Beginner I'm going to my first camera club tonight!

I am curious, do photographers approach camera clubs seeking to give talks
or
do you get sort of famous in you local area and clubs start chasing you to give a lecture?

A local club asked on here for recommendations so I put myself forward as I was in the process of putting a talk together.

After that I emailed a load of clubs and got interest from some. I also created a page on my website. I’ve now done about 30 talks over the past 5 years and probably the majority have come from approaches via my website, the rest being word of mouth or people who know my work and have asked their club to book me. A few have also booked me for a return visit.
 
I am curious, do photographers approach camera clubs seeking to give talks
or
do you get sort of famous in you local area and clubs start chasing you to give a lecture?

IME most speakers are club members who then approach their local body that oversees clubs to be included in that body's book - in my case the Yorkshire Photographic Union handbook - that is produced for Club Sec's to book both speakers and judges

When I became a judge I also had it included that I can do talks too, and while most book me through that book (the YPU handbook) several have been direct recommendations too

If I hadn't gone down that route and wished to give club talks then I'd first have a very strong web presence of great images, then approach club secs to tell them I do talks with a link to those images; if its business you're (one) is after then its a long slow 'exposure' route, but it does work. If you just want to show off images then that's fine too if a) they are great, and b) you're a good presenter

Dave
 
If you just want to show off images then that's fine too if a) they are great, and b) you're a good presenter

Scored low on both of those! :)

Thanks for the info about the 'book'. I don't know huge amounts about the local club scene so that explanation was very interesting. My local(ish) club really put me off as they had no activies and puzzlingly seemed unwilling to explain anything about how clubs worked if they could avoid it.

It seems a common problem in my area, for club members just to turn up and only sit and talk among themselves about other clubs photos. I have looked at many clubs local to my nearest city but most of them have very dull timetables. I did find a more promising club about 15-20 miles away, but they only met in the winter when the driving would not have been the most fun. Its really nice to hear of clubs doing more stuff in other regions. Its a shame as I would like to associate a bit more with other photographers.
 
I don't know where you are bud

Gloucestershire / Somerset. I ought to have another go at Facebook. I felt a bit drowned by (non photography) drivel when I tried around 2 years back. It must be me as others seem to have much more success with it. Someone told me to try Meet Up which is some kind of social web site I think, for arranging events. I do some voluntary photography for charities occasionally and thats quite nice for meeting non photographers. Oddly Oxfam book shops (as just a customer) seems good hunting ground - have bumped into 2 photographers there in the last year - one I now do some photo walks with for fun, the other was flaky and I gave up on them. The trick seems to be to go in carrying a camera bag. :)
 
I am curious, do photographers approach camera clubs seeking to give talks
or
do you get sort of famous in you local area and clubs start chasing you to give a lecture?

I expect to make my first visit to a photographic club in November next year - to give a talk.

I'm a camera obscura demonstrator, and recently a local photographic society paid a visit to the camera (they have coffee mornings with a visit to somewhere or other and then on to a cafe). I got talking with one of the people, and my USP is that I use large format film which came out in the chatting. The person I was talking to organises the club program - this year is already fully arranged - and asked if I would be willing to come along and talk about large format photography and show some of my prints.

So in this case, I didn't approach a club, and I'm certainly not famous in my local area!
 
I am curious, do photographers approach camera clubs seeking to give talks
or
do you get sort of famous in you local area and clubs start chasing you to give a lecture?

I'm not sure being asked once counts as being chased! Calling myself 'locally famous' is over-egging the pudding but along the right lines; I know lots of better photographers than me but I do have a distinctive subject matter.
 
Hi Carol :wave:

..didn't realise you were on here.. just as well I didn't post anything embarrassing!
:D:D I was watching and waiting ... But I do think that people are interested in lighting and portraiture (certainly the group I hang round with are) so your talk went down well. We have a good programme too with some excellent lectures and workshops :). Bury it seems is the place to go these days - we have a waiting list! And I'm not particularly a CC fanboy (or should that be fangirl?) - it has its place amongst other things. The judges would hate most of the stuff I take :eek:
 
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Fair comment, but modern architecture and horses don't really seem to rock their boats.

And there are plenty of pillocks as club judges too - which is why I became one as I was sick to death of the "old guard" crap judges we had (have still in some cases) around here

Dave
 
I had a phone call yesterday to ask me to present in Feb 2020 at a local club, I then had a call a couple of hours later to say they'd had a cancellation and could I present on Monday!

I've had another today to say they have had a cancellation next Tursday and could I present for them too.

I seem to be super-sub!

*ETA - word seems to be spreading, been asked to cover another cancellation on 6th Dec at another club and another one again in Jan!
 
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I had a phone call yesterday to ask me to present in Feb 2020 at a local club, I then had a call a couple of hours later to say they'd had a cancellation and could I present on Monday!

I've had another today to say they have had a cancellation next Tursday and could I present for them too.

I seem to be super-sub!

*ETA - word seems to be spreading, been asked to cover another cancellation on 6th Dec at another club and another one again in Jan!

Interesting....how much do YOU charge?

I've just had an enquiry from another club about 80 miles away again.......
 
I’ve done quite a few talks at camera clubs in the Surrey/Hampshire/Berkshire area. I had a lot of demand for my talk on sports photography with my tales of the 2014 world cup, which always went down well even though most people in the clubs don’t seem at all interested in football. Recently I’ve done a couple of landscape talks, the most recent was on Monday at Windsor which is a lovely club. Very different subject matter, and interstingly not as interactive with the audience as the sports talk.

I charge £80 all in usually. It takes hours and hours to put these talks together, get a flow, and get the timing right, so I have no compunction in receiving a small fee.
 
Hi Simon.

Glad it went well. I'm sure it would have gone down well at our club. Quite a few of the members club together and hire models. As said above lots of the model images are then composited into scenes.
They are very clever at it and the images do very well at our comps.
Were in Manchester so I guess i'll never hear one of your talks !




Gaz
 
I've given it a couple of months now and although very cliquee, I've chatted to a few older gents. There's quite an age gap between them and me.
I've not got anything in common with any of the other members, apart from photography, and they all seem to have a penchant for steam trains.
Anyway, I'm sticking with it as it gets me out of the house when winter wants to keep everyone in.
And, in the first 2 competitions I've got 3rd and 1st place. :)
 
Clubs vary a lot, I've been a member of a few and on the committee of one. I doubt I'd go to any clubs again.
Many are clique and theres a lot of camera snobbery, one club I visited for a battle had a member telling every visitor "I've got two hasselblads, every other camera is s**t" He'd obviously missed his class at charm school.
I've seen them fiddling competitions, even damaging each others prints. I left after I caught three members of the committee cheating and fiddling prize money.
Other clubs can be good, but I'm not going again. When you start coming home stressed and angry it's time to quit.
 
Our club is called a "Photographic Society" and I deliberately chose it over a "Camera Club" since I felt the latter sounded more like it was equipment based.
Equipment is very rarely talked about and the emphasis is on pictures rather than equipment.
We have regular competitions which are judged by independent judges from outside the club, and also take part in comps against other clubs.
We have a Programme Secretary who organises guest speakers on various photo related topics.
Three or four times a year we have evenings when club members can talk about their images or techniques or have hands-on demonstrations of software.
As a regular competition entrant I'm constantly striving to improve my technique and I think my photography has improved noticably over the last three or four years.
However, I think it's important not to take things too seriously, it's only a hobby to most of us, and nobody gets hurt if you don't have any award winning images.
 
Clubs vary a lot, I've been a member of a few and on the committee of one. I doubt I'd go to any clubs again.
Many are clique and theres a lot of camera snobbery, one club I visited for a battle had a member telling every visitor "I've got two hasselblads, every other camera is s**t" He'd obviously missed his class at charm school.
I've seen them fiddling competitions, even damaging each others prints. I left after I caught three members of the committee cheating and fiddling prize money.
Other clubs can be good, but I'm not going again. When you start coming home stressed and angry it's time to quit.
That is shocking!!

Equipment is never mentioned at my camera club. There is no snobbery on that front whatsoever. I did initially feel there was some sexism, but I now realise that was because all but one of the women were there because they were accompanying their men. On my first visit, mid conversation, a committee member broke off so that he could tell the men about the competitions (I'd gone along with two men who were also new). I can only assume being female he thought I wouldn't be interested. I won first and second place in my first competition, and one of the images was a picture of trucks, so that helped :D I could hear someone saying afterwards that they thought a man had taken that photo :rolleyes:

I've learnt an awful lot listening to judges - critiquing all images, not just my own. Sometimes they just don't see what you did, or miss the point, but it is all just an opinion so it's never worth taking too seriously.
 
I've learnt an awful lot listening to judges - critiquing all images, not just my own. Sometimes they just don't see what you did, or miss the point, but it is all just an opinion so it's never worth taking too seriously.
Tonight at Maidenhead Camera Club we have the Christmas Special event of 'Strictly Come Snapping'. I think the format helps to get across the point that it's meant to be fun.
 
That is shocking!!

Equipment is never mentioned at my camera club. There is no snobbery on that front whatsoever. I did initially feel there was some sexism, but I now realise that was because all but one of the women were there because they were accompanying their men. On my first visit, mid conversation, a committee member broke off so that he could tell the men about the competitions (I'd gone along with two men who were also new). I can only assume being female he thought I wouldn't be interested. I won first and second place in my first competition, and one of the images was a picture of trucks, so that helped :D I could hear someone saying afterwards that they thought a man had taken that photo :rolleyes:

I've learnt an awful lot listening to judges - critiquing all images, not just my own. Sometimes they just don't see what you did, or miss the point, but it is all just an opinion so it's never worth taking too seriously.

As I say they do vary. I've been to a few nice clubs, you walk in first time and a blokes says "Hello mate I'm Fred, we're going over the pub after if you wan't to join us" and another where I went for three weeks before anybody even said hello, and then I got "hello, I'm Ron, I've been designated to welcome you, it's £30 a year to join". Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy doesn't it. ;)
I did try after a long break going to another club used by a friend, that wasn't too bad but my friend kept getting stick for only having a Canon 550d, not helped by her getting better pics than many of the blokes with better cameras. They never put her pics in competitions though, they were all local pics, they seemed to like using pics from Scotland, or Africa etc. Favoring the retired members who traveled a lot. I went a few times and driving home one day I was so angry I thought sot it, I'm not enjoying this. Time to quit.
 
As I say they do vary. I've been to a few nice clubs, you walk in first time and a blokes says "Hello mate I'm Fred, we're going over the pub after if you wan't to join us" and another where I went for three weeks before anybody even said hello, and then I got "hello, I'm Ron, I've been designated to welcome you, it's £30 a year to join". Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy doesn't it. ;)
I did try after a long break going to another club used by a friend, that wasn't too bad but my friend kept getting stick for only having a Canon 550d, not helped by her getting better pics than many of the blokes with better cameras. They never put her pics in competitions though, they were all local pics, they seemed to like using pics from Scotland, or Africa etc. Favoring the retired members who traveled a lot. I went a few times and driving home one day I was so angry I thought sot it, I'm not enjoying this. Time to quit.


That sounds familiar sadly - but in our club I was the 'Greeter' and we swapped roles often enough to try to make everyone welcome

Belittling older/cheaper camera gear never happened while I was in charge though, and should never happen anyway, that's just tossers for you :(

Dave
 
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