# Non-competitive Bay Area photo clubs?



## dgatwood (Aug 6, 2014)

I keep thinking it would be fun to join a photography club, but judging from the websites, every club I've seen in the SF Bay Area seems to be involve people meeting once a month to show photos they've taken elsewhere, and competing to see whose pictures are the favorite, then sending the best photos on to compete at a regional level, etc. That sort of thing might have been tolerable in high school, but at this stage of my life, taking photos competitively is the absolute last thing I'd be interested in doing.

My idea of a great photography club would be one that gets together frequently for photo shoots—ideally weekly. Some weeks, we might bring in folks for portrait sessions; other weeks, we might take trips to random places in the area, look for interesting things to photograph, then look through our photos at the end and show each other the photos that we thought were the most interesting—not competitively, but rather collaboratively, contrasting the different approaches that the photographers chose when photographing many of the same subjects.

Does anyone know of any Bay Area photography clubs that operate along these lines?


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## magna42 (Aug 6, 2014)

I understand your feeling, I would like to find a club like that (If one actually exists) in the Philadelphia area

Good Luck in your search


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 6, 2014)

I'd suggest visiting them for a meeting or two. You might have the wrong impression. I think they all like to show their work, but its usually voluntary.


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## distant.star (Aug 6, 2014)

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You might want to look at the "meetup" system. I've never used it, but may be worth a look...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meetup_%28website%29


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## tolusina (Aug 6, 2014)

_Frederic Larson_, a long time photo journalist for the Chronicle regularly promotes _Friends of Photography_. 

You might also want to contact _Keeble & Shuchat_ in Palo Alto, see if they've got any club references.



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