly 50 years
