[Leica] Digital shutterbug surge fuels local camera clubs

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Digital shutterbug surge fuels local camera clubs

By Jean Lang BOSTON GLOBE CORRESPONDENT  OCTOBER 27, 2017

In photospeak, you might say amateur camera clubs are in burst mode.

The recent explosion in digital photography ? by one estimate, some
1.2 trillion such photos will be shot this year, up from 400 billion
just six years ago ? means that fewer hobbyists are hunched over
processing trays in darkrooms these days, but many, many more are out
there in the light shooting away.

And a lot of those amateurs, wanting to get better at their new hobby,
are clamoring to join camera clubs.

Take the Duxbury Camera Club, for one local example. It is pretty much
filled to capacity, straining to keep membership at 90. In addition to
monthly meetings from September through June, the club has established
several ?focus groups,? smaller gatherings held separately, some in
the afternoon, others in the evening, usually in members? homes, at
which participants ?gently critique?? each other?s work, as one member
put it. Many of those groups are full.

?Since the advent of digital photography,?? said club president Chris
Ruggio, ?it?s really revolutionized things, and people have been able
to do a lot more with their photography. You aren?t limited by the
number of photos you take anymore.?

Ruggio, by day a risk and compliance manager for State Street
financial services , said the club had responded to the great demand
by organizing a second black-and-white focus group and was
establishing a portrait one.

?Especially with Facebook these days,?? said Ellen Barry, who handles
publicity for the club, ?people post so many photographs, and I think
people just are interested in expressing the things they see around
them in pictures. Plus, the club is a great way to meet people.?

On a recent Saturday, more than 50 people streamed into the Duxbury
library?s Merry Room for the club?s first general membership meeting
of the season. There they admired photo displays, many of them set to
music and organized by themes such as night photography, panoramas,
and those taken with camera phones. Attendees voted on which photos to
choose for the month?s challenge: ?Capturing Duxbury.? The winners
might end up on the Duxbury town report.

Among those in the crowd were Tara Cartee, who used to accompany her
daughter Marissa before she headed off to college this fall. Marissa,
in fact, helped schedule the club?s guest speakers. This time Cartee
brought along her 11-year-old daughter, Miranda, whose attention
seemed divided between the photos and a Michael Crichton book.

Ruggio said the club encourages young people to participate, giving
$500 scholarships to select college-bound members and waiving the $40
membership fee for those 18 and younger. Still, for a club that was
revived only about a decade ago after an earlier one faded, finding
new members is hardly the problem these days.

Amateurs wanting to get better, many of them baby boomers, seem to
find what they?re looking for in the monthly meetings, focus groups,
and workshops. Beyond all that, some members? works are framed and
mounted for an annual show, and almost all efforts are uploaded and
displayed online.

Then there are the field trips, such as the one held Sept. 16 at the
O?Neil Farm in Duxbury, at which club members, most of them boomers,
had a field day of their own, taking pictures of everything that moved
? cows, goats, bees, and certainly people.

Most of the shutterbugs were doing so with cameras, the members?
general preference, said Ruggio, though cellphones are gaining in use
as they improve and might soon merit a club workshop or lecture. ?The
best camera,?? said Ruggio, passing along a saying he likes, ?is the
one you have on you.?

Duxbury is one of more than three dozen Massachusetts camera clubs
listed as members on the website of the New England Camera Club
Council, a nonprofit umbrella group of more than 70 clubs and Meetups,
casual get-togethers of like-minded people facilitated by the online
Meetup app.

Another local member of the New England group is the South Shore
Camera Club, in existence since 1934. It meets at the Quincy Point
Congregational Church on Washington Street in Quincy.

Its president, Suzanne Larson, who lives in Scituate, said she was on
a waiting list for a few months before getting in around five years
ago.

Larry Fay, a past president and Milton resident, said when he joined
around 10 to 11 years ago, there were approximately 75 members who
presented their work in slides or prints. As digital photography
became more prevalent, he said prints and slides diminished, but
membership soared.

He said the club tries to keep membership at around 200 so everyone
can fit comfortably in the meeting space. ?We don?t want to see people
stand for two hours,? he said.

In addition to the weekly meetings in the church, the group is active
with road trips, whether it be an impromptu drive to Scituate Light or
a journey to Quebec City or Scotland.

Larson, who enjoys night photography, said a road trip to the Cape or
elsewhere to shoot the Milky Way was in the works.

Fay said both the accessibility and complexity of digital photography
have boosted participation. He said some cameras are so complicated
people are afraid to turn off the automatic setting. Others are
looking for guidance with software applications such as Photoshop
Lightroom. But with the reduction in costs, and many equipped with
cellphone cameras, more and more people feel they, too, can be
shutterbugs.

?Everyone?s a photographer,? said Fay.