2023 Membership for the Sierra Club Photo Section here in San Diego is now available. As always, our membership runs for the duration of the calendar year, from January through December — the sooner you join the fun, the more fun you’ll get! 😄
The Months Ahead
In early December, the SCPS board met and discussed how to move forward in the current environment of continued health threats from respiratory illnesses of various kinds so that membership in our photo club will be both enjoyable and safe for all members.
We know that a lot of you miss the in-person meetings, and we too miss chatting about camera gear and connecting with each other. Not everyone is in a position to truly enjoy in-person meetings and feel safe there though. If we’d go back to in-person meetings now, we would exclude a part of our members, which didn’t seem acceptable to us — and nor is it necessary. We decided to continue with our monthly meetings via Zoom until March, 2023. We’ll take another look at the situation then.
To give members more opportunities to safely meet in-person, we are planning to add an outdoor “bring your own lunch” type of gathering at a public park, beach, or similar location, to hang out and talk photography. San Diego’s beautiful weather will hopefully make this relatively easy! This will be in addition to our monthly in-person outdoor photo activities, but without the (sometimes more, sometimes less) physical requirements to walk, hike, or brave the elements. (okay, it doesn’t require that much bravery here in San Diego😅).
Further Outlook
Conducting our meetings online via Zoom gave us the opportunity to invite presenters from all over the United States, and the world. From 2020 on, we had photographers from Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and from France and England, talking about a wide variety of photographic disciplines. It was such a great addition that we will continue with a mix of in-person and online meetings, permanently.
What’s Next
Besides our year-end contest show for current members, on December 17, here are some more things to expect:
- Current (2022) members will soon receive a survey with “a whole bunch of questions” to help the board better understand where to go in Q2/2023 and beyond — not just with regards to meetings, but also with potential workshops and activities.
- Starting in January, at our upcoming online Happy Hours via Zoom, we will openly, honestly and respectfully discuss some of the anonymized submissions from our 2022 contest, based on feedback from the judges. This is one of the biggest additional benefits of participating in the contest, and a wonderful learning opportunity.
- We’ll head out to Broken Hill at Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve for sunset photos, with our vice-chair Mark, in January 2023.
In addition to that, our Photo Quest is a monthly challenge where members get an “assignment” to make a photo of a certain topic, or for a certain theme. Our MemberShare, at the meeting, gives members the opportunity to share their photos in a non-competitive environment. And in our annual, club-internal photo contest at the end of the year, members can submit their images to get them in front of an experienced, respected and well-established judge.
What we want most of all, is to enable our members to become better photographers at their own pace, in a non-competitive environment, have fun, and enjoy the art and craft of photography MORE.
Are you in? 😃
Join The SCPS / Renew Your Membership
Thank you, and have a wonderful Holiday Season!
The SCPS board
Alex, Mark, Gina, Jodie, Tom, Chris
Feature image credit: Mark Ochenduszko – Old Faithful, Full Moon (2nd place, Night category, 2021 contest)