∴The Photo Club Cure for Loneliness∴

I got started on Substack because of an enduring loneliness I felt within photography. Maybe it has to do with me living in Korea, a famously lonely place, but my enthusiasm for talking about this thing I love was rarely matched by the poor soul subjected to my chattiness. I just don’t have that many photographer friends where I live.

Or at least, I didn’t.

When I recognized this loneliness wouldn’t cure itself, I started thinking about how I could have a hand in dealing with it. My first move was to throw a little party, a photographer meet up at my studio.

Can’t believe this was more than a year ago. Time for the next one!

I took it as a sign of success when I was asked two or three times about the date of the next meet up before the first one was even finished. Seems I’m not the only photographer that’s been needing some connection.

It was so rad to see all these people making new friends and geeking out together

In the wake of the meet up I started thinking about how I could provide an opportunity for deeper connection, both for me and for the others in my community who need it. The event showed me that there are more of us on that page than I’d realized.

So, I decided to start a photo club.

The photos to follow will be a mix of the first two photo club meetings

My first concern was that I’m not a teacher, and while I have experience in a few different photographic avenues, I wasn’t sure how to invite a group of photographers around and not have us ostensibly on opposite sides of the table. My second concern was who to even call - like I said I only know a limited number of photographers here, and among those there’s an even smaller number that I relate to. You know how that goes.

Let me say here that this problem sort of solved itself. I shared about the first photo club meeting on Instagram and was immediately messaged by a bunch of people curious about joining in. If you build it, they will slide into your DMs.

My last concern was how to build in a sense of progression to these meetings. Hanging out is cool, but I want everyone to be able to look back in a couple months time and see that they’re actually getting somewhere with their photos.

The first two concerns came to be dealt with in a series of conversations with two friends I really do relate to: Jitse and Jiho. Through our discussions we decided that a round table dynamic (rather than a teacher/student dynamic) could be built around everyone having a chance to share their work at each meeting, and more than that, encouraging everybody to share their opinions around the work being shown.

Thanks to Jiho for this pic of me sharing some photos from what I’ll be working on next, after Serial Music

Jiho said he knew a few student photographers from university that would be interested in joining, so he put out the call, and before long a date and time for the first meeting was set.

I now had people soon to be showing up at my door and needed something to do with them. Every photo club will go about it a little differently, but here’s how we’re doing ours:

We want to focus on building projects out of our photos. The simple move from thinking about groups of images rather than single images has had a profound effect on my relationship with photography, and it’s important to me to share that. So for each meeting we’re asking the members to send through three images that are from a project they are working on, or want to work on over the coming months.

I’ll print the images, giving everyone something tangible to hold and look at and pass around. Like I said in my last video, I’m serious about playing with pictures. We’re meeting once a month, and each month the members need to provide the next three images that build on the last three. Little by little, we’ll build our projects together.

It’s been so great to see everyone’s reaction to engaging with physical images, and sharing in that together. We’ve only had two meetings so far, but I’m hopeful that with time the group will stabilize, relationships will be built and we’ll all make something meaningful in the process. We’re even on Discord.

Photo club #1 and #2. My guess going ahead is that the final membership will become a blend of these two pictures

And as for the loneliness, I think there’s something about it that’s part and parcel with photography. Something to do with endless observation and the distance that it inspires I guess. But at the bar counter of the Japanese restaurant we visited after the last photo club, watching people who’d only just met sharing stories and chatting away, I felt that warmth of connection I was hoping for. I’m pretty sure they felt it too.

Cheers,

Chris ✌️