PICTURE PERFECT: Growing Camera Club moves into new facility

“Picture it better” is a motto they use that beckons members bitten by the photography bug, but the Green Valley Camera Club’s newest high-tech surroundings provide an even greater incentive to dust off the camera and join one of GVR’s fastest growing organizations.

With five times as many members as they serviced only five years ago, the club abandoned its crowded and outdated cubbyhole at East Center last month, moving state-of-the-art equipment into a sparkling new facility next to the Anza Room at Santa Rita Springs Recreation Center.

An open house is scheduled for March 22, 2-4 p.m., but the 760-member group is already utilizing the 3,000-square-foot facility to conduct a full complement of classes that will help along even those who just purchased their first digital camera to becoming a better photographer.

The next 10-week sequence is set to begin Feb. 22, so there’s still time for any GVR member to enroll by dropping in or calling Education Director Carl Sparfeld at 625-9648.

Experienced instructors devote their time to acquaint students with their cameras and instruction manuals in the first three sessions, and then it’s on to operating and taking better shots, lighting, preparing images, close-up’s, cutting and matting and framing, printing and scanning, and more.

Experts even collaborate with their counterparts in the GVR Computer Club one floor below.

“This will be a major improvement in our education efforts,” Sparfeld stated.

“The best way to learn these subjects is to practice on the computer while the instructor is showing you how to do it.”

The club also provides on-going workshops and focus groups, presentations and speakers, field trips and many other opportunities to learn.

Dues are $30 per person, $35 for a household, and classes are generally $25 fee. Current information on the club can be accessed at www.gvcameraclub.org.

“It gives us a whole new level of capability,” said current President Don White, a retired industrial technology specialist who created 8-millimeter films back in high school, never losing his love of the visual arts.

Started in the late 70s with only 10 members, the recently exploding membership had been sharing an 850-square-foot space at East Center for a long time, so they had club leaders organize their own planning committee for the new move.

After nearly three years of collaborating with club members and their contributions and fundraising to assist with construction costs, equipment, and furniture, GVR was able to convert open space at SRS under an agreement to share the 900-square-foot meeting room that serves as the club’s classroom.

There’s also a hands-on classroom accommodating 12 students with their own computers, a digital darkroom for printing, editing, and scanning, a matting and framing studio, and a reception area.

“This facility is totally unique,” said past president and retired businessman Don Spear, who attended photography school in L.A. in 1949, was a photo unit commander at Fort Huachuca in 1957, and was one of the club leaders who made this happen.

“Not another camera club in the country has this kind of facility, so far as I know,” he said.

Declaring it better than most college studios, Spear said many of the club’s instructors also teach part-time at Pima CC, so members are getting the most current training with the most modern technology available.

“Digital imaging has really taken off in the last three or four years,” he said, “and we like to keep our members up on the latest industry developments.”

Camera Club members take all the GVR board candidate photos, as well as portraits of past presidents, photograph the Rose and Aquabelles shows, and do events like the Senior Games, while maintaining a permanent display at West Center in addition to three artistic exhibits each year.

“It is possible to teach yourself all you need to know, if you are so inclined,” he said.

“But it is much easier if you take advantage of the knowledgeable members in the Camera Club. We teach our members how to use and enjoy their cameras and much more.”

Mike Touzeau is a freelance writer for the Green Valley News. Comment on this article online at www.gvnews.com.