When my buddy and I were coming together to form this club we wanted it to be a space for other creators to feel welcomed no matter their experience in the hobby. We want to be able to offer advice where we feel that we are knowledgeable enough to give and if there are others that know more than we do we encourage them to speak up as well. Creators are can often be hesitant when putting out content so this little club family that we have; our hope is people feel comfortable enough to start sharing within the group. With all of this teaching cannot only be done verbally in photography, one must go out and take photos so as a club there are organized meetings to practice skills that are learned throughout the semester.
There have been multiple types of events throughout our club history. We have organized photoshoots with our members. During these shoots we have gone to the city and used one another as models to practice portrait shots. There were also plenty of opportunities during these to practice city scape and architecture pictures. We held 2 meetings a month where we would gather and talk about topics that members wanted to learn. These request would then be turned into presentations and presented at following meetings. Collectively the club would edit photos on the screen bouncing ideas around making the photo look clean and crisp.
As a club we know that other clubs, faculty, or even the campus in general may sometimes need a service provided. For example, this 2020 Fall semester I have done photoshoots for the Dance and Chess club. We also want to start offering headshots for LinkedIn and other business oriented photos. These services are usually requested and we will evaluate if we are open to doing it or not. We try not to put a label on what we are willing to do because of the need to try newer things.
The club was originally started by my friend Shiv Patel back in Fall of 2019. Him and I came to campus looking for a photography club only to find that there was not one to join. He ended up getting the ball rolling before I could and making it into the involvement fair where he gathered a large number of email addresses from students interested in our club. This is when I myself also signed up and ended up snapchatting Shiv about the first meeting. From there him and I were always on the same page which made the President and Vice President seats very easy to establish. This is when the emails started being sent out and the people who responded would become club members and some even became other club officers. To this day we still are trying to gather new students through different forms of promotion on campus and online.
From an entry level outlook Shiv and I are able to help anyone that wants to learn even with a cell phone the basics of photography. This includes: lighting, composition, and post processing. With these three basic elements a person can take their shots to the next level. Not to say that one will perfect these quickly but there will be early rapid growth after understanding them. Taking things a different direction to the gear side of the conversation; Shiv and I have different preferences for certain technology. Shiv is very much into the Sony brand and would be able to teach that brand better than I could. I personally am fond of the Canon product line and would have a better grip on the ropes of their cameras. We both understand how to use phone cameras and adobe services (for editing purposes).